Author: Jon Merz
Date: 08-13-04 13:03
Source: Healthcare IT news
URL: http://www.healthcareitnews.com/NewsArticleView.aspx?ContentID=1275
Date published: August 9th 2004
from Sheri Alpert:
Daily News - August 9, 2004 - Monday
South Carolina data-sharing project in the works
Source: Healthcare IT News / Author: Fred Bazzoli, Managing editor
Four academic medical organizations in South Carolina are starting a cooperative effort to share data about clinical trial research.
Called the South Carolina Health Sciences Collaborative, the initiative is intended to be the starting point for data sharing in the state.
The exchange of data is intended to increase the state's stature as a place to conduct medical research, said Frank Clark, CIO and vice president at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston. Also participating in the effort are Greenville (S.C.) Hospital System, and Palmetto Health and University of South Carolina, both of Columbia.
"South Carolina is such that we can accomplish something like this because it's not an overly large state with no dominant metropolitan area and no dominant healthcare provider," Clark said. "Once you get some successes (in sharing research data), then other kinds of things will follow."
By providing a diverse patient population that can be easily tapped by medical researchers because of the accessibility of data, the state hopes to attract more medical research interest in the state.
Efforts to organize the data-sharing initiative are just beginning, Clark said. CIOs of the four medical centers are still trying to determine the best technological approach for sharing data, he said. There is no target date for when the network could be operational.
©2004 MedTech Publishing Company, LLC
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