Turning Healthcare Data into Community Impact
ABOUT: This feature story explores how Minnesota's Electronic Health Records Consortium (MN EHRC) is transforming public health research and decision-making through data-driven collaboration. The story highlights the Health Trends Across Communities (HTAC) initiative, demonstrating how aggregated healthcare data helps local public health agencies identify health disparities, better understand community health needs, and develop targeted strategies to improve health outcomes.
Role: Interviewer | Writer | Editor | Visual Curator Publisher
Duties: I led this story from start to finish—interviewing Dr. Tyler Winkelman, translating complex healthcare data and technical information into an accessible, engaging narrative, and highlighting the real-world impact of data-driven public health initiatives. I refined the piece through multiple editing rounds, including scientific peer review for factual accuracy. Finally, I sourced, curated, and captioned the supporting visuals, incorporated an informational video about the HTAC initiative, and published the final story on WordPress.
Published in: HHRI News, 2026
Summary: The Minnesota Electronic Health Records Consortium (MN EHRC) brings together healthcare systems and statewide organizations to aggregate de-identified electronic health records data, helping researchers and public health agencies better understand health trends and disparities. Through its Health Trends Across Communities (HTAC) initiative, local agencies can access more timely, community-level health data to inform policies, streamline health assessments, and identify opportunities to improve health outcomes. The story highlights how this data is already making a difference, including how Goodhue County used HTAC insights to refine its community health assessment and support targeted mental health interventions.
Source: Health Trends Across Communities in Minnesota Dashboard
A brief overview of the HTAC initiative, explaining how Minnesota uses aggregated electronic health records data to identify community health trends, inform public health decisions, and address health disparities.
“We developed a system where the healthcare systems could keep their data at their sites. They didn’t need to send all of their health data to one location. Then we were able to send them the analysis to run, and they could generate the information. Later, we aggregate the results from each of the systems.”