The Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMi) helps researchers and clinicians take full advantage of the potential inherent within the abundance of diverse biomedical data.

CBMi researchers and staff conduct three general types of activities:

• CBMi Services
• Fundamental Support Programs
• Faculty-driven Research

The combination of these comprehensive activities assures that we provide expert services to the Children's Hospital research community, that we remain recognized leaders in the field of biomedical informatics, and that we grow our informatics capabilities in the future with leading-edge research activities that translate to clinical practice improvements.

CBMi Services: CBMi offers a set of data-driven services that comprehensively meet researchers' data needs, from data accrual and curation to analysis and interpretation. All or any of these services are available to Children's Hospital researchers and serve as the primary mechanisms with which CBMi engages researchers in their daily activities. Three service groups provide highly valuable services to our researchers:

• Pediatrics Research Consortium (PeRC): The PeRC staff facilitates access for researchers to the Hospital's Practice-based Research Network (PBRN), a collection of Specialty Care Centers, Primary Care Centers, Ambulatory Surgery Centers, and the Kids First pediatric and adolescent primary care practices. The group's services include site and patient recruitment for research protocols and general research coordination activities necessary for smooth interaction with the PBRN.
• Clinical Reporting Unit (CRU): The staff of the CRU provides data retrieval services to the Children's Hospital research community. CRU staff members expertly navigate the complex Hospital biomedical database schemas to deliver high-quality data that is relevant to research questions. Their knowledge of the inner workings of clinical practice and how it is modeled within the Hospital's information systems is integral to providing a "stamp of approval" for every research activity.
• Bioinformatics Core (BiC): The BiC staff offers a variety of bioinformatics analysis services, including expert expression microarray, sequence, and copy number variation analyses. In addition, the BiC offers analysis software support and maintenance and mediates access to a large cluster of central processing units appropriate for complex biomedical modeling or simulations.

CBMi Fundamental Support Programs: The individuals providing services to our researchers are also leading efforts in the more general biomedical data community. Administration of education and outreach programs, leadership in biomedical data policy initiatives, and overall stewardship of Children's Hospital data for research purposes allow us to better serve our investigators and protect our patients' health data. A selection of these programs is presented below:

• Education/Outreach
• Internship programs
• Colloquium series
• Seminar series
• Informatics Literature Interactions
• CME Credit Program
• Data Stewardship
• Biomedical database models
• Health attribute structuring
• Data quality issues
• Data integration
• Data consistency
• Biomedical Informatics Industry Initiatives
• Represent interests of child healthcare
• Develop standards
• Develop public policy
• Establish data access criteria
• Conduct data de-identification
• Maintain proper usage controls

CBMi Faculty Research: Our faculty researchers reflect the diversity of biomedical informatics at Children's Hospital, having career-long expertise from a variety of biomedical backgrounds. This multi-disciplinary research initiative serves as the cornerstone of future development of biomedical informatics at Children's Hospital. In addition, our faculty actively ensures that CBMi programs serve the custom data needs associated with our child patient population. A selection of research projects is presented below:

• Clinical Practice Optimization From Biomedical Data
• Optimization of health practice using historical clinical data
• Decision support in information systems
• Improvement of pediatric-specific outcome measures
• Modeling of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics using historical medication data
• Clinical Communication Practices
• Improving communication between physicians and children
• Next-generation technologies for clinical communication practices
• Genomic and Genetic Research
• Copy number variation identification
• Whole-genome association for childhood congenital defects

For a full listing of our faculty researchers and descriptions of their interests, click here.