The HRSA Geospatial Data Warehouse (HGDW) was one of just 10 winners of the 2005 Gala Award for Innovation from the magazine Government Computer News. HRSA Office of Information Technology staffers Joe Nevin, Terri Cohen and Julie Baitty accepted the award at an Oct. 11 dinner in Washington, D.C., before an audience of 1,000 guests. Winners were selected from a field of 132 based on overall accomplishments, innovative use of technology, and benefits of the program to the agency’s mission and constituencies.

Working quietly behind-the-scenes for several years, Nevin, Cohen and Baitty created a cutting-edge mapping and reporting tool that redefines how HRSA compiles and presents data.

The true innovation of the HGDW is its combination of centralized data for query, reporting, and analysis purposes with a geospatial capability -- meaning that the data can be displayed on computer maps. Those maps plot the location of all HRSA resources – grants, scholarship and loan programs, designation of underserved areas, and service demonstration programs – and overlay them with a variety of health care indicators and population features obtained primarily from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Census Bureau. The result is a comprehensive picture that shows not only where HRSA’s programs are, but also where they need to be.

The concept of the HGDW began about six years ago, when Nevin, OIT’s director of enterprise solutions development and management, and his former deputy, Gerry Crooke, began looking at ways to collect data across the Agency in response to management requests. After discovering that data warehouse technology was relatively new, OIT completed a study and launched a small prototype showing that HRSA data could be interlinked with data sources and tools.

HRSA Administrator Betty Duke then issued a challenge to OIT: create a way to present data geospatially. In 2002, the HGDW was rolled out on HRSA’s Intranet, and two more OIT staff – Data Warehouse Manager Terri Cohen and Geospatial Information Systems Manager Julie Baitty – joined the team.

The HGDW’s first application, at the 2003 Border Health Summit, measured HRSA’s impact along the U.S. side of the border with Mexico. HRSA data were combined with a wide range of demographic and economic data and displayed on maps that showed the location of HRSA programs in the region.

Launched publicly in March 2004, the HGDW today is visited by more than 6,000 visitors each month. Unlike other warehouses whose data are protected by firewalls, HRSA’s is on the Internet – and HRSA is one of few Federal agencies that offer this information to the public. Primary users are HRSA staff and grantees, but Federal staff at CDC, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Environmental Protection Agency are regular users, as are health policymakers and planners nationwide.

Most recently, the HGDW was a major player in HRSA’s response to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. As quickly as the Emergency Operations Center received information on the status of HRSA’s 300 health centers and other grantees in the affected areas, it was routed to the HGDW to generate real-time data and maps for inclusion in the HHS Secretary’s Operations Center Flash Reports. And the HGDW has just announced its newest innovation: an interactive State Profile tool that enables users to create charts and reports of HRSA programs by state.

CAPT Nesseler, HRSA’s associate administrator for health professions, was a planner on “Team Orleans,” a small group of PHS Commissioned Corps health professionals deployed Oct. 9-22 to New Orleans. Their mission was to help keep a dozen hospitals and numerous ambulatory care clinics open, or do what they could to reopen them. Just as importantly, they brought a less tangible, but equally appreciated, spirit of cooperation and hope to residents of a broken city.

CAPT Nesseler described team members as mediators who worked with staff at hospitals and clinics, city workers and public officials in a shared struggle to return health care systems to the city. The team members provided an objective, impartial voice and encouraged teamwork and support, she said. Priorities changed constantly, putting a premium on leadership and flexibility.

A major contribution of Team Orleans was its “Greater New Orleans EMS” website, which enables EMS workers from across the city to see immediately what services are available and where. Every day, hospitals log onto the site and update specific information, such as tallies on number of patients admitted and available beds.

The team also held daily meetings at Ochsner Hospital in nearby Jefferson Parish with local partners to discuss damage to facilities, staffing needs, lessons learned and future plans. For the ambulatory clinics, sub-groups were formed to focus on six critical areas: mental health, communications, pediatrics, pharmacy, chronic illness and HIV/AIDS.

While CAPT Nesseler and her team were grateful to provide valuable public health assistance to residents, they were shocked to see the extent of the housing crisis as they drove through the damaged areas.

“All I could think was that every house had a person or family living there who was now displaced,” she said. “Every time recommendations were made to assist with the crisis, it kept coming back to housing, housing, housing.” Health and city workers are urgently needed, but finding space to house them is a continuing dilemma, she noted.

CAPT Nesseler said uncertainty over the city’s revival makes planning difficult. “How many people are coming back to live in New Orleans, and what infrastructures will be needed for them?” she asked.

New Orleans residents were reluctant to see the team leave. A health professional from Tulane expressed it this way: “You have been such a comforting presence here. It has been uplifting to see the spirit of cooperation…and PHS has played a big part in holding this spirit together.”

Health centers served the most evacuees, a total of 54,135 in 37 states and the District of Columbia. Texas health centers served the most evacuees, a total of 18,339, followed by Mississippi with 13,300 and Louisiana with 10,753.

HRSA’s Healthy Start grantees served 42,200 evacuees in 10 states and the District, while Maternal and Child Health grantees served 25,463 evacuees in 17 states, the District and Puerto Rico.

Ryan White CARE Act grantees in 32 states and the District served 2,132 people living with AIDS across the country.

Numbers by states show that HRSA grantees in Texas served 58,818 evacuees, followed by Mississippi grantees, who served 18,412 evacuees, Louisiana with 14,272 evacuees, and Florida with 10,273 evacuees.

Demands on the time of HRSA personnel during the response to Hurricane Katrina led Administrator Betty Duke to create an office capable of supporting the agency’s response to hurricanes and other disasters on a year-round basis.

Miller’s previous experience – as lead in agency continuity planning following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks – should help him in his new assignment. He also has served as HRSA’s liaison to the Secretary’s Operations Center (SOC) at HHS during Hurricane Katrina and was in charge of the EOC during Hurricane Rita.

Miller has been joined in his new position by Candece Loftland, a recent graduate of the HRSA Scholars program. When emergencies occur, employees from around the agency will be brought in to assist them in running the new EOC, as was done in the past.

“Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call for everyone,” said Miller. “By having a continued focus on issues related to emergency and disaster preparedness, HRSA will be able to jump right in faster when our help is needed.”

Among his first tasks is to create a plan for disaster response and develop a reporting system. He’ll also spend time developing plans to train staff that will be deployed to the EOC.

“We’ll evaluate the previous structure and adopt best practices from what was done before, and study some of the difficult lessons that were learned as we craft improvements,” he said.

Some things won’t change. “We’ll continue to work with the SOC, and the EOC will continue to function as the agency point of contact and information clearinghouse during disasters and emergencies. Whenever we’re needed, we’ll be ready.”

Team director Dennis Wagner and Division of Transplantation colleagues Virginia McBride, Jade Perdue, and Renee Dupee, along with the Office of Communications’ Donald Coleman, were honored at a June 30 breakfast on Capitol Hill.

They were among 30 finalists selected from 531 nominations across the nation who competed for Service to America Medals, which honor achievement in Federal service. Medals were awarded to nine winners in eight categories, including Federal Employee of the Year.

The Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative, launched in September 2003 as part of the HHS Gift of Life Donation Initiative, aims to save or improve thousands of lives each year by sharing best practices in transplantation and donation among the nation’s largest hospitals, transplant programs and organ procurement organizations. The Collaborative has shown dramatic results to date: 184 of the nation’s largest hospitals – more than one-third of all large U.S. hospitals – have achieved a 75% donation rate, meaning that three-quarters of the deaths in those facilities eligible to become donors did so.

The HRSA-sponsored activities were supported by other Federal agencies, 19 U.S. organizations working in the border area as well as organizations and officials in Mexico.

HRSA Administrator Betty Duke met with health care leaders in the El Paso, Texas-Las Cruces, N.M., area to support the week’s activities and spoke to a community health luncheon. Read her speech

At an inaugural event in Laredo, Texas, HRSA Deputy Administrator Dennis Williams, other U.S. officials and Mexican representatives signed a Binational Border Health Week Proclamation and a “compromiso” to live healthier lives. Preventive services were provided, including 120 free flu shots, mammograms, oral health services and other screenings. Also in Laredo, Deborah Parham Hopson, HRSA associate administrator for HIV/AIDS, participated in a Latino AIDS Awareness Day event on the World Trade Bridge.

At an Oct. 26 ceremony at HHS headquarters honoring people and organizations that made a difference in the lives of persons with disabilities, the American Academy of Pediatrics received the Secretary’s Highest Recognition Award to Outstanding Americans for helping to create and implement the medical home concept. Medical homes promote “accessible, continuous, integrated, family-centered primary care services for children with special health care needs and their families.”

The AAP has received funds from HRSA’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau for more than a decade to develop medical homes and enable pediatricians to act as mentors on community-based teams of health care providers serving CSHCN, who require health care services beyond those needed by most children.