Information Resources

and Technology
Henry Lowe M.D.
Senior Associate Dean
Information Resources and Technology

We facilitate excellence in education, biomedical

and clinical research, and patient care through the
application of innovative and effective information
resources and technology
 Definitions
“Information Technology is the use of hardware,
software, services, and supporting infrastructure to
manage and deliver information.”
❉
“Informatics is the scientific field that deals with
biomedical information, data and knowledge - their
storage, retrieval and optimal use for problem-
solving and decision-making.”
❉
“Knowledge Management is the collection of
processes that govern the creation,
dissemination, and utilization of knowledge”
 IRT Goals
• Become a leader in the effective use of innovative
information technology (IT) in biomedicine
• Integrate IT, informatics and knowledge management
resources to support the biomedical mission
• Plan and implement IRT collaboratively
• Have IRT driven by a coherent strategic plan
• Support the Stanford Biomedical Community’s clinical,
research and educational missions
 Information Resources
and Technology (IRT)

• Senior Associate Dean position created March 2002

• Our mandate is to develop, collaboratively, an effective IT
strategy for the Stanford Biomedical Community
• Provide state-of-the-art IT infrastructure and services
• Support access to and management of knowledge resources
• Couple applied informatics with our needs

• Integration of MedIT, SUMMIT and Lane Library

• IRT strategic planning completed September 2002
 IRT Strategic Planning Group
Carole Buffum - Executive Director, Finance and Administration
Parvati Dev - Associate Dean for Learning Technologies, IRT
Jin Hahn - Associate Professor Of Neurology and Pediatrics
Rob Krochak - DFA, Department of Pathology
Michael Levitt - Professor Of Structural Biology and Computer
Science
Henry Lowe - Senior Associate Dean IRT
Shannon Moffett - Medical Student
Don Regula - Associate Professor of Pathology
Valerie Su - Acting Director, Lane Library
Gerry Weitz - Director of Operations, IRT
David O’Brien - Director, Office of Institutional Planning
 IRT Organization

Senior Associate
Associate Dean
Dean
Information Resources and Technology
Technology
Henry
Henry Lowe
Lowe

Director
Director of
of Associate
Associate Dean
Dean Director
Director Director
Director Director
Director Director
IT
IT operations
operations Learning Technologies Lane Library IT
IT Development
Development Privacy
Privacy &
& Data
Data Security
Security Finance
Finance && Admin
Admin
Gerry Weitz
Weitz Parvati
Parvati Dev
Dev Valerie
Valerie Su
Su (Acting)
(Acting) Henry
Henry Lowe
Lowe (Acting)
(Acting) Todd
Todd Ferris
Ferris To
To Be
Be recruited
recruited
 Collaborative IRT Planning
is Critical
• The future of biomedicine is interdisciplinary
• There is a Stanford Biomedical Community
• The Hospitals, School of Medicine, Clark Center,
Bioengineering
• If translational research is to be successful,
information must flow effectively within this
community
• Biomedical IRT planning and implementation must
be a collaborative community process
 University

Hospitals School
 Our Development Model

Research

Clinical Education

Stanford
Biomedicine Community
Applications and Services
Support, Training, Advocacy & Planning
Information Acquisition, Hosting, Management & Access
Knowledge Access and Delivery

INFORMATION KNOWLEDGE
INFORMATICS
TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT

Infrastructure
Expertise Network Data Center Security Knowledge Resources Planning
 Major Strategic Themes

• Ubiquitous access to information

• Data privacy and security
• The Library as a Knowledge Management Center
• The Internet as a communications medium
• IRT as an innovative force in education
• Translational Informatics
• Enabling the translational research mission
 Ubiquitous Access to Information
• The future of computing rests on a wireless “always
on” network connection.
• Wireless networking is progressing rapidly
• Mobile computing devices are becoming smaller,
cheaper, more powerful and better integrated
• Biomedical workers are often nomadic
• Major transforming potential in the clinical,
research and educational environments
 What IRT is Doing
• Implementing an enterprise-wide wireless network
• Convened a joint School-University-Hospital secure
wireless planning committee.
• Appointed an Associate Director of Wireless
Applications Development
• Mandated secure wireless network standards
• Positioning all key information resources to be
wireless-accessible
 Information Privacy and Security
• New Federal and State regulations mandate significant
changes in how we handle information
• Our ability and willingness to protect privacy and secure
information will become critical
• Our clinical and translational research missions are at
particular risk
• An issue in negotiating access to clinical data
 What IRT is Doing
• Created a process within the School to manage
HIPAA implementation
• Convened a joint School-University-Hospital
committee to define data security standards for the
Biomedical Community
• A secure data center for the School will open in
April 2003
• Appointed a Director for Data Privacy and Security
 Knowledge Management
• Biomedicine is knowledge-based
• Ubiquitous electronic access to knowledge
• The Library as our Center for Knowledge
Management - a “library without walls”

• A new Library Director who is also Associate Dean

for Knowledge Management
• Knowledge-based clinical decision support as part of
EMR deployment
• Addition of new knowledge resources (e.g. Genomic
Resources)
 Internet Strategy
• The Web is our major point of contact with the World
• Internet strategy should support our strategic plan
• IRT Web design task force report
• The School needs a new Web site with:
• Better navigational model
• More consistent “branding” across the School
• Tighter coordination with Hospital Web sites
• Separation of public and private Web services
Innovative Use of Learning Technologies
• An IT-enabled educational environment

• Easy, ubiquitous technology support

• Investment in simulation technologies

• Balance innovation and current successful practice

• Continuous evaluation and improvement

• Training educators to use IT successfully

• Inquiry-based education

• Life-long learning and knowledge access skills

 What IRT is Doing

• Immersive Learning Center

• Content production

• Ubiquitous access to knowledge sources

• Faculty support and development

• Pilot projects

• Evaluation of impact
 Translational Informatics
Informatics

Knowledge
IT Management
Plan
Informatics as an academic discipline can
support translational research and be itself an
important area of translational research
 Informatics
• Information technology expertise alone cannot guarantee
effective use of IT in biomedicine
• Informatics complements IT expertise in creating
solutions to complex “real-world” problems in
Biomedicine
• The IRT strategic plan will create new opportunities for
Applied Informatics research and education
• We need to grow our Applied Informatics community
 A Clinical Informatics Center
• “Clinical Informatics”,in contrast to BioInformatics, is
underdeveloped at Stanford
• The greatest need for Informatics is in the clinical and
translational research areas
• A new academic Clinical Informatics Center will foster
Informatics at the School level and work with
• Departments and institutes to help develop domain-specific
Informatics programs
• The Hospitals to assist in the effective implementation of
knowledge-based clinical systems
 Clinical Systems Development
• The EMR is a critical component of the Biomedical IT
infrastructure

• Clinical systems development must be collaborative

• Understanding workflow and context is critical

• The academic user community should be a major driver

• Tight integration with clinical research systems is essential

• Tight coupling of knowledge resources to the point of care

• Where clinical IT has been successful it has involved a

real working partnership of Hospital IT, Clinical
Informatics and the user community
 Informatics and
Translational Research
Data management
Knowledge access & management
Collaborative Systems
High performance computing
Access to clinical data

Data analysis and visualization

Integrated data repository
Tissue banking systems
Image managment
Basic Research Knowledge representation

Informatics

EMR development
Clinical data acquisition
Clinical trials management
Integration with clinical systems
Knowledge-based decision making

Clinical Research
 Major IRT Goals for 2003
• Hospital-School IT steering committee
• Clinical Informatics Center
• Secure wireless network
• Planning for Clinical and Research Data Repository
• The Library as our Knowledge Management Center
• Data security policies for School
• Immersive Learning Center
• Task force to examine user support
• New Website for School