Center of Digital Knowledge for Public Health

This programme is premised on the finding that patients do not always benefit from the latest scientific research and medical discoveries; according to the dean of Saint Louis University School of Public Health, "It takes an average of 17 years to introduce newly discovered, effective clinical interventions in routine patient care...The latest research results and medical discoveries are released so rapidly that health practitioners cannot learn and implement the new information fast enough."

To address that problem, the Center uses information and communication technologies (ICTs) to facilitate and speed the exchange of new scientific data and experience. Activities include:

• Research - collection of electronic databases; information management for statewide and national use; satellite site for databases from agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Health, the Cancer Registry, and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).
• Education and Training - e-learning library for students, public health officers using ICTs such as audio files, live web-cast, and web development. The centre offers training opportunities in public health informatics, a science concerned with the gathering, manipulation, and storage of recorded health knowledge.
• Development of Virtual Reality and Interactive E-learning - interactive digital knowledge presentation and connectivity of clinical practice and public health databases.
• Data Storage - digital library of journals, files, and databases that are relevant to public health.

Health, Technology.

According to organisers, information and knowledge management are increasingly being recognised as essential ingredients of the future health system. ICTs, they claim, can help address pressing public health issues such as the threats of bioterorism, desire for more information while reducing paper work in disease surveillance, the shortage of scientifically sound and individually tailored health education, and the challenge of educating future professionals for a more interconnected and knowledge-oriented society.

Even so, partners argue that public health community members' efforts to use electronic data processing have been limited to centralised databases with restricted interaction and categorical applications that cannot easily be integrated into functional systems. Furthermore, public health professionals may not have the training and experience necessary to make strategic investment decisions about ICT, or to effectively implement information systems. Apparently, there is a lack of comprehensive and evident academic effort that electronically integrates public health knowledge responsive to the diverse needs of education, service, and research.

Kim Jones, vice president of global education and research for Sun Microsystems, opined that this centre "will provide educators and students the opportunity to contribute crucial information technology to the life sciences community."