"It is always motivating to see how the implementation of technology can make such a positive difference in the delivery of patient care," said Nancy R. Babbitt, FACMPE, chair of the Davies Ambulatory Award committee and administrator for Roswell Pediatric Center, P.C., in Alpharetta, Ga. "Both Valdez Family Clinic and Village Health Partners have put the electronic health record in place to benefit their patients and their staff. All of us on the committee congratulate these healthcare professionals on their accomplishments.

Public Health


Illinois-National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (I-NEDSS), Springfield, Ill.: I-NEDSS is a Web-based application used by all 95 local health departments in Illinois and by health care providers and laboratory staff throughout Illinois to report and investigate infectious disease conditions, clusters and outbreaks.

The I-NEDSS system has significantly increased monitoring of disease occurrences, trends and outbreaks leading to earlier event detection.

Institute for Family Health, New York City: The Institute for Family Health operates 15 community health centers, two school-based health centers, a counseling center, and eight part-time clinics that serve the homeless, providing services to minority, uninsured and disadvantaged communities throughout the Bronx, Manhattan and the Hudson Valley. All of these practices are federally qualified health centers. The Institute implemented a fully integrated EMR in 2002 with four public health initiatives to improve health care delivered to the community. With an emphasis on prevention, chronic disease management and the elimination of health disparities, the Institute has partnered with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to demonstrate the impact that an EMR system can have on public health.

"The value and contributions of public health become even more useful with the implementation of the electronic health record," said Steven J. Steindel, PhD, chair of the Public Health Davies Award committee, and senior advisor for Standards and Vocabulary, Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta, Ga. "The members of this Davies award committee recognize the accomplishments these two public health systems have achieved with their information systems that provide for increased support in public health event detection and control and using public health care-delivery to improve decision support of the health care system."

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