Milwaukee County Addresses Health Equity with Data and GIS Technology

Milwaukee County is at the forefront of addressing racial inequity. During the COVID-19 pandemic they cross referenced vaccination rates with the CDC’s social vulnerability index and plotted the results using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. Armed with this powerful insight, the County was able to increase vaccinations in populations that needed them the most and by doing so increased the safety of the entire County. They are now incorporating an equity lens into other areas of public health. Healthcare IT Today had the opportunity recently to sit down with Zachary Swingen, Lead GIS Coordinator at Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management. We wanted to learn more about their pioneering work combining health equity and GIS technology. Racism as a Public Health Crisis On May 20, 2019, Milwaukee County became the first governing board in the US to pass a resolution declaring racism as a public health crisis. On that day, Milwaukee County Executive, Chris Abele, stated “It is Milwaukee County’s responsibility to address racism, including seeking solutions to reshape the discourse, actively engaging all citizens in racial justice work. Local government needs to take a leadership role and we intend to do so.” “It needs to be an emergency,” said County Supervisor Supreme, Moore Omokunde. “We need to treat it as if there was an outbreak of measles, an outbreak of mumps, an outbreak of any kind of disease or as much as we take seriously the opioid ep...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Analytics/Big Data Clinical Communication and Patient Experience Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System CDC vulnerability index COVID-19 Vaccination GIS for Health GIS technology Health Equity Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Manag Source Type: blogs