Newswise — Do patients always benefit from the latest scientific research and medical discoveries? The alarming answer is "no," says the dean of Saint Louis University School of Public Health.
"It takes an average of 17 years to introduce newly discovered, effective clinical interventions in routine patient care, " said Dr. E. Andrew Balas. "The latest research results and medical discoveries are released so rapidly that health practitioners cannot learn and implement the new information fast enough."
As a solution to this problem, the Saint Louis University School of Public Health will establish a new Center of Digital Knowledge for Public Health.
This center will provide computer resources to assist key people in health care concerned about public health issues. It also will assist in disease surveillance, and provide access to a public health digital library and interactive digital resources for public health practitioners. The center will offer training opportunities in public health informatics, a science concerned with the gathering, manipulation, and storage of recorded health knowledge. Future public health leaders as well as current professionals will be able to take advantage of these opportunities.
"Although the public health community was an early adopter of information methods, efforts to use electronic data processing have been largely limited to centralized databases with restricted integration and access," said Dr. Balas, who also is the center's director. "Furthermore, collaboration between the medical/health informatics community and the mainstream of public health service has been lagging behind expectations."
Effectively managing knowledge is essential for the success of the future health system, Balas said. Public health needs better information technologies to deal with the threat of bioterrorism and emerging infections, make the health-care system more cost-effective, expedite the application of new scientific discoveries, and make scientifically sound and individually tailored health education widely available. Health information management is one of the core competency areas newly stressed by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.
Sun Microsystems Inc., has agreed to partner in the creation and sponsorship of the Center of Digital Knowledge for Public Health, with an intent to donate $400,000 worth of equipment. This donation will support the center's endeavors to provide a state of the art information and knowledge management system. In return the Saint Louis University School of Public Health will provide the most up-to-date bioterrorism information, reduce paper work in disease surveillance, and tailor health education seminars and classes to meet the shortage of specific scientific fields of study for future health professionals.
"The superior work of this center will provide educators and students the opportunity to contribute crucial information technology to the life sciences community," said Kim Jones, vice president of global education and research for Sun Microsystems. "Sun's partnership with the Saint Louis University School of Public Health reinforces our commitment to the IT needs of enterprises engaged in research and discovery, product development for health and well-being."
Sun is a leading provider of open network computing solutions to colleges and universities around the world, powering academic, research and high performance computing systems, campus administration, digital libraries and student instruction systems. In addition, Sun is committed to connecting the world's students to the Internet, beginning with primary and secondary schools and extending to all levels of higher education. For information about Sun in Education, please visit http://www.sun.com/edu.
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