94-02-21 U.Va. Health Sciences Center Contact: Marguerite Beck U.Va. HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER Charlottesville, Va., February 22 -- Doctors, nurses, researchers and administrators at U.Va. Health Sciences Center will shift into high gear on the information highway fueled by grants from the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. "With the volume of biomedical information doubling every ten years and the rapid changes occurring in health care delivery and education, it is vital for academic health sciences centers to fully utilize the advances in information technologies," said Dr. Don E. Detmer, vice president and provost for health sciences. "The problem is not that needed information doesn't exist, but that it's not available in a useful format, easily accessible, when and where it is needed. We need intend to smoothly integrate all the information resources at our disposal -- from patient data to library journals -- to improve the quality of our work and our productivity and to efficiently connect us to our regional health care colleagues." The $136,747 planning grant from the National Library of Medicine will be used to evaluate the existing computer and information systems and expand them into an Integrated Advanced Information Management System (IAIMS).The National Science Foundation award of $50,000 will be used to establish electronic linkages between the Medical Center and selected hospitals in the Blue Ridge region via INTERNET, a national computer network. Achieving an integrated computer system like IAIMS in health care is difficult because there are many different users with diverse needs in scattered locations, Detmer explained. There are large volumes of data and knowledge to be managed, confidentiality concerns, large investments in existing systems and limited resources for future upgrades. In addition highly trained professionals are busy and sometimes skeptical about new systems, yet must learn to use and accept new technologies and more efficient ways of doing their work, he said. The goal of the NSF grant is to create a multi-campus network called VMEDNET that links clinicians, librarians, educators, students, researchers and administrators working at regional health care centers. This project is intended to serve as the basis for a larger regional information management infrastructure to support the University's regional health alliance. The National Library of Medicine grant is being directed by Detmer and Linda Watson, director of the Health Sciences Library. Shahir Kassam-Adams, director of operations support for Medical Center Computing, is overseeing the National Sciences Foundation grant. ### Charlotte A. Buttner, Program Support Technician, Health Sciences Center News Office, McKim Hall Room 3116, #429, Charlottesville, Va. 22908, 804-924-5679, cab2j@virginia.edu, CompuServe 72203,1033 [Submitted by: unknown (cab2j@dmt03.mcc.virginia.edu) 21 Feb 94 13:13:52 EST]