For a client in New England, HLN examined all functions of the Immunization Program and determined how to consolidate and streamline its data management activities might be to improve the efficiency of the organization. Recommended system modifications were integrated into the work plan of HLN's existing contract for development and support of the integrated child health system in the state.
HLN spent a year working closely with a major West Coast city health department to understand and document the data management requirements of its bio-terrorism response plan. Building upon an existing software development contract for bio-terrorism preparedness, HLN developed an extensive set of use cases, process flow diagrams, business rule documentation, and architectural designs for the plan's data management needs. HLN used a specialized requirements management product, DOORS by Telelogic, to create an extensible repository of requirements and business rule data to serve the project in later phases.
For a Northwestern state, HLN completed a detailed roadmap of the data exchange and information processing steps carried out by its staff in the maintenance and support of their childhood immunization registry system. This analysis focused on the data file inputs and outputs of the system. HLN documented and evaluated the current processes after reviewing available documentation (more than 180 documents, including management reports, record layouts, database schematics, e-mail correspondence, UNIX shell programs, and SQL scripts) and conducting on-site interviews. Very little formal documentation existed aside from the actual program and batch file code. Recommendations for improvement were subsequently integrated into the agencies operations practices.