Department of Civil Service

Description:

Currently, the NYS Department of Health collects individual newborn hearing screening and follow-up data as well as demographics for infants born in NYS utilizing a newly created online information system. Preliminary analysis of these data has begun to assess degree of reporter compliance, and data quality. Analysis of the follow-up data is needed and program will perform associated outreach to poorer performing hospitals. The Program also needs to investigate home births and the newborn hearing screening rate among these births.
New York State (NYS) has the third highest number of live births in the country (230,608) birth facility reported discharges in 2011) and has a total of 128 birthing hospitals and centers regulated by the Department to screen newborn infants for hearing problems. According to the aggregate reports, in 2010, 99.09% of infants had their hearing screened prior to discharge from the birthing facility and 3.23% of those infants failed the screening. Studies have shown that children who have a hearing loss can have delays in speech, language, social skills and academic achievement and early detection and intervention are critical in mitigating these potential delays.
Since 1998, the program has collected aggregate data on hearing screening and follow-up. In 2011, Public health law was changed to allow for the collection of individual, identifiable hearing screening data. Based upon this change in law, the Department created an online information system to collect these data. In 2012, NYEHDI launched the new tracking and surveillance information system, known as the NYEHDI-IS. The NY Early Hearing Detection and Intervention program (NYEHDI) launched the new tracking and surveillance information system, known as the NYEHDI-IS. Several different databases are involved in this tracking: the Statewide Perinatal Data System (SPDS) collects the demographics and initial hearing screening results for all infants born outside of NYC and the Electronic Vital Events Registry System (EVERS) collects the same information for infants within NYC. The demographics are housed in the NY Immunization Information System (NYSIIS) and NYEHDI-IS leverages this demographic for hearing screening results. Follow-up and diagnostic tests are reported directly by the provider. All counties outside of NYC have been required to report hearing screening and follow-up data using this system. The program has access to all data on initial hearing screening and follow-up testing for all of NYS.

The student will work on the following deliverables:

* Analyze data for initial hearing screening test results received from the Statewide Perinatal Data System (SPDS), the Electronic Vital Events Records System (EVERS), and NYEHDI-IS.
* Using data for hospital and provider compliance and data completeness, identify hospitals or areas of the state of with poor reporting rates and make recommendations for program follow-up based on characteristics of the population (rural/suburban/urban, hospital births versus home births, maternal sociodemographic characteristics).
* Analyze follow-up hearing screening results for those infants who did not pass the initial screening to identify infants who did not receive follow-up in a timely manner (within 30 days).
* Develop reports by hospital to quantify reporting performance and to flag hospitals with high loss to follow-up/documentation rates.
* Assist program staff and bureau leadership with the development of a plan to engage and provide training to improve documentation.
* Conduct a match between the Early Intervention Program and EHDI data to identify areas of the state where referrals to the Early Intervention Program are not documented appropriately.

Skills:

Data Analysis from Vital Records

SAS,SQL, or other data analysis software

Excellent communication skills

Internship Areas: Health Services, Planning/Analysis/Research, Policy Enforcement, Public Policy