An Institutional Academic Information Management Program (I-AIMS) will be developed for the Rhode Island Hospital, the largest and most comprehensive acute care hospital in Rhode Island, a major referral center for Southeastern New England and the major teaching hospital of Brown University. The I-AIMS program will define the capacity and needs of our present facility as well as drawing on critical intellectual resources at the hospital and Brown University for further planning. In the next two years specialized internal and external databases that will need to be rapidly and easily accessed throughout the hospital will have been identified. Means by which these specialized databases can be further developed and implemented to be useful in education, teaching and research will be delineated. The proposal also contains an outline of three major immediate goals for the I-AIMS program: The first is to develop an environment in which academic information management and planning can be done in the real-life hospital setting. The second goal is to develop research plans that critically identify and evaluate the needs, capabilities and deficiencies of the present hospital information system and allow projections of necessary developments in academic information management for the next five to ten years. Major emphasis has been placed on the utilization of existing quality assurance systems in the analysis of the institution's information management needs. Specific detailed methodology is described for the creation of a proper planning mechanism and the creation of a competent and cohesive committee structure that will assure that the goals of the program are accomplished. This will ensure that plans for the acquisition of necessary high technology for the optimal storage, retrieval and dissemination of academic information over the period of the next ten years at the institution will be implemented at the highest level of the hospital and university.
The AIMS program at Rhode Island Hospital will assume a leadership role in defining how specialized internal and external databases can be used within the hospital and its related elements in the university community. The I-AIMS program will ensure the institutional commitment to information management research and education, as well as enhancing its commitment to the highest quality of patient care in the rapidly changing environment of the next ten years.
