The over-all goal of the University of Washington Health Sciences Center (UWHSC) IAIMS planning and implementation process is to create a comprehensive, integrated information access and management network that will complement and enhance the clinical, research, administrative and educational effectiveness of the UWHSC and its affiliated institutions and programs. This network provides researchers, educators, clinicians, librarians, students, administrators and staff with convenient and timely access to the information they need to function optimally, regardless of the physical location of the user, the resource or the system, or the format of the information package. Central to this vision is the recognition that an individual, in a given day, performs a variety of roles in the health sciences center. These roles range from clinical decision making to research to administrative tasks to teaching and learning. In one task the individual may be an expert, while in another, a novice. The integrated systems we design must support this diversity of roles, responsibilities and skill levels. The hallmarks of our planning process include: careful study of the UW institutional environment and its needs, utilization of the experiences of other IAIMS institutions, broad faculty, librarian and administrator participation, an intensive educational process, and a focus on people instead of technology. We propose to enrich and extend our integrated information systems infrastructure through the development of intelligent systems interface(s), network availability of databases and other information resources, training of faculty, staff and students to use the technology, and by creation of tools to empower the users in our increasingly electronic environment.
Specific aims i n support of our broad academic health sciences information systems integration goal: 1. Establish organizational relationships that support and facilitate integrated access to health information, specifically embracing systems initiatives of the Schools, the Medical Centers, the Health Sciences Library and Information Center, the University Office of Computing and Communications, and other affiliated entities. 2. Expand the technical infrastructure including the network and related services. 3. Promote access to relevant, high-quality databases, including image, full-text, bibliographic and numeric, in order to support effective clinical, research and educational decision making. 4. Create effective information retrieval and management interfaces and tools for quality clinical, research and educational decision making. 5. Promote faculty development in the application of effective information technology in research, education, and clinical care. 6. Create educational programs and training opportunities in the effective use of information technology for health science students. 7. Develop an academic program to promote research, development and training in health sciences library and information management, clinical decision support, image management and integrated information systems design. 8. Ensure adequate core resources to support Health Sciences Center-wide information systems integration. 9. Identify, describe, and in partnership with other institutions, vendors and federal agencies, develop approaches to information policy issues including confidentiality, ownership, copyright, and participatory use, as they relate to a variety of information formats. 10. Support the development of local, statewide, regional and national high performance computing networks. 11. Evaluate and assess our accomplishments and shortcomings and share our findings with other institutions. Three models provide the framework for and inform our implementation process. The are: IDEAL (Integrated Databases for Enhancing Academic Learning), our education model, MIND (Medical Information Networked Databases), the Medical Centers model for systems integration, and UWCARNET (UW Clinical, Administrative, Research and Education Navigation and Empowerment Tools), which provides for both the development of interface(s), tools and databases and a network server environment to deliver and/or direct users to appropriate information resources and databases.
