Sequoia Project Issues Health IT Recommendations For Next Crisis

The Sequoia Project's Emergency Preparedness Information Workgroup, which comprises states, federal partners, health information exchanges and others, released a white paper this week outlining lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and health IT recommendations for the future. The paper, "Pandemic Response Insights and Recommendations," stressed that healthcare stakeholders must consider public health entities as collaborators and partners, with equal access to data. Address public health and emergency response IT infrastructure. Assess public health emergency response technology tools. In 2022, it says it also intends to add additional public health and emergency response stakeholders to its membership, prioritize recommendations and refine deliverables, and continue to provide a community of practice forum where members may openly discuss challenges surrounding responding to an emergency such as the pandemic. It also plans to select one or two recommendations where the EPIW can be helpful to public health and to emergency response organizations in a relatively short amount of time. "During an emergency response, it is our assertion that public health is not currently seen as a partner in the healthcare ecosystem," read the white paper. The fractured public health data ecosystem came into stark relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, with shifting federal priorities and governmental mandates contributing to confusion and chaos at the local level.