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Horizon Announces New Information Technology To Benchmark Health In Howard County

CONTACT: Richard M. Krieg, President & CEO, 410-715-0311 or Jean Moon & Associates, 410-730-0316   

Howard Health Counts, an information technology initiative led by The Horizon Foundation, was announced by Horizon President and CEO Richard M. Krieg at a briefing on Oct. 20, where a demonstration was presented to partners and other community leaders.

"Howard Health Counts supports a strategic goal of providing access to timely, accurate and relevant information that is pertinent to health and wellness," Krieg said.

The Howard County Health Department is the Foundation’s primary partner, along with the Association of Community Services, Howard County General Hospital, Howard County Chamber of Commerce, Howard County Economic Development Authority, Chase Brexton and the Policy Analysis Center.

Momentum for the project arose from a desire to present, in a systematic way, health benchmark data. It is the Foundation’s and Health Department’s intent to improve the quality of health and community data over time, and to provide it to the broader Howard County community, Krieg noted.

In addition to providing a “Health Report Card," Howard Health Counts provides a comparison to other local jurisdictions in the country on the most current basis possible. Integral to the system is a set of heath dashboard indicators – visual representations of health and lifestyle data gathered from local, state and federal sources. Howard Health Counts also includes analytic tools and is a source of best practices information. The system will also include health articles from Howard County, Maryland and the nation.

Howard Health Counts is powered by Healthy Communities Network™, a system conceptualized in research at the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Medical School. The Healthy Communities Institute team is comprised of scientists, researchers, technologists, community development experts and business people who are committed to providing technology to support community health development.

The Horizon Foundation, Howard County’s largest philanthropy, addresses community health issues through strategic grants, community programs and partnerships with private and public institutions.