— OZ Systems, a leading provider of public health information systems, convened a diverse panel of experts focused on meaningful data exchange and interoperability between public health and healthcare providers. The panel represented the perspectives of leading clinicians, parent advocates, hospital information technology, maternal and child public health, and public policy experts. Dr. Terese Finitzo, CEO of OZ Systems, served as moderator for the overflow forum of 100 attendees at the Annual Conference of the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs, held this week in Washington, D.C. AMCHP is considered the nation’s foremost gathering of MCH professionals from around the country.
“We were so honored to play an important role in this year’s conference, bringing together the best minds in maternal and child health, newborn screening and health IT,” said Dr. Finitzo. “It is clear that we all have important roles to play in achieving real, meaningful data sharing to support better care and outcomes for young patients and families. OZ Systems connects providers and public health to facilitate implementation of highly integrated systems that address these challenges. This has been vital to improving how both health facilities and public health agencies positively impact those they serve.”
OZ Systems is the only IT solution with a fully integrated exchange mechanism available for all mandated newborn screening conditions. The company has been responsible for successful implementations of integrated newborn health information systems in Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Alaska, as well as for numerous pilot and demonstration projects. These intelligent newborn health systems are successful because they are implemented across the continuum of care from screening, to follow-up, to diagnosis and into early intervention in England, Australia and multiple U.S. states. The current focus is standards-compliant messaging to allow hospitals to swiftly, easily and safely collect and transmit data to public health entities.
Additionally, OZ Systems continued its important dialogue with leaders in Public Health, highlighting the still new screening for Critical Congenital Heart Disease (CCHD), its Newborn Admission Notification Information (NANI) messaging and Early Hearing Care Plan (EHCP) for the CDC’s Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) program. NANI assists Public Health with an accurate denominator of hospital births and is a valuable tool in quality reporting. EHDI is a Stage 2 Meaningful Use objective for hospitals to report the percentage of newborns screened for hearing loss before hospital discharge. The EHCP helps assure that critical early hearing care information on each newborn is delivered by public health or hospital Electronic Health Records (EHR) to a pediatrician’s EHR.
About OZ Systems
By developing and implementing the world’s smartest information technology platforms, OZ Systems bridges the information gap and helps children and families thrive through improved data accountability, performance measurement, quality certification, and electronic reporting for public health and early education.
