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Public Health Information Network 2008

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Volume 2 | Issue 9 | September 2008

Daniel Vitek, MBA, PMP

The sixth annual Public Health Information Network (PHIN) Conference was held in Atlanta, Georgia, August 24–28, 2008 at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in downtown Atlanta. The theme of this year’s conference was “Collaboration at the Crossroads”.

The conference brought together the best and brightest of the informatics community from the local, state, national, and international levels to collaborate in areas focusing areas such as:

  • Programmatic: Partnership and community programs supporting and advancing informatics. This includes new initiatives in informatics and eHealth (e.g., Communities of Practice (CoP), educational programs, Best Practices, Open Source initiatives, RHIO grant program).
  • Research & Innovation: Epidemiological and programmatic studies using newer informatics methodologies (NLP, ontology, semantics, outcome based research, etc.) in applied clinical and/or public health settings.
  • Informatics in Action & IT Solutions: Exploring new and existing information technology solutions supporting public health needs. This includes pilot projects, interoperability projects, and expansion of existing systems (e.g., BioSense, CDC Alerting Service, CRA, PHIN-MS).
  • Standards & Interoperability: Technological governances, Project Management practice, Information Technology Standards, and advancements in data exchange systems (e.g., Vocabulary Access and Distribution System, OID Registry, CDC Unified Process, PHIN Certification).

To satisfy the demand for a more open, collaborative PHIN, PHIN 2008 was also leveraged as a platform to launch and explore Communities of Practice (CoPs), a collaborative and innovative approach to knowledge sharing and problem solving.

Tuesday’s plenary session included a presentation by Etienne Wenger on CoPs. Etienne is widely considered to be the father of the CoP model. Following this presentation, concurrent sessions were held that allowed participants the opportunity to engage in PHIN communities. Sessions incorporated the CoP model and involved the audience in collaborative discussions around the future of PHIN CoPs. Some of the CoPs kicked-off at PHIN 2008 included:

  • PHIN
  • Enterprise Architecture
  • InfoLinks
  • Electronic Laboratory Reporting
  • Outbreak Management
  • Vocabulary and Messaging

To join a PHIN CoP complete the form located at http://www2.cdc.gov/ncphi/phin/phincon_cop/cop_signup.htm

Project management was again a focus of interest at PHIN in 2008.

On Wednesday August 27th Jannie Williams, MBA, PMP moderated a concurrent session that explored different project management certification opportunities and facilitated a discussion on the paradox between open source and formal project management.

On Thursday August 28th Lisa Grant, MBA, PMP presented a workshop entitled Understanding the Secrets of MS Project. Peggy Joyner, MBA, PMP presented a workshop entitled An Introduction to Project Management.

    

Enterprise Architecture (EA) 101

On February 6, 2002 the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) led the development of the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA). The purpose of this efforts is to identify opportunities to simplify processes and unify work across the agencies and lines of business of the Federal government. Enterprise Architecture (EA) maximizes the agency’s resources, IT investments, and system development activities to achieve the agencies performance goals. EA identifies clear relationships from strategic goals and objectives through investments to measurable performance outcomes of the enterprise.

Architecture Principles for the U.S. Government (August 2007) states core mission needs are the primary drivers for architecture development. This principle reflects a rationale business-led architecture that is more successful in meeting strategic goals, and recommends agency-level architects collaborate with business and program leaders to develop architecture work products to enhance strategic decision making and guide capital planning.

In order to architect and drive decisions about the IT investment portfolio, the EA practice must be strong and fully integrated with other practice areas. This includes strategic planning, capital planning and investment control (CPIC), and program and project management. Working with business owners and program managers is critical to the success of the CDC EA efforts and is needed in order to:

  • Define the desired results for an agency and priority segments;
  • Determining what resources are used to achieve measurable performance improvements for an agency’s core mission areas and common or shared services;
  • Leveraging business and information management resources across the agency;
  • Developing a transition strategy to achieve strategic goals and objectives and target architecture; and
  • Measuring the value of EA products and services to inform decisions in other practice areas and support business results.

Agencies are expected to architect first, and then use the architecture to provide the foundation for sound IT management practices, end-to-end governance of IT investments, alignment of IT investments with an agency’s strategic goals, and make informed decision about information technology (IT) investment planning and implementation (program and project management).

With the help of business owner and program managers, EA will identify common or shared assets, business processes, investments, data, systems or technologies that will be leveraged across the architecture to deliver cost savings/cost avoidance, increase collaboration and reuse, and ensure compliance with standards for each of IT investments. With this shared understanding, architects and business stakeholders can work together to develop the architecture work products supporting better investment and implementation decision-making. 

For more information and tools related to the topic(s) covered in this newsletter, the CDC Unified Process, or the Project Management Community of Practice please visit the CDC Unified Process website at http://www.cdc.gov/cdcup/.

Please also visit the CDC Unified Process Newsletter Archive located at http://www2.cdc.gov/cdcup/library/newsletter/ for access to many additional newsletters, articles, and management related topics and information.
  

CDC UNIFIED PROCESS PRESENTATIONS

The CDC UP offers a short overview presentation to any CDC FTE or Non-FTE group. Presentations are often performed at your location, on a day of the week convenient for your group, and typically take place over lunch structured as one hour lunch-and-learn style meeting.

Contact the CDC Unified Process at cdcup@cdc.gov or visit http://www.cdc.gov/cdcup/ to arrange a short overview presentation for your group.

CONTACT THE CDC UNIFIED PROCESS 

The CDC Unified Process Project Management Newsletter is authored by Daniel Vitek, MBA, PMP and published by the Office of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services.

For questions about the CDC Unified Process, comments regarding this newsletter, suggestions for future newsletter topics, or to subscribe to the CDC Unified Process Project Management Newsletter please contact the CDC Unified Process atcdcup@cdc.gov or visithttp://www.cdc.gov/cdcup/

    

PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

  • January 25, 2008
    Topic: CDC IR Governance and Health and human Services Enterprise Performance Life Cycle
  • February 29, 2008
    Topic: Project Server
  • March 28, 2008
    Topic: Mid Tier Data center and Designated Server Site
  • April 25, 2008
    Topic: Program Management Professional Certification
  • May 16, 2008
    Topic: Security Issues that a Project Manager at CDC Needs to Address
  • June 27, 2008
    Topic: Procurement and Grants Office Processes
  • July 24, 2008
    Topic: Project Management Career Framework
  • August 22, 2008
    Topic: General Management vs. Project Management
  • September 26, 2008
    Topic: Records Management, Privacy Impact Analysis, and Classified Information
  • October 24, 2008
    Topic: Facilitation - A Key to Project Success
  • December 05, 2008
    Topic: Influence - A Critical Skill for Successful Project Managers



 

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