The University at Buffalo health professions schools and Health Sciences Library, in collaboration with all the affiliated healthcare organizations in the eight counties of Western New York, will engage in a strategic planning project to bring together into an integrated online electronic environment the educational, research, patient care, and administrative information resources and services needed to comprehensively support faculty, students, staff, and administrators in this dispersed, multi-institutional health sciences center. This planning process will also provide opportunities to extend greater access to appropriate health information resources for patients, their families and the general public of Western New York. The two years of NLM IAIMS grant funding, starting in December 1998, will support the costs of two additional, dedicated planning support staff, consultants from other IAIMS institutions, modest equipment and supplies, travel for Project staff, the production of an IAIMS newsletter, a final Project Symposium, and half the cost of an IAIMS future scenarios video production. The Project specific aims include: 1) articulating a clear vision for integrated health information that supports seamless access to information; 2) designing an IAIMS planning and governance structure which will ensure the effective development and implementation of an integrated, advance health information management system for Western New York; 3) developing a master plan which provides a clear roadmap for the development of integrated, advanced health information resources and services and targets the University at Buffalo?s Comprehensive Health Sciences Education Center as a testbed and catalyst for prototyping these system integration efforts; 4) developing the framework for establishing a Health Informatics Center that will bring together the physical facilities, faculty and staff resources needed to foster advanced systems development, informatics research, and graduate informatics training programs; and 5) educating the entire health sciences community and the public so they can make effective use of the information resources and services available in this dispersed, but integrated multi-institutional network environment.
