All Kids Count 1991–2004

A Brief History of Public Health Informatics—Lessons for Leaders and a Look Into the Future

“…The Comprehensive Child Immunization Act of 1993 assured long-term funding to states to vaccinate all children routinely and to create an electronic infrastructure capable of documenting every child's immunization history. The innovators at The Task Force for Global Health implemented the RWJF All Kids Count initiative to help states join together in common purpose to define, standardize, and implement electronic registries in every state, 9 ultimately paving the way for Immunization Information Systems (IIS), which remain today as the singular standout as an interoperable public health information system linked to the health care sector and employing uniform national standards voluntarily adopted across all states. Within the health care services sector, the pressure for cross-provider exchange of patient data accelerated the move for nationally unifying standards that would guide creation of Health Information Exchange (HIE), such as the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE).…”