Commission approves sole‑source agreement for county health dashboard; staff outline data sources and limits

Wayne County commissioners voted to approve a three‑year, sole‑source software‑as‑a‑service agreement to build the Wayne County Health Atlas, a dynamic public health dashboard that county staff say will make demographic, socioeconomic and health indicators available to residents, commissioners and community partners.

Aar Smart, identified in the meeting as Chief Programs Officer for Wayne County Health and Veteran Services, described the platform’s capabilities and said the vendor preloads hundreds of indicators from public sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and other national feeds. "The platform allows us to share the information in different geographies…so we can understand trends," Smart said.

Dr. Seliano, the county’s chief epidemiologist/data officer (name as given in the transcript), explained the county can upload deidentified, aggregated local data to the platform and tailor pages of indicators for specific topics. Staff also confirmed a subcontract with Policy Map that will make additional data — including Detroit‑area indicators — available to some users; the Metopio instance, staff said, focuses on the county’s jurisdiction (the 42 municipalities excluding Detroit).

Commissioners asked who will curate and maintain locally generated data and whether the vendor purchases private datasets; staff replied the platform is hosted and the vendor curates preloaded public and some private datasets, while the county team can add curated local datasets on an ongoing basis. Commission Counsel reviewed and requested edits to the contract; staff said the agreement was revised to address the Council’s concerns and that Commission Counsel had cleared the revisions.

The commission moved, seconded and unanimously approved the contract. Staff said they plan a soft internal launch and a larger public launch after testing.