About MENDS
Overview
In 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD) to pilot a surveillance project modeled after a project that was successful in Massachusetts. Called MENDS (Multi-state EHR-based Network for Disease Surveillance), the demonstration will use electronic health record (EHR) data collected in clinical settings leading to a real-time, chronic disease surveillance model to plan and evaluate short-term outcomes of policies and program interventions. For a brief overview of the project, download the MENDS 2-pager.
Partners
Groups guiding the MENDS project include:
- National Association of Chronic Disease Directors
- University of Massachusetts Lowell
- Commonwealth Informatics
- Harvard Medical School’s Department of Population Medicine
- Public Health Informatics Institute
Partners piloting the MENDS project include:
- OneHealthPort (Washington State Department of Health)
- REACHnet (Louisiana Public Health Institute)
- AllianceChicago
- San Diego Health Connect
- Regenstrief Institute
Information
How MENDS Works Infographic – High-level infographic outlining the steps of MENDS, beginning with the health care encounter by a patient, progressing through data preparation through ESP software, and ending with data visualization and analysis for public health practice.
Overview Infographic – Overview of the story, abilities, and goals of MENDS.
Use Cases Infographic – Visual depiction of the various use cases for MENDS data in public health practice.
Pilot Sites
Phase One of the MENDS project involves five pilot sites. The opportunity to participate in MENDS was widely publicized to all state health departments (SHDs). To date the following organizations and health departments are participating in MENDS:
MENDS Data Contributors
Defined as: A healthcare organization or data aggregator contributing data to MENDS through PopMedNet or RiskScape.
AllianceChicago
REACHnet
OneHealthPort
San Diego Health Connect
Regenstrief Institute
MENDS Data Users
Defined as: An organization within a partner site using MENDS data for surveillance, such as a state or local health department; a partner site might have zero, one, or multiple data users.
Chicago Department of Health
Louisiana Office of Public Health
Washington State Department of Health
San Diego County Public Health Services
Indiana Department of Health
EHR-based Surveillance Learning Community
Overview
The EHR-based Surveillance Learning Community was co-led by NACDD and the Public Health Informatics Institute. It was a series of 60-minute, monthly calls intended for state and local public health departments and their potential data partners including clinical organizations and health information exchanges. The content and discussion of these calls included both MENDS-specific topics as well as more foundational surveillance and data analytics topics. The goals of the EHR-based Surveillance Learning Community were to:
- Build public health capabilities to describe and advocate for the MENDS project and other EHR-based surveillance opportunities
- Discuss critical implementation issues such as articulating the rationale, developing a compelling value proposition, securing executive sponsorship, developing effective and inclusive governance, using effective project management and change management methods, and identifying enablers and common barriers
- Enable peer-to-peer learning through webinars and open discussion
- Help NACDD to understand the challenges and and opportunities for growth in EHR-based surveillance and project governance
Format of the EHR-based Surveillance Learning Community
The EHR-based Surveillance Learning Community calls lasted 60 minutes. The first portion of the calls were educational and focused on related topics critical to an EHR-based surveillance program design and implementation; the second portion was a facilitated discussion and open Q&A.
Call Recordings and Materials
July 2020 – “EHR-Based Surveillance Learning Community”
Description: Modeling – a continuation of the discussion of Statistical Tools for EHR-based surveillance. The call will includes an introduction to using modeling to generate surveillance information from EHR data.
Speakers: Tom Chen, Harvard School of Public Health
Click links to access: Presentation Slides | Recording
June 2020 – “EHR-Based Surveillance Learning Community”
Description: Weighting – a discussion of statistical tools for EHR-based surveillance. The call includes an introduction to weighting EHR-based estimates and why this is important for accurate interpretation of EHR data.
Speakers: Emily Kraus, Public Health Informatics Institute; Liza Reifler, Kaiser Permanente Colorado
Click links to access: Presentation Slides | Recording
March – May 2020 – cancelled due to COVID-19 response
February 2020 – “EHR-Based Surveillance Learning Community”
Description: This month’s topic is the highly requested discussion of Using Case Definitions for EHR-based Surveillance. The call includes an introduction to electronic case definitions, using standards and indicators, and creating your own definitions.
Speakers: Hilary Wall (CDC) and Dr. Joseph Gibson (Marion County Public Health, Indiana)
Click the links to access: Speaker Bios | Presentation Slides | Recording
January 2020 – “EHR-Based Surveillance Learning Community”
Description: The rapid adoption of health information technologies in the U.S. over the past decade has had profound impacts, including increasing accessibility of digital health information for a wide variety of purposes. This month’s topic is an overview of the health information technology landscape in the U.S. and its impact on healthcare, public health surveillance, and population health improvement. It includes a presentation by Dr. Noam Arzt, Ph.D., FHIMSS, FAMIA from HLN Consulting, on the state of Health Information Exchanges in the country.
Speakers: Bill Brand (Public Health Informatics Institute); Dr. Naom Arzt (HLN Consulting)
Click the links to access: Presentation Slides | Recording*
*Start of recording delayed. Please review slides for full presentation.
December 2019 – “EHR-Based Surveillance Learning Community”
Description: This month’s topic is analysis and visualization reporting tools, including a demonstration by Sara Schmidt and Greg Budney of the CHORDS (Colorado Health Observation Regional Data Service) dashboard and maps. Additionally, Dr. Noelle Cocoros will share options for visualizing EHR data via RiskScape.
Speakers: Bill Brand (Public Health Informatics Institute); Sara Schmitt (Colorado Health Institute) and Greg Budney (Denver Public Health); and Dr. Noelle Cocoros (Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute)
Click the links to access: Speaker Bios | Presentation Slides | Recording
November 2019 – “EHR-Based Surveillance Learning Community”
Description: November’s call included practical tips to help with building support for EHR-based surveillance for Chronic Disease with Deirdre Browner, from the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency, sharing lessons learned from the field. Additionally, we explored critical success factors to implementing surveillance systems for Chronic Disease Surveillance.
Speakers: Bill Brand and Emily Kraus (Public Health Informatics Institute); Deirdre Browner (County of San Diego Health & Human Services Agency)
Deirdre Browner, MPH is a senior epidemiologist and evaluation manager for the Maternal, Child and Family Services Branch at the County of San Diego. Her team works on surveillance, epidemiology, and evaluation for San Diego’s REACH and 1817 Grants from CDC, and SNAP-ed (CalFresh) and Tobacco Programs from the California Department of Public Health. She began her career at the University of California, San Diego as a research epidemiologist working on various projects from cardiovascular epidemiology to health services research.
Click the links to access: Presentation Slides and Recording
Additional Resources: You can find guidance on creating a project charter and conducting a stakeholder analysis in PHII’s Toolkit for Planning an EHR-based Surveillance Program here.
October 2019 – “EHR-Based Surveillance Learning Community”
Description: Presentations on EHR-based Surveillance for Chronic Disease, with an example from the Utah Department of Health, and the Multi-State EHR-based Network for Disease Surveillance (MENDS) Project.
Speakers: Bill Brand and Emily Kraus (Public Health Informatics Institute); Theron Jeppson (Utah Department of Health)
Click the links to access: Presentation Slides and Recording
Presentations and Publications
Presentations
MENDS Demonstration Webinar (Link) – Michael Klompas, MD
Publications
Contact MENDS
The MENDS team consists of staff from NACDD, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Commonwealth Informatics, and the Public Health Informatics Institute. Team member contact information and roles/responsibilities are listed below.
Miriam Patanian
Cardiovascular Health Consultant
National Association of Chronic Disease Directors
mpatanian_ic@chronicdisease.org
Role/Responsibility: NACDD lead for surveillance projects, interface with funders and partners.
Kate Hohman
Surveillance and Informatics Epidemiologist
National Association of Chronic Disease Directors
Role/Responsibility: MENDS NACDD project lead. Her work is focused on modernizing public health chronic disease surveillance using electronic health records.
Amanda Martinez
Cardiovascular Health Consultant
National Association of Chronic Disease Directors
amartinez_ic@chronicdisease.org
Role/Responsibility: General MENDS support, project coordination, program planning and monitoring in state health departments.
Kayla Craddock
Cardiovascular Health Consultant
National Association of Chronic Disease Directors
kcraddock_ic@chronicdisease.org
Role/Responsibility: General MENDS support, project coordination, program planning and monitoring in state health departments.
Bob Zambarano
VP Health Analytics
Commonwealth Informatics
Role/Responsibility: Informatics Vendor. Design, implement, validation and ongoing support for ESP, PopMedNet and RiskScape software systems.
Bill Brand
Director of Public Health Informatics Science
Public Health Informatics Institute
Role/Responsibility: Epidemiology, informatics, distributed network infrastructure and governance, EHR-based chronic disease surveillance methods. Provide informatics expertise in the design, planning and implementation of the MENDS project.
Emily Kraus
Consultant
Public Health Informatics Institute
Role/Responsibility: Epidemiology, informatics, distributed network infrastructure and governance, EHR-based chronic disease surveillance methods. Provide informatics expertise in the design, planning and implementation of the MENDS project.