[{"innerBlocks":[],"name":"core\/freeform","postId":902,"blockType":{"name":"core\/freeform","keywords":[],"attributes":{"content":{"type":"string","source":"raw"},"lock":{"type":"object"}},"providesContext":[],"usesContext":[],"selectors":[],"supports":{"className":false,"customClassName":false,"reusable":false},"styles":[],"variations":[],"apiVersion":3,"title":"Classic","description":"Use the classic WordPress editor.","category":"text"},"originalContent":"The University of Pittsburgh is leveraging information technology in two separate efforts aimed at tackling the growing threat to public health from infectious disease.

UPMC has launched a new company\u2014called Infectious Disease Connect\u2014designed to help U.S. hospitals address a nationwide shortage of physicians specializing in ID by providing them with telemedicine services.

Currently, ID Connect serves 10 UPMC and five non-UPMC hospitals in Pennsylvania and nearby states. However, the company is looking to focus on the more than 4,000 acute care hospitals nationally with fewer than 300 beds.

\u201cThese smaller facilities face an especially difficult time recruiting and retaining already scarce ID specialists,\u201d says co-founder Rima Abdel-Massih, MD, chief medical officer for the company and director of tele-ID services at UPMC. \u201cID Connect can cost-effectively provide ID specialists, full-time or part-time, to augment existing staff.\u201d

\u201cIt started about five years ago as a pilot within the Division of Infectious Diseases,\u201d notes David Zynn, president of ID Connect, which is part of UPMC Enterprises, the health system\u2019s innovation and commercialization arm. \u201cMarch 1, UPMC Enterprises invested in a new company\u2014ID Connect. We moved the contracts and the relationships from the pilot over to the commercial entity. We\u2019re now up and running, and looking to grow the business.\u201d

While Zynn says that ID Connect will initially target U.S. acute care hospitals, he observed that longer-term, the company plans to pursue post-acute care, patients at home following hospital discharge, as well as facilities in other countries. \u201cThere is an international opportunity and we\u2019re actually exploring that with the international division of UPMC,\u201d according to Zynn.

Also See<\/b>: Intermountain launches infectious diseases telehealth program<\/a>

In a separate initiative, the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health is developing a cloud-based platform to enable the scientific community to store, share, access and use massive libraries of ID data with high-performance computing.

Under a five-year, $6.7 million National Institutes of Health grant, Pitt Public Health will spearhead a multidisciplinary team of computer scientists, biostatisticians and biomedical informatics experts to direct the Network Coordination Center for the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS), a collaborative research network to assist the nation in preparing for ID threats.

\u201cThe scientific community is increasingly recognizing that sharing research data and software not only benefits individual research projects, but increases the impact of science and innovation on the greater good. However, nobody\u2019s figured out exactly how to do this for global infectious diseases,\u201d says Wilbert van Panhuis, MD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health and biomedical informatics at Pitt\u2019s School of Medicine, who will lead the new center.

\u201cWhat we\u2019re going to do is leverage that interest in \u2018open science\u2019 to create a framework that will make it easy to share, find and use research data and software to combat infectious diseases,\u201d adds Van Panhuis.

Initially, the MIDAS Network Coordination Center will focus on standardizing and uploading hundreds of existing ID datasets into its platform, as well as determining from scientists how data and software can optimally help their work.

\u201cOur hope is that after that first year, the MIDAS network will be able to demonstrate the benefits of open science and open data for making new discoveries,\u201d says Van Panhuis. \u201cWe\u2019ll also be going after new data ourselves, on behalf of MIDAS, collecting datasets from health organizations and government entities worldwide, so that the scientists have to spend less time obtaining data and can instead concentrate on making discoveries with it.\u201d","saveContent":"The University of Pittsburgh is leveraging information technology in two separate efforts aimed at tackling the growing threat to public health from infectious disease.

UPMC has launched a new company\u2014called Infectious Disease Connect\u2014designed to help U.S. hospitals address a nationwide shortage of physicians specializing in ID by providing them with telemedicine services.

Currently, ID Connect serves 10 UPMC and five non-UPMC hospitals in Pennsylvania and nearby states. However, the company is looking to focus on the more than 4,000 acute care hospitals nationally with fewer than 300 beds.

\u201cThese smaller facilities face an especially difficult time recruiting and retaining already scarce ID specialists,\u201d says co-founder Rima Abdel-Massih, MD, chief medical officer for the company and director of tele-ID services at UPMC. \u201cID Connect can cost-effectively provide ID specialists, full-time or part-time, to augment existing staff.\u201d

\u201cIt started about five years ago as a pilot within the Division of Infectious Diseases,\u201d notes David Zynn, president of ID Connect, which is part of UPMC Enterprises, the health system\u2019s innovation and commercialization arm. \u201cMarch 1, UPMC Enterprises invested in a new company\u2014ID Connect. We moved the contracts and the relationships from the pilot over to the commercial entity. We\u2019re now up and running, and looking to grow the business.\u201d

While Zynn says that ID Connect will initially target U.S. acute care hospitals, he observed that longer-term, the company plans to pursue post-acute care, patients at home following hospital discharge, as well as facilities in other countries. \u201cThere is an international opportunity and we\u2019re actually exploring that with the international division of UPMC,\u201d according to Zynn.

Also See<\/b>: Intermountain launches infectious diseases telehealth program<\/a>

In a separate initiative, the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health is developing a cloud-based platform to enable the scientific community to store, share, access and use massive libraries of ID data with high-performance computing.

Under a five-year, $6.7 million National Institutes of Health grant, Pitt Public Health will spearhead a multidisciplinary team of computer scientists, biostatisticians and biomedical informatics experts to direct the Network Coordination Center for the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS), a collaborative research network to assist the nation in preparing for ID threats.

\u201cThe scientific community is increasingly recognizing that sharing research data and software not only benefits individual research projects, but increases the impact of science and innovation on the greater good. However, nobody\u2019s figured out exactly how to do this for global infectious diseases,\u201d says Wilbert van Panhuis, MD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health and biomedical informatics at Pitt\u2019s School of Medicine, who will lead the new center.

\u201cWhat we\u2019re going to do is leverage that interest in \u2018open science\u2019 to create a framework that will make it easy to share, find and use research data and software to combat infectious diseases,\u201d adds Van Panhuis.

Initially, the MIDAS Network Coordination Center will focus on standardizing and uploading hundreds of existing ID datasets into its platform, as well as determining from scientists how data and software can optimally help their work.

\u201cOur hope is that after that first year, the MIDAS network will be able to demonstrate the benefits of open science and open data for making new discoveries,\u201d says Van Panhuis. \u201cWe\u2019ll also be going after new data ourselves, on behalf of MIDAS, collecting datasets from health organizations and government entities worldwide, so that the scientists have to spend less time obtaining data and can instead concentrate on making discoveries with it.\u201d","order":0,"get_parent":{},"attributes":[],"attributesType":{"content":{"type":"string","source":"raw"},"lock":{"type":"object"}},"dynamicContent":""}]

Pitt targets national, global infectious disease threats with tech initiatives

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