Keeping Up With CDC
Innovations for the CDC’s HIV Surveillance System (eHARS)
The eHARS team is currently working on a new solution to integrate the U.S. Census Bureau’s Census Geocoder for finding census tract data and fixing incorrect address components in the HIV surveillance datasets. The Census Geocoder is an address lookup tool that provides users with interactive and programmatic (REST) access to match addresses to geographic locations and entities containing those addresses. Using the eHARS application, users will be able to make submissions to the Census Geocoder, which will return the geocoded address data and perform any necessary data corrections for improper address inputs.
SeKON’s COVID Team Participating in CDC Digital Modernization
CDC is undergoing a digital modernization of the entire CDC.gov website. The effort is being led by SeKON’s COVID customer, the CDC Associate Director for Communication (OADC). Our COVID team is in the first wave of content consolidation, rewrites, and retirements. We recently accomplished so much work in a compressed time frame that our customer sent kudos thanking the team and listed all the major changes that had been implemented, such as page redesigns. Thanks to Karen Ramlall-Abbot and Adriana Welborn for leading these efforts, and to the entire COVID team for continuously exceeding customer expectations!
Exceeding Customer’s Expectations: A Usability Study Conducted at CDC
Our SeKON PRSWeb Team recently conducted a usability evaluation of the PRS Website to obtain critical user feedback on the effectiveness and usability of the PRS website and webpages. The SeKON team worked closely with the customer to identify a sample of both internal and external users to conduct independent evaluations. For the evaluations, users were required to navigate unscripted scenarios to determine how they were using the system to achieve their end goals. The automated usability tool provided SeKON with the ability to capture and review each user’s navigation choices, as well as record their personal experience as they verbally shared their thoughts during the active evaluation sessions.
Our customers were very pleased with the results of the evaluation. The valuable feedback received from the user participants is being used to improve the usability of the website. They were so impressed with the methods SeKON used and the presentation of information from the study that SeKON was asked to present our final findings again to a wider audience. Kudos to Louis Hampton, Siva Rangarajan, and the PRSWeb and websites team for continuing to deliver value-added support to our CDC customer. Check out the site and see what you think!
Prevention Research Synthesis (PRS) | Intervention Research | HIV | CDC
CMMI Continuous Improvement teams up with our CDC Customer!
In May, SeKON’s eHARS team attended a “virtual offsite” meeting with our CDC customer team to discuss ways in which processes can be improved to gather and test requirements. The group collaborated on many ideas, and both teams (SeKON and CDC) developed actionable plans to further streamline our processes. Thanks to Gerry Smith and his team for the excellent discussions. Our customers are impressed and excited to take our teams to the next level!
Division of HIV Prevention Data Management Team – Staying Connected!
SeKON’s Data Management Team is committed to staying connected, not just through Teams meetings, but actually in person! The team gathered for lunch in May to enjoy some good food and company. Charlie Walker is now joined by Chan Jin to lead the team, and both are committed to continuing the tradition of going out for lunch. “My goal is to continue gathering for lunch regularly. It’s the best way to get to know each other, which builds collaboration and job satisfaction. I want our team to know that SeKON is the best place to work, and we care about our people, customers, and the work we do!” says Charlie Walker. Thanks to all who attended, and we look forward to seeing everyone at the next gathering.
