Advanced Technology Focus of 12 HPCC Health Care Awards

Twelve contracts totaling $26 million, designed to help physicians practice better medicine by utilizing advanced computing and networking capabilities along the "Information Superhighway," were announced today by the National Coordination Office for High Performance Computing and Communications and the National Library of Medicine.

The 12 projects, scattered across the nation, will fund health care applications such as testbed networks to share information resources, computerized patient records, and medical images; telemedicine projects to provide consultation and medical care to patients in rural areas; and advanced computer simulations of human anatomy for training via "virtual surgery."

The projects are the first awards in health care to be made under the High Performance Computing and Communications Program. The HPCC Program is a multiagency effort to focus the Nation's energies on developing and applying high performance computers, the software that will enable the computers to be applied to many of society's problems, and the National Information Infrastructure (or "Information Superhighway") that will put the vast amount of resulting information at users' fingertips.

"These awards are an important step in developing new computing and communications technologies to improve the quality of the Nation's health care," said Dr. Donald A.B. Lindberg, Director of the National Coordination Office for HPCC. Health care is a key component of the government's vision for a National Information Infrastructure. The new technology will allow a doctor in a rural area to send X-ray images and other medical information instantly to specialists at a faraway medical center for a second opinion.

HPCC technology to be developed by the projects will not only improve health care delivery, but reduce costs as well. "Twenty-five cents of every dollar on a hospital bill goes to administrative costs and does not buy any patient care," he said. "Better use of information technology and the development of health care applications for the NII can make important contributions to health care reform. Telecommunications applications such as computerized patient records could reduce health care costs by $36 billion to $100 billion each year, while improving quality and increasing access."

"The successful outcome of these projects will help to contain health care costs through sharing scarce resources while raising the quality of patient care," said Dr. Lindberg. "By using telemedicine, doctors and other health care providers can consult with specialists thousands of miles away, continually upgrade their education and skills, and share medical records and X-rays." The projects will also "provide practical experience with real-world applications, such as how to protect the privacy of medical records and images that are subject to computer network transmission, storage and retrieval."

Medical education and training will also benefit from high performance computing and communications technologies. "The first problem that all medical professionals face is that there is simply too much information to keep up, too much to remember. If your doctor were extremely conscientious and read two journal articles every night, at the end of a year he or she would be roughly 800 years behind. Computerized databases help medical professionals find the answers they need when they are needed." Some medical schools "are beginning to teach clinical problem solving methods that will continue to work even as the knowledge base of medicine changes and expands," he said. Dr. Lindberg also serves as director of the National Library of Medicine, a leader in computing and communications technology.

The incorporation of high performance computing and communications technologies such as virtual reality will have a profound impact on medical training as well, according to Dr. Lindberg. "One of the new projects funded will develop computer simulations of human organs so that students can 'operate' first on a computer screen rather than patients."

Awards were made in four areas: testbed networks to link hospitals, clinics, medical schools and libraries to allow for sharing of medical data and images; collaborative technology for real-time treatment of patients; information access; and virtual reality for medicine. A list is attached.

The National Coordination Office for High Performance Computing and Communications is a part of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; the National Library of Medicine is a component of the Department of Department of Health and Human Services' National Institutes of Health.

BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS OF HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING AND COMMUNICATIONS
1994 Research and Development Awards by the National Library of Medicine

CATEGORY: TESTBED NETWORKS

Title: Toward a National Collaboratory for Healthcare Informatics

Trustees of Columbia University of the City of New York
c/o Office of Grants and Contracts
630 West 168th Street
New York, NY 10032
Principal Investigator: James Cimino M.D.
Telephone: 212-305-5780
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3513
Total Estimated Cost: $1,036,223
Performance Period: 5/1/94 - 4/30/97

Brigham & Women's Hospital
75 Frances Street
Boston, MA 02115
Principal Investigator: Robert A. Greenes, M.D., Ph.D.
Telephone: 617-732-5740
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3512
Total Estimated Cost: $991,398
Performance Period: 5/1/94 - 4/30/97

Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
Sponsored Project Office
Jordan Quad/Birch
125 Panama Street
Stanford, CA 94305
Principal Investigator: Edward H. Shortliffe, M.D., Ph.D.
Telephone: 415-725-3385
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3514
Total Estimated Cost: $933,801
Performance Period: 5/1/94 - 4/30/97

Objective: This project is a collaboration between three medical informatics research groups to build Internet-accessible shared systems which support computerized patient records, clinical research protocols, medical vocabulary servers, teleconferencing, and health professions education.

Title: A Pilot Indianapolis-Wide 10 Megabit Network for Patient Care and Research

Indiana University
Research & Sponsored Programs
620 Union Drive, Room 618
Indianapolis, IN 46202-5167
Principal Investigator: Clement J. McDonald, M.D.
Telephone: 317-630-7070
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3150
Total Estimated Cost: $2,398,160
Performance Period: 4/1/94 - 3/31/97

Objective: This project will employ a variety of digital networking technologies to tie together a major teaching hospital with community clinics and pharmacies, providing access to a computerized patient record system, computerized prescriptions, and online medical knowledge sources. The evaluation component of this project will assess the cost and patient outcomes changes which result from the use of shared medical information.

Title: A Chicago Metropolitan Medical Network

Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Superior Street and Fairbanks Court
Chicago, IL 60611
Principal Investigator: Paul Tang, M.D. [As of September 1994]
Telephone: 312-908-3040
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3509
Estimated Cost: $183,518 (Base Year)
Total Estimated Cost: $2,334,852
Performance Period: 3/1/94 - 2/28/95 (Base Year)
Total Performance Period: 3/1/94 - 2/28/97

Objective: This award represents a planning phase which is part of a new facility development plan for Northwestern Memorial Hospital. State of the art internal networks in the new medical center complex will be linked to primary care locations in the metropolitan area. Both scientific and patient-specific clinical information will travel over the network.

Title: A High Performance Testbed Network for Telemanagement of Neuro-Imaging

Regents of the University of California, San Francisco
3333 California Street, Box 0962
San Francisco, CA 94143-0962
Principal Investigator: Ronald L. Arenson, M.D.
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3508
Total Estimated Cost: $1,542,874
Performance Period: 4/1/94 - 3/31/97

Objective: A high performance wide area network will be used to transmit neuro-radiology images for consultation, patient monitoring, and shared clinical management. The project will examine the patient outcomes which result from use of digital networks to transmit Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the brain and spinal cord.

Title: Iowa Testbed Network

The University of Iowa
100 Gilmore Hall
Iowa City, IA 52242
Principal Investigator: Michael Kienzle, M.D.
Telephone: 319-335-9915
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3511
Total Estimated Cost: $7,250,017
Performance Period: 4/1/94 - 3/31/97

Objective: This project will use the newly developed state-wide digital network in Iowa for creation of a Telecommunications Health Education Resource Center, linking of three hospital sites, improved information services for rural healthcare providers, and several telemedicine prototype systems.

CATEGORY: VIRTUAL REALITY FOR MEDICINE

Title: Organ Modeling in Support of Virtual Surgery Simulation

University of Pennsylvania
Office of Research Administration
133 South 36th Street, Suite 300
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Principal Investigator: N. Badler, M.D.
Telephone: 215-898-5862
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3515
Total Estimated Cost: $484,593
Performance Period: 3/1/94 - 2/28/96

Objective: This project will create and evaluate advanced computer simulations of human anatomic structure which support surgical planning and health professions education.

CATEGORY: COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR REAL TIME TREATMENT OF PATIENTS

Title: A Comprehensive Teledermatology Program

Oregon Health Sciences University
3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road
Portland, OR 97201
Principal Investigator: Douglas A. Perednia, M.D.
Telephone: 503-494-6846
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3516
Total Estimated Cost: $2,769,226
Performance Period: 4/1/94 - 9/30/97

Objective: Remote diagnosis of skin lesions via teleconsultation to underserved rural areas will be developed and tested in five primary care clinics in Oregon and Kansas.

Title: Implementation of a Teleradiology System to Enhance Consultative Services between Primary and Secondary Care Hospitals and a Tertiary Care Facility

University of Pittsburgh
Office of Research
350 Thackeray Hall
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Principal Investigator: Howard Yonas, M.D.
Telephone: 412-648-6815
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3505
Total Estimated Cost: $2,301,608
Performance Period: 4/1/94 - 3/31/97

Objective: This project will link six outlying hospitals in western Pennsylvania with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for teleradiology to improve neurosurgery, neurology, trauma and critical care. The impact of the system on patient outcomes will be studied.

Title: Collaboration Technology for Real-time Treatment of Patients in West Virginia

West Virginia University Research Corp. on Behalf of West Virginia University
213 Glennlock Hall, P.O. Box 6845
Morgantown, WV 26506-6845
Principal Investigator: Y. V. Reddy, Ph.D.
Telephone 304-293-7226
Contract No. NO1-LM-3-3525
Estimated Cost: $1,487,979 (Base Year)
Total Estimated Cost: $4,110,000
Performance Period: 9/30/93 - 10/1/94 (Base Year)
Total Performance Period: 9/30/93 - 10/1/96

Objective: A consortium of nine institutions led by the Concurrent Engineering Research Center of the University of West Virginia will build and evaluate a regional telemedicine system for rural areas of the state.

CATEGORY: INFORMATION ACCESS

Title: Linking Images to a Clinical Information System

University of Pittsburgh
Office of Research
350 Thackeray Hall
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Principal Investigator: Henry J. Lowe, M.D.
Telephone: 412-648-3190
Contract No. NO1-LM-4-3507
Total Estimated Cost: $1,199,134
Performance Period: 3/1/94 - 2/28/97

Objective: This project will develop an "Image Engine" system for storing, retrieving and sharing a wide range of clinically important images, integrating those images and dynamically linking them to data in the electronic record.