Clinical Informatics: Research
The Division of Clinical Informatics, created over 30 years ago by Drs. Howard Bleich and Warner Slack, was among the first academic divisions in the world to concentrate on the use of computers for patient care, teaching, and medical research.
The goals of the Division have been to improve the quality and reduce the cost of medical care, to enhance the quality of medical education, to improve the relationship between doctor and patient, and to explore innovative approaches to research through computing.
Beginning in 1976 the faculty and staff of the Division designed, developed, implemented and studied hospital-wide, integrated computing systems for doctors, other clinicians, and students that would give the results of diagnostic studies immediately upon request; offer access to the biomedical literature with PaperChase (the first program of its kind, which in turn gave rise to a new field of literature searching and spawned numerous derivative programs); offer advice, consultation, alerts and reminders; assist with communication by electronic mail (with the Division’s home-grown system, which was the first e-mail to be installed in a clinical facility); assist with order entry; and assist in the day-to-day practice of medicine, both for inpatient and ambulatory care.
Division faculty have been developing computer-based multimedia programs to help astronauts prevent, detect, assess, and manage psychosocial problems on long-duration spaceflights. Earth-based clinical trials of this technology are planned at BIDMC.
Studies have focused on developing the system architecture, self-treatment of depression, and conflict management. Other researchers are building onto the system and using the system as as means to test new methods to detect depression in space crews.
