SH-1041 Public Health Informatician
Position Overview:
The Public Health Informatician supports the County Health Department in transforming authorized data from its EHR, surveillance platforms, and related information systems into secure, accurate, and usable information for dashboards, reporting, and program decisions. This position bridges program leadership, Business Technology, system owners, analysts, dashboard developers, and end users. The Informatician assesses feasibility, supports approved data-integration workflows, establishes validation and governance standards, and prepares reliable data for Power BI or other approved reporting platforms. Initial work includes evaluating MDI Log front-end and Sandbox workflows for provisional overdose fatality surveillance.
Key Responsibilities
- Assess the feasibility, dependencies, limitations, and risks associated with proposed uses of EHR, surveillance, and related public health data.
- Evaluate MDI Log front-end and Sandbox workflows and recommend practical approaches for extracting, validating, and reporting authorized data.
- Identify and evaluate relevant reports, interfaces, repositories, exports, fields, user guidance, and related data sources across EHR and public health surveillance systems.
- Develop secure, reproducible processes for extracting, comparing, integrating, and preparing authorized data, including CSV exports from vendor-hosted systems.
- Establish validation procedures for completeness, accuracy, consistency, timeliness, missingness, duplication, case overlap, and alignment with source-system totals.
- Develop and maintain data dictionaries, metadata, data lineage, variable definitions, transformation rules, and change documentation.
- Support appropriate data ownership, access, retention, confidentiality, and authorized use practices.
- Apply HIPAA, minimum-necessary, deidentification, suppression, and other applicable privacy and security requirements.
- Develop standard operating procedures, technical workflows, data dictionaries, validation records, and maintenance documentation.
- Maintain organized documentation of navigation paths, field definitions, extraction logic, validation results, and recommended workflows.
- Provide technical assistance and training to authorized staff on data definitions, reporting workflows, data quality, and system limitations.
- Communicate technical findings, risks, and recommendations clearly to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
- Coordinate with the existing Health Department analytics team to maintain consistent validation, governance, documentation, and reporting practices.
- Complete other tasks as assigned by the supervisor.
Qualifications & Requirements
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Public Health Informatics, Health Informatics, Health Information Management, Information Systems, Computer Science, Data Science, Public Health, or a related field required. Master's degree in Public Health Informatics, Health Informatics, Public Health, Information Systems, or a related discipline preferred.
- Certifications: None required.
- Experience: Minimum two years of experience working with public health, healthcare, clinical, surveillance, or other health information system data required. Demonstrated experience navigating health information systems and comparing or validating structured data and qualitative clinical or case information required. Experience exporting, cleaning, comparing, and validating CSV data using Excel and at least one analytical tool such as R, SAS, Python, or comparable software required. Experience with public health surveillance, substance use, overdose, injury, mortality, or other population-health programs preferred. Experience with MDI Log, SUDORS, NVDRS, medical examiner or coroner records, toxicology findings, death certificate data, or comparable mortality-surveillance systems preferred. Experience reviewing structured fields and qualitative clinical, forensic, or case notes to identify and classify surveillance cases preferred. Experience comparing data workflows and translating findings into practical recommendations preferred. Experience navigating web-based health information systems and configuring data exports preferred. Experience developing automated surveillance, EHR-to-dashboard, or recurring reporting workflows preferred.
- Skills: Strong understanding of public health informatics, health information systems and workflow evaluation, surveillance data abstraction, quality and validation, data governance and privacy, dashboard and reporting enablement, and technical documentation. Strong communication, coordination, critical thinking, attention to detail, and organizational skills. Ability to communicate technical findings clearly to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
Core Competencies
- Public health informatics
- Health information systems and workflow evaluation
- Surveillance data abstraction, quality, and validation
- Data governance and privacy
- Dashboard and reporting enablement
- Technical documentation
- Communication, coordination, critical thinking, attention to detail, and organization
- Effective collaboration with program leadership, Business Technology, system owners, analysts, dashboard developers, and end users
- Proactive approach to maintaining secure, accurate, and usable public health data
- Trusted liaison across health department programs, technical teams, and authorized data users
- Creative adaptation of reporting and validation approaches based on program needs and system limitations
- Commitment to quality improvement and ongoing professional development
Working Conditions
- Work primarily in an office or remote environment with extended periods of computer use.
- Collaborate regularly with program leadership, Business Technology, system owners, analysts, dashboard developers, and end users.
- Navigate multiple health information systems, web-based platforms, and data export tools daily.
- Prepare for the possibility of shifting priorities, data availability constraints, and time-sensitive reporting requests.
- Communicate and interact with technical and nontechnical stakeholders on a daily basis.
Physical Requirements:
Must be able to lift and carry up to 15 pounds. Position requires standing less than 33% of time on duty, walking less than 33% of time on duty, and sitting between 33% and 66% of time on duty. Use of hands to finger, handle, or feel over 66% of time on duty. Reaching with hands or arms less than 33% of time. Full ability to talk and hear. Correctable vision required.
- Syra Health Corp is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, age, veteran disability or genetic information or any other reason prohibited by law in employment.*