25. You Can't Fix What You Can't Count

In today's world, people are used to having immediate access to data directly from the phones in their pockets. But how do public health agencies ensure that their massive and complex sets of data are managed at both scale and speed?

Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who has led CDC's responses to dozens of disease outbreaks and flu pandemics in the United States and around the world, sits down with Claire Stinson to discuss all things data modernization in this episode of Contagious Conversations.

For a full episode transcript, visit cdcfoundation.org/conversations.

Key Takeaways:

[1:35] Dr. Jernigan shares why he was interested in becoming a disease detective.

[3:10] Dr Jernigan talks about his current role at CDC.

[4:30] Dr. Jernigan shares how his experience with the H1N1 response helped him prepare to help with the COVID-19 pandemic response.

[5:34] What have we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic that is helping us improve the quality, sharing and use of data for preventing chronic and infectious diseases?

[7:58] Dr. Jernigan discusses the challenges that existed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic that became obstacles to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[10:33] The underinvestment in public health data capabilities is another challenge that we are facing.

[13:22] Dr. Jernigan explains why data is so important in public health.

[15:30] Dr. Jernigan explains how new technologies can get the public health ecosystem where it needs to be.

[18:55] Dr. Jernigan explains the data lags that occur with public health data.

[22:33] Dr. Jernigan talks about the different parts of the life cycle of data.

[23:50] What concrete actions would Dr. Jernigan prioritize during the next three years to help assure investments would translate in long lasting improvements in the health care data system?

[26:19] Data needs to be able to predict what is going to happen and we need to accelerate data into action in public health

[27:40] We need new policies to be able to implement new technologies.

[30:50] What are the challenges we face to achieving an equitable data infrastructure?

[34:43] Looking beyond COVID-19, how do we show value to the public about the importance of data?

Mentioned in This Episode: