Presented by Carrie Bradford, PhD, Data Governance Director, Office of Chief State Epidemiologist, Texas Department of State Health Services & Pooja Bahadur, Data Architect, Data Analytics and Support, Texas Health and Human Services Commission

Department of State Health Services, in collaboration with HHS Data Analytics Support, developed the State Health Analytics and Reporting Platform (SHARP) for DSHS data assets.

SHARP provides tools and technologies that work together to enhance data analytics and reporting and enable data governance. SHARP allows public health data to be ingested into a cloud-based data warehouse so authorized staff can access data from a centralized location. The platform provides self-service analytics to users so they can use their data analytic or visualization tools to produce dashboards, graphs, and maps to provide business insights.

Developing this analytics platform was critical for COVID-19 decision making, and the benefits of enhanced analytics are being realized in other areas of the agency. Enhanced data analytics capabilities allow for more opportunities for staff to visualize their data for day-to-day activities as well as to enhance the data available for our public health partners and citizens of the State of Texas. The platform also enables data governance through use of tools that support data management and security.

The presenters will provide an overview of SHARP and how SHARP enhances data analytics and reporting and enables data governance. They will also talk about plans to use SHARP to enhance data sharing with public health partners and to implement data governance for the agency.