Partners Launches Healthcare IT Research Center
Will Deliver Needed Data for Effective IT Investment Decisions
in Healthcare
BOSTON, June 5, 2002—Responding to an unmet need for rigorous and impartial
data to support effective information technology (IT) investment decisions
in the healthcare industry, Partners HealthCare System, Inc. has launched
the Center for Information Technology Leadership. CITL will assess
new information technologies and disseminate its research findings to help
healthcare providers realize greater value and improve quality of care.
According to John Glaser, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Information Officer
for Partners and founding Executive Committee member of CITL, the ongoing
IT explosion has yet to realize its potential in the healthcare industry.
A major reason for this, he believes, is the lack of useful analysis on which
to base strategic investment decisions.
Blackford Middleton, M.D., Chairman of CITL’s Executive Committee and Director
of Clinical Informatics Research & Development for Partners, says that
promising IT tools exist, but they need to be mined: “Recently, we’ve
seen that specific IT investments can have extremely high value in healthcare.
One example is the use of computerized physician order entry systems, which
can reduce medication errors by more than 50%.”
Drawing from this type of experience, CITL will publish reports, organize
symposia, and offer additional services to help educate the industry.
Topics for study may include Computerized Physician Order Entry and Clinical
Decision Support. To assist CITL’s staff researchers, Expert Panelists
will be chosen for each topic under analysis. These world-class experts
will contribute to CITL analyses, thereby broadening the real-world applicability
and practicality of the research.
To select topics and Expert Panelists, and to provide counsel regarding CITL
strategy and direction, an Advisory Board is now in place, including the
following leaders in the world of healthcare and IT: Russ Altman, M.D.,
Associate Professor of Genetics and Medicine at Stanford University; Erica
Drazen, Sc.D., Emerging Practices Vice President of First Consulting Group;
Bruce Hochstadt, M.D., Director of Private Equity Investments at EJ Financial
Enterprises, Inc.; Sam Karp, Chief Information Officer of the California
HealthCare Foundation; Joseph P. Newhouse, Ph.D., the John D. MacArthur Professor
of Health Policy and Management at Harvard University; David B. Pryor, M.D.,
Senior Vice President, Clinical Excellence at Ascension Health; Ted Shortliffe,
M.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Medical Informatics at Columbia
College of Physicians and Surgeons; and Paul C. Tang, M.D., Internist and
Chief Medical Information Officer at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.
“At Partners, we’ve made significant progress in using IT to improve healthcare
delivery and reduce costs,” said Dr. Glaser. Partners’ healthcare IT
organization, which includes Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts
General Hospital, has developed, implemented, and evaluated a wide range
of information technologies to improve healthcare delivery. For example,
the physician order entry application supports 26,000 medication, test, and
procedure orders per day.
“Still, it is often unclear what investments have the biggest impact on the
bottom line and quality of care,” Dr. Glaser adds. “We therefore continue
to struggle with decisions about how best to allocate IT resources.”
The Center for Information Technology Leadership is a Boston-based research
organization established in 2002 to guide the healthcare community in making
more informed strategic IT investment decisions. Using a rigorous,
analytic approach, CITL assesses information technologies, disseminates its
research findings, and provides additional services designed to help healthcare
providers realize greater value and improve quality of care. CITL’s
research is also used by technology vendors to develop more effective healthcare
IT products. Chartered by Partners HealthCare System, CITL is directed
by an Executive Committee (made up of David Bates, M.D., Partners Director
of Clinical and Quality Analysis; John Glaser, Ph.D., Partners CIO; Blackford
Middleton, M.D., Partners Director of Clinical Informatics R&D; and Jan
Walker, R.N., M.B.A., Executive Director) and supported by teams of experts
in healthcare delivery, business, and informatics.