Olmsted County Public Health awarded funding to improve data and epidemiology

(ABC 6 News) – Olmsted County Public Health Services is receiving a $388,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Health Infrastructure Fund to support data and epidemiology capabilities.

The funding will help OCPHS better serve the region in planning, data analysis, and epidemiology. The award is part of an effort by MDH to strengthen public health infrastructure in the state. OCPHS looks forward to using this funding to gather and share more information and data at a regional level.

With the funding, OCPHS will explore methods to share resources with other jurisdictions within the region to understand better what is happening outside Olmsted County.

OCPHS will be able to look at data from other counties and compare it to local information to discern to what level a disease outbreak or other threat is an issue.

The MDH infrastructure grant also benefits Olmsted County’s neighbors by providing public health departments and other health care partners in southeastern Minnesota with real-time access to regional data.

OCPHS plans to identify pilot projects to build out its data and epidemiology capabilities by late September. The rollout of the pilot projects should occur by the end of the year.