Despite the University of Michigan's rich resources in research and clinical facilities, communication networks, libraries, and human expertise and an existing infrastructure capable of supporting integrated information systems, the health sciences campus lacks a mechanism for long-term collaborative planning and centralized support for integration systems. While many individual problems have been identified and many individual solutions sought, a consolidated approach to information planning and problem-solving has been absent. There is a sense that an integration approach will be required in order to meet the future needs of the health sciences, including patient card, at the University of Michigan. There is not yet agreement about what that approach should be or what organizational structure will most effectively meet the need for integration. Although earlier efforts to coordinate planning have not succeeded, the broad administrative support recently received from the University, the Medical Center, and the University Library, (including the Medical Library), now promises success in creating a plan for integrated information management and a structure for carrying it out. The planning process now being initiated, will test the concept that a central mechanism is needed. The planning process is being guided by a Core Planning Group representing education, research, patient care, and library functions, and including a technical advisor and program evaluator. A broad-based Advisory Committee will assure input and review by all health science units and the major functions within them. A series of six one and two day """"""""think tank"""""""" conferences will be organized as a way of involving a large number of individuals from the health science units in working groups. The working groups will identify problems and issues, and test assumptions about the future through the use of invited experts who will react to the description of the University of Michigan needs and present their view of the future environment. Throughout this process a plan will evolve culminating in a concrete blueprint for an organizational structure, with long- range goals, priorities, the means by which individual objectives will be accomplished, and a time-frame for action.
