New strategic center will advance research on medical informatics
National coordinator for health information technology to be inaugural speaker Friday morning in the center’s seminar series
Henry Lowe
BY PAMELA LOWNEY
Last April, when President George W. Bush called for computerizing Americans’ health records by the year 2014, it sparked a national campaign to modernize health-care delivery. With four out of five U.S. patients’ care still being tracked on paper charts, the administration’s initiative must overcome serious technical, financial and policy challenges.
To help address these and other medical informatics issues, the School of Medicine is launching the Stanford Center for Clinical Informatics, which will be doing research and training to advance the use of medical information technology at the school and globally. It is one of three new strategic centers at the school—including ones for imaging and genomics resources—that are intended to further the school’s research mission.
Under the direction of Henry Lowe, MD, associate professor of medicine and senior associate dean for information resources and technology, the informatics center will partner with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Stanford Hospital & Clinics, the Office of Information Resources & Technology and other groups across the university and medical center. Its goal is to develop a research and training program focused on the application of new information technology and knowledge management approaches supporting human health.
The center will concentrate particularly on the areas of translational research data management and the computer-based, or electronic, health record.
As part of the center’s launch, David Brailer, MD, PhD, whom President Bush appointed as his first national coordinator for health information technology, will deliver the inaugural presentation in the center’s 2004-05 Clinical Informatics Seminar Series. Brailer is charged with overseeing the president’s electronic health record initiative.
(The event, to be held Friday from 9 to 11:30 a.m. in the James H. Clark Center auditorium, is open to the public. Additional information about the presentation and launch ceremony is available on the center’s Web site at http://clinicalinformatics.stanford.edu.)
Philip A. Pizzo, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, remarked: “The Stanford Center for Clinical Informatics will play an important role in the School of Medicine’s effort to optimize our mission of translating discoveries. One of the research initiatives of the center will be the electronic health record—a priority for medical centers and for our nation. Indeed, the development of an electronic health record has been identified as a priority by President Bush and we are most pleased that Dr. David Brailer will be visiting Stanford to discuss these initiatives and the role that Stanford might play in them.”
The new center will work with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Stanford Hospital & Clinics as they move from paper to electronic health records. As clinical environments within a larger academic medical center, the two hospitals face the added challenge of installing systems that can effectively support clinical research.
“The quality of clinical data available for research at the School of Medicine will be dependent on how we implement the electronic health record at Stanford,” said Lowe. “The center will partner with the hospitals to ensure that the electronic health record at Stanford meets the needs of a world-class, research-intensive academic medical center.”
Both systems, for example, will need to interact effectively with another key project of the informatics center: STRIDE, the Stanford Translational Research Integrated Database Environment. When complete, this central data repository will integrate and make available to researchers the wealth of clinical and research data generated by the medical center’s hospitals, clinics and other facilities. Built-in safeguards will ensure all patient health information is handled in strict accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.
“STRIDE will offer tremendous new research opportunities,” said Lowe. “By analyzing genomic information, radiology images and other clinical and research data in aggregate, Stanford researchers may be able to identify new subtypes of diseases or create profiles that could more accurately predict how patients might respond to different treatments.” Principal investigators will also be able to use the repository to assess the availability of potential participants before pursuing a clinical trial.
Jin Hahn, MD, associate professor of neurology and pediatrics and chief medical information officer at the children’s hospital, noted that once the hospital’s new computerized health record system is in place, it will be the focus of ongoing investigation for which the center will be an important resource. “There are many academic research projects that can address how the electronic health record can enhance patient safety, assist providers in clinical decision-making and improve the overall outcome of patient care,” he said.
In the future, Lowe envisions applying advances made at the medical center to the national arena. “The center will have a lot to contribute to the development of a national electronic health record system, particularly as a tool for supporting translational and clinical research,” he said.