Penn Medicine is launching a new health informatics center this fall that will focus on health data projects across the Philadelphia-based health system's innovation and information services departments, the health system said July 26.
The Center for Applied Health Informatics aims to develop the information infrastructure that Penn Medicine needs to become more of a high-reliability organization, or an entity that operates in high-risk environments with very little error.
In addition to Penn Medicine's information services and healthcare innovation center, the health system's following groups are also set to collaborate with the new center: clinical effectiveness and quality improvement, center for evidence-based practice, EHR transformation team, biomedical informatics center and Penn Computer Science.
"Establishing this center is another bold step forward toward making advancements in patient care and accelerating research efforts," Penn Medicine CIO Michael Restuccia said in the news release. "One exciting prospect is the center potentially being able to leverage its unique clinical informatics resources in combination with valuable genetic data for the benefit of our patients."
In its first year, the center will focus on two main projects: telehealth expansion and Penn Medicine's evolving needs in its pandemic response.