Case study · Public health data
Sixteen years keeping the nation's child health data within reach.
The Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI) at Johns Hopkins runs the Data Resource Center, the national hub for findings from child and maternal health surveys. I have been its lead developer since 2010.
- Client
- CAHMI, Johns Hopkins
- Role
- Lead developer
- Years
- 2010 to present
- Stack
- Sitefinity CMS, Orchard Core, ASP.NET, React, Recharts
The challenge
Researchers, state agencies, advocates, and families all need answers from national survey data on children's health, and most of them are not statisticians. The Data Resource Center has to let anyone ask a question of the data and get a clear, trustworthy result, year after year, as new survey cycles arrive.
When I joined in 2010, the Data Resource Center had just been redesigned and rebuilt on Sitefinity. The new site was a step forward, but it wasn't finished: it leaned too heavily on JavaScript, and pages shifted and jumped as they loaded. CAHMI needed someone to make it solid, and then to stay.
What I built and maintain
Interactive data query and visualization
The query interface that lets visitors explore survey findings without touching a raw dataset, with charts built in React and Recharts on top of the CMS.
A CMS the CAHMI team controls
Sitefinity development with custom modules and integrations, so staff publish and update content themselves. That includes custom form handling, such as the workflow behind the Measurement Resources Agreement Form.
Continuity across sixteen years
Platform upgrades, new survey releases, and changing requirements, handled by one developer who knows the whole system and its history.
My first job was stabilizing the new build: stripping out unnecessary scripts and fixing the layout so pages loaded cleanly. Later I led a further redesign that brought the site to where it is today.
The same foundation then carried CAHMI's other sites. Its organizational site moved off WordPress onto the platform I had built for the Data Resource Center, and was later redesigned with an identity of its own. Innovate Health was new: I built it from the ground up on Orchard Core.
One client, a family of platforms
The Data Resource Center led to more. Over the years CAHMI has trusted me with its other sites and tools as well.
Well Visit Planner
A free tool that helps parents prepare for and personalize well-child checkups.
Cycle of Engagement
A care model and toolset that engages families before, during, and after visits.
Online PHDS
A parent survey measuring the quality of young children's preventive care.
Innovate Health
CAHMI's home for its research, tools, and partnerships.
The result
A national data platform that has stayed online, current, and usable through sixteen years of new data, new technology, and new requirements, with the same developer accountable for it the whole time.
What began as cleanup of an unfinished build became a sixteen-year partnership and a family of five platforms, all running on foundations one developer knows end to end.