With the intent to both improve and expand the use of health information technologies – by no means limited to EHRs – Johns Hopkins has introduced a new center focusing on population health IT.
To create the Johns Hopkins Center for Population Health IT (CPHIT), the school essentially rolled together faculty concentrating on public health, medicine, informatics, computer science, business and systems engineering.
“We are currently witnessing the most expansive digitalization of health care in history,” said Jonathan Weiner, CPHIT's director, in a statement. “Over the coming decade, electronic health records, personal health records and other e-health applications will completely transform healthcare in the U.S. and around the world.”
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That's why the center aims to help private organizations and public health agencies make use of existing and emerging health IT tools to, in CPHIT’s words, “increase the efficiency and equity of healthcare delivery.”
Toward that end, the new center is also kicking off the CPHIT Industry Partners Program to ultimately forge partnerships with private entities that offer financial support and receive access to CPHIT’s research and development, including new technologies.
“We believe [CPHIT] will ultimately change the way population health is perceived, documented and addressed in the U.S.,” said Steve Sabino, president of DST Health Solutions, the founding member of the partners program.
The Center for Population Health IT will be part of JHU’s Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Health, Policy, and Management.
“Today the focus is clinicians using these systems to treat the individual patient,” said Weiner. “Our center wants to extend this focus to enable public health agencies and accountable provider or payer organizations to also harness these health IT systems to create solutions for the many population health issues facing our nation.”
