HarvardMITNEMC Research Training Program in Medical Informatics

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Harvard-MIT-NEMCResearch Training Programin
Medical Informatics

• Robert A. Greenes, MD, PhD
• Program Director

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Program Components

• Decision Systems Group, Brigham
• Lab of Computer Science, MGH
• Medical Computer Group, MIT
• Childrens Hosp Inf Prog, CHMC
• Center for Clin Computing, BIDMC
• Health Decision Sciences, HSPH
• Clin Dec Making Group, NEMC

• Greenes
• Barnett
• Szolovits
• Kohane
• Safran
• Weinstein
• Pauker

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Division of Health Sciences Technology (HST)

• Joint Division of Harvard MIT
• Teaches 20 of MD curriculum, runs MD/PhD program
• Has biomedical engineering grad. program
• Medical informatics now one of its 5 core
  programs
• Administrative home for MI training program

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Degree Programs

• HST-based MS in medical informatics
• Newly opened to non-fellow health professionals
• PhD program in planning stages
• Other degree options
• MPH at HSPH
• PhD in Health Decision Sciences at HSPH
• PhD in EECS at MIT, with focus in medical
  computer science

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Program Components

• Institutions - 8
• Primary faculty - 22
• Collaborative faculty - 60
• Fellows - 32 (21 NLM, 11 other)
• Students - MS 10, PhD 6

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Fellows

• Predoctoral -- HSPH and MIT tracks primarily
• Postdoctoral -- MGH, BWH, BIDMC, NEMC, CHMC, MIT
• MIT fellows are in PhD program
• Hospital-based fellows in MS program or special
  students

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MS Degree

• Intended primarily for health care professional
• Focus on providing conceptual technical depth
  in informatics
• Courses typically taken half-time over 2-year
  period
• Thesis required, based on project work in an
  affiliated lab
• May require a third year for completion

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Courses for MS

• MIT EECS-based courses
• Data Structures Architectures (non-grad)
• Artificial Intelligence
• HST-based courses
• Medical Informatics Applications
• Medical Expert Systems and Decision Making
• Info Technology the Health Care System of the
  Future
• Special Topics in Medical Informatics

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Course for MS, contd

• HSPH-based courses
• Biostatistics
• Decision Science and Clinical Effectiveness
• Other course offerings
• at MIT, Harvard GSAS, HSPH, HBS

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Other interactions

• Seminar series, journal clubs, etc
• Listserv
• HST-sponsored social events
• Collaborations among programs

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Research foci

• Research topics reflect the interests of the
  affiliated labs
• Clinical, enterprise, population, consumer,
  education informatics foci primarily
• New HST initiatives underway
• Computational biology
• Imaging informatics

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Joint initiatives in planning stages

• Educational technologies
• Digital libraries
• Health care information management/enterprise
  integration

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Strengths of Program

• Broad selection of courses at Harvard MIT,
  several degree options
• Well-established labs operations groups
• Wide range of RD applied projects
• Depth of faculty
• Diversity of fellows
• Academic home for MI in HST Division

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Challenges

• Strong independent labs
• Differences in views orientations
• Limited programmatic funding
• Growth dependent on consensus
• Bottom-up gt top-down process

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Near term goals

• Increase in programmatic commitment
• faculty, student support, space, development
• Expansion of degree programs, course offerings,
  tracks
• Growth of collaborative activities interactions
• Foci on curriculum IT, enterprise integration,
  digital libraries, imaging IT, computational
  biology