Online journal of public health informatics
Data Access, User Engagement, and Interoperability Standards in Public Health Data Portals: Environmental Scan Study
By Chaudhary Y, R L, Thirumurugan S and 3 others.
Abstract
Background
Rapid digitalization has led to the generation of vast volumes of health data across diverse sources, including public health surveillance, electronic health records from hospitals, primary care facilities, and telemedicine. However, it often remains fragmented across multiple domains and systems due to siloed data collection practices and a lack of interoperability standards, limiting its potential to generate actionable public health insights.
Objective
In this study, we examined publicly available health data portals and assessed their scope, user engagement features, and implementation of interoperability standards.
Methods
We conducted an environmental scan to profile publicly available health data portals. We identified portals through systematic web searches, expert consultation using the Delphi technique, and snowball sampling from initial sources. We assessed each portal for the type of data hosted, the scope of user engagement, and the implementation of interoperability standards (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms [SNOMED CT]) or adopted Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) as a data exchange standard.