Assignment Description

Transcription

1 Behavioral Health, Non-Infectious Diseases (Cross-Cutting) Boulder County Pubilc Health, Strategic Initiatives Branch/ Health Planning and Evaluation Team Boulder, Colorado Assignment Description The fellow will be part of the Health Planning and Epidemiology (HPE) group of the Strategic Initiatives Branch (SIB). SIB was created in 2015 to unite HPE, Communications and Marketing, Information Technology (IT), and Health Systems and Policy to serve BCPH s four health divisions (Environmental Health, Family Health, Community Health, Communicable Disease and Emergency Management), as well as community partners. SIB s mission is to provide strategic communication, planning, policy, and IT leadership to assure that all in Boulder County have the opportunity for a healthy life. HPE enables agency staff and community partners to assess local public health and environmental data; plan public health strategies; provide tools and data enabling staff and partners to act; and evaluate impact of action on health and the health system. HPE is a team of three that includes the health planning and evaluation manager, health planner, and public health epidemiologist. The team is responsible for guiding primary and secondary data collection and dissemination; strengthening data collection systems; guiding protection of human participants; supporting the agency in strategic planning; supporting workforce development in assessment, planning and evaluation; assuring suitable evaluation of BCPH work; and monitoring and sharing population health data. HPE supports all of the health divisions. Achieving health equity and improving mental health are agency priorities; so much of HPE s work has focused on improving data collection in these areas to support implementation and evaluation of agency work in these areas. That has included supporting a local health assessment in mental health and substance abuse, expanding local surveillance systems including syndromic surveillance and Colorado Hospital Observation Regional Data Service (CHORDS), and identifying other community data sources (e.g. Emergency Medical Systems (EMS), coroner, district attorney, Drug Alcohol Coordinated Data System (DACODS), and more).

2 Day-to-Day Activities Day-to-day activities can vary widely and some activities will rest on the fellow s experience, skills, and interests. In the first few months, the fellow can expect onboarding, participating in Boulder County-run trainings, relevant epidemiology and data systems training with the primary mentor, and meeting with key staff working to address behavioral health concerns in the county in young children, adolescents, and adults. The bulk of the fellowship will be spent completing projects, collaborating to identify new ways that behavioral health data can be integrated into community work, and addressing ad hoc analysis requests. Day-to-day, the fellow can expect to meet with program staff, community partners, coalitions, and mentors to support the data analysis and development of surveillance indicators. The key to success for the fellow will be relationships built with participating programs, coalitions, other division staff (i.e. Communications and IT), etc. As a member of the Strategic Initiatives Branch, the fellow will participate in SIB and HPE team meetings and may participate in regular monthly meetings and conference calls with other local and regional efforts, including the Denver Metro Partnership for Health data infrastructure group, syndromic surveillance, and CHORDS meetings. The fellow may also participate in state (e.g., State Epidemiology Outcomes Work Group, Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention) and national (CSTE overdose and mental health) calls as time and interest permits. Additionally, the HPE Team receives and responds to ad hoc requests made for behavioral health and non-behavioral health data. Since the primary supervisor works with all health divisions, the fellow will have opportunity to work other health programs to address emerging data collection, analysis, and reporting needs. HPE also works as a team on large assessments and reports, which the fellow can support.

3 Potential Projects Surveillance Activity Early Intervention Surveillance System There is increasing focus on early intervention services for drug and alcohol use in Boulder County. Early intervention services are provided in school clinics, primary care offices, mental health clinics, and more to people who have mild to problematic substance use, and may prevent escalation of risky behavior. Boulder County Public Health is working with partner organizations to ensure availability of services, and evaluate program outcomes. Representatives from a variety of local organizations recently participated in a landscape analysis and action planning, which demonstrated desire for continued collaboration on this issue. The fellow will build off current work to create a surveillance system that uses shared indicators to capture need for early intervention services, program outputs, and population level-outcomes. The project may include increasing early intervention data capacity through strengthening local partnerships, facilitating discussions around data use, prioritization, analysis, and dissemination. The project will require close work with BCPH partners and coalitions including Healthy Futures Coalition, Boulder Valley School District, University of Colorado in Boulder, and ithrive. Surveillance Evaluation Evaluation of Syndromic Surveillance for Mental Health The Colorado North Central Region Syndromic Surveillance System is part of the CDC National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) provides near-real time emergency department data to BCPH. Using this data, the current AEF fellow and Dr. Brown developed methods to estimate the overall burden of mental health and specific mental health disorders seen in local emergency departments. The new fellow will evaluate this project to determine if the methods are appropriately capturing mental health burden and provide recommendations for the data s use and dissemination. This evaluation will follow CDC Surveillance System Evaluation guidelines and may include use of quantitative and qualitative methods. Major Project Build Behavioral Health Adapter with CHORDS The Colorado Health Observation Regional Data Service (CHORDS) is a regional collaborative partnership between Colorado health providers, local public health agencies (LPHAs), the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, the Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO), and the Colorado Health Institute. It is used to collect, analyze and present data from participating health providers electronic health records to monitor population health and conduct research. Among the current indicators available for request are diagnosed depression, diagnosed diabetes, diagnosed hypertension, adult and childhood body mass index, and tobacco use. Expanding our behavioral health adapter to include more behavioral health indicators through structured data requests is a priority of the LPHAs within the CHORDS network. The fellow will work closely with CHORDS network staff to learn about the CHORDS data model, governance structure, work groups and data request processes. The fellow will work with CHORDS network staff, primary mentor at Boulder County Public Health, and the other CHORDS network LPHAs to develop a behavioral health structured data request to inform regional and local behavioral health work. The fellow will be

4 responsible for completing any background research necessary for the request, soliciting feedback from CHORDS network partners and additional community partners, and finalizing and submitting the request for CHORDS work group review. More information is available at: Additional Project Cross-Agency Substance Use Coordination There are a number of divisions and programs at BCPH that touch substance abuse. These span Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership, and Community Substance Abuse Intervention in the Community Health division, coordination of the Opioid Advisory Group (OAG) in Communicable Disease and Emergency Management division (CDEM), and the Public Health Improvement Process (PHIP) coordinated within the Strategic Initiatives Branch (SIB). There is an opportunity for the fellow to work with existing staff working in substance use to coordinate and align cross-agency efforts. The goal of this project is to increase coordination between programs, including awareness of opportunities for collaboration and use of shared data measures. Tasks may include organizing and aligning substance use data and program logic models, working with communications staff to integrate substance abuse messaging to meet all programs needs, and assisting with facilitation of the cross-agency group. Specific tasks may vary depending on fellow s skills and interests. Major Project Develop Additional Syndromic Surveillance Indicators for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders The Colorado North Central Region Syndromic Surveillance System is part of the CDC National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) and provides new surveillance capabilities to BCPH. It provides near real-time local emergency department data from all of the local hospitals in Boulder County. The proposed project for the fellowship is to support the development of a syndromic surveillance system for mental health and substance use indicators, starting with indicators already developed by other NSSP agencies. Possible indicators to be developed include suicide attempts, severe mental illness episode, opioids overdose, alcohol intoxication, and accidental marijuana ingestion. Since the system is new to BCPH, part of the work will involve implementing a communication plan to communicate with local behavioral health centers, primary care clinics, and other healthcare partners to further strengthen the relationship between healthcare and local public health. Preparedness Role Each new member of BCPH is required to attend Incident Command System (ICS) 100 and National Incident Management System (NIMS) 700 trainings in person. Additional opportunities will be given to attend ICS 200, either in-person or online, and ICS 300, which is required for anyone participating on BCPH s Incident Command Team. The BCPH Emergency Management Program works closely with Boulder Office of Emergency Management and is a strong partner in emergency response in the county. During the past several years, BCPH has responded to several fires and a major flood in There are several tabletop and a large-scale emergency preparedness exercise throughout the year, so the fellow can participate in preparedness work and support a response as relevant.

5 Additional Activities BCPH is extremely collaborative across the agency and with community, regional, and state partners, so the fellow would have the freedom to work with internal or external partners to tailor any additional projects based on their interests. In BCPH, our Environmental Health, Family Health, Community Health, and Communicable Disease and Emergency Management Divisions are tackling everything from climate change to teen pregnancy. Based on skills, experience, and interest, the fellow could support grant writing, non-behavioral health data collection and analyses, or other tasks. For example, Environmental Health Division staff is interested in having syndromic surveillance indicators for their programs; support from the fellow could accelerate the utility of this system for all divisions. Other ad hoc survey development, data analysis, and requests arise regularly, so the fellow will be free to tackle other projects to meet core competencies of the fellowship and individual development goals. Additionally, as our partnerships in behavioral health strengthen, new unanticipated opportunities will appear. Mentors Primary Secondary Indira Gujral PhD Division Manager of Communicable Disease and Emergency Management Kelli Hintch Health Planning & Evaluation Manager