Translational research informatics

Last updated

Translational research informatics (TRI) is a sister domain to or a sub-domain of biomedical informatics or medical informatics concerned with the application of informatics theory and methods to translational research. There is some overlap with the related domain of clinical research informatics, but TRI is more concerned with enabling multi-disciplinary research to accelerate clinical outcomes, with clinical trials often being the natural step beyond translational research.

Contents

Translational research as defined by the National Institutes of Health includes two areas of translation. One is the process of applying discoveries generated during research in the laboratory, and in preclinical studies, to the development of trials and studies in humans. The second area of translation concerns research aimed at enhancing the adoption of best practices in the community. Cost-effectiveness of prevention and treatment strategies is also an important part of translational research.

Overview

Translational research informatics can be described as "an integrated software solution to manage the: (i) logistics, (ii) data integration, and (iii) collaboration, required by translational investigators and their supporting institutions". It is the class of informatics systems that sits between and often interoperates with: (i) health information technology/electronic medical record systems, (ii) CTMS/clinical research informatics, and (iii) statistical analysis and data mining.

Translational research informatics is relatively new, with most CTSA awardee academic medical centers actively acquiring and integrating systems to enable the end-to-end TRI requirements. One advanced TRI system is being implemented at the Windber Research Institute in collaboration with GenoLogics and InforSense. Translational Research Informatics systems are expected to rapidly develop and evolve over the next couple of years.

Systems

System TypeDescription of System
Translational Study ManagementSystems to manage investigator lead biomarker validation studies / outcomes / observational studies.
Electronic Patient QuestionnairesWeb based forms for capturing participant demographic, condition, treatment, and outcomes information.
Clinical Information ManagementSystems to integrate clinical annotations extracted from various sources systems, like HL7 electronic medical records, cancer registries, clinical data management systems, and clinical data warehouses.
Biorepository Management SystemsManage biospecimens derived from study participants, operating rooms, etc.
Laboratory information management systems Systems to manage clinical, analytical, and life sciences core technology laboratories – often conducting genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, molecular imaging, peptide synthesis, flow cytometry, etc.
Systems Biology / Science Data ManagementA data base and content management system to archive raw instrument files and database science results data.
Research Collaboration System [1] [ circular reference ] [2] A software solution to enable investigators and their research teams to share project information, results data, and insights.

CTRI-dedicated wiki

Further discussion of this domain can be found at the Clinical Research Informatics Wiki (CRI Wiki), a wiki dedicated to issues in clinical and translational research informatics.

See also

Related Research Articles

Health informatics discipline at the intersection of information science, computer science, and health care

Health informatics is information engineering applied to the field of health care, essentially the management and use of patient health care information. It is a multidisciplinary field that uses health information technology (HIT) to improve health care via any combination of higher quality, higher efficiency, and new opportunities. The disciplines involved include information science, computer science, social science, behavioral science, management science, and others. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) defines health informatics as "the interdisciplinary study of the design, development, adoption and application of IT-based innovations in health care services delivery, management and planning". It deals with the resources, devices, and methods required to optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information in health and bio-medicine. Health informatics tools include computers, clinical guidelines, formal medical terminologies, and information and communication systems, among others. It is applied to the areas of nursing, clinical medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, occupational therapy, physical therapy, biomedical research, and alternative medicine, all of which are designed to improve the overall of effectiveness of patient care delivery by ensuring that the data generated is of a high quality.

Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech Research organization for computational biology and related fields

The Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech is a research organization specializing in bioinformatics, computational biology, and systems biology. The Institute has more than 250 personnel, including over 50 tenured and research faculty. Research at the Institute involves collaboration in diverse disciplines such as mathematics, computer science, biology, plant pathology, biochemistry, systems biology, statistics, economics, synthetic biology and medicine. The institute develops -omic and bioinformatic tools and databases that can be applied to the study of human, animal and plant diseases as well as the discovery of new vaccine, drug and diagnostic targets.

A clinical decision support system (CDSS) is a health information technology system that is designed to provide physicians and other health professionals with clinical decision support (CDS), that is, assistance with clinical decision-making tasks. A working definition has been proposed by Robert Hayward of the Centre for Health Evidence: "Clinical decision support systems link health observations with health knowledge to influence health choices by clinicians for improved health care". CDSSs constitute a major topic in artificial intelligence in medicine.

UC San Diego Health Hospital in San Diego, California

UC San Diego Health is the academic health system of the University of California, San Diego in San Diego, California. It is the only academic health system serving San Diego and has one of only two adult Level I trauma centers in the region. In operation since 1966, it comprises the UC San Diego Medical Center in Hilcrest as well as the; Jacobs Medical Center; Moores Cancer Center; Shiley Eye Institute; Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, and Koman Family Outpatient Pavilion, all in La Jolla. It also includes several outpatient sites located throughout San Diego County. The health system works closely with the university's School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy to provide training to medical and pharmacy students and advanced clinical care to patients.

Translational medicine is defined by the European Society for Translational Medicine (EUSTM) as "an interdisciplinary branch of the biomedical field supported by three main pillars: benchside, bedside, and community". The goal of TM is to combine disciplines, resources, expertise, and techniques within these pillars to promote enhancements in prevention, diagnosis, and therapies. Accordingly, translational medicine is a highly interdisciplinary field, the primary goal of which is to coalesce assets of various natures within the individual pillars in order to improve the global healthcare system significantly.

The cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) was a US government program to develop an open-source, open access information network called caGrid for secure data exchange on cancer research. The initiative was developed by the National Cancer Institute and was maintained by the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT). In 2011 a report on caBIG raised significant questions about effectiveness and oversight, and its budget and scope were significantly trimmed. In May 2012, the National Cancer Informatics Program (NCIP) was created as caBIG's successor program.

The Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) is a standards developing organization (SDO) dealing with medical research data linked with healthcare, to "enable information system interoperability to improve medical research and related areas of healthcare". The standards supports medical research from protocol through analysis and reporting of results and have been shown to decrease resources needed by 60% overall and 70–90% in the start-up stages when they are implemented at the beginning of the research process.

The Duke University School of Medicine along with the Duke University School of Nursing and Duke University Health System create Duke Health. Established in 1925 by James B. Duke, the School of Medicine has earned its reputation as an integral part of one of the world's foremost patient care and biomedical research institutions.

Clinical research is a branch of healthcare science that determines the safety and effectiveness (efficacy) of medications, devices, diagnostic products and treatment regimens intended for human use. These may be used for prevention, treatment, diagnosis or for relieving symptoms of a disease. Clinical research is different from clinical practice. In clinical practice established treatments are used, while in clinical research evidence is collected to establish a treatment.

Health informatics in China is about the Health informatics or Medical informatics or Healthcare information system/technology in China.

Translational research – a term often used interchangeably with translational medicine or translational science or bench to bedside – is an effort to build on basic scientific research to create new therapies, medical procedures, or diagnostics. Basic biomedical research is based on studies of disease processes using, for example, cell cultures or animal models. The adjective "translational" refers to the "translation" of basic scientific findings in a laboratory setting into potential treatments for disease.

REDCap is a browser-based, metadata-driven EDC software and workflow methodology for designing clinical and translational research databases. It is widely used in the academic research community: the REDCap Consortium is a collaborative, international network of more than 2400 institutional partners in over 115 countries, with more than 590,000 total end-users employing the software for more than 450,000 ongoing research studies.

Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine

The Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) is one of three interdisciplinary research centres at the University of Luxembourg. Since September 2011, the LCSB is based on the new university campus Esch-Belval.

National Institutes of Health Clinical Center hospital in Maryland, United States

The NIH Clinical Center is a hospital solely dedicated to clinical research at the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The Clinical Center, known as Building 10, consists of the original part of the hospital, the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center, and the newest addition, the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center. The two parts are connected to form one large building.

Translational bioinformatics (TBI) is an emerging field in the study of health informatics, focused on the convergence of molecular bioinformatics, biostatistics, statistical genetics and clinical informatics. Its focus is on applying informatics methodology to the increasing amount of biomedical and genomic data to formulate knowledge and medical tools, which can be utilized by scientists, clinicians, and patients. Furthermore, it involves applying biomedical research to improve human health through the use of computer-based information system. TBI employs data mining and analyzing biomedical informatics in order to generate clinical knowledge for application. Clinical knowledge includes finding similarities in patient populations, interpreting biological information to suggest therapy treatments and predict health outcomes.

Christopher G. Chute American medical researcher

Christopher G. Chute is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University, physician-scientist and biomedical informatician known for biomedical terminologies and health information technology (IT) standards. He chairs the World Health Organization Revision Steering Group for the revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).

Patrick Schöffski German oncologist

Patrick Schöffski is a medical doctor specializing in internal medicine, hematology and medical oncology. He originates from Hannover, Germany, where he also received a master's degree in public health at Hannover Medical School.

Translational Research Institute (Australia)

The Translational Research Institute (TRI) is Australia’s first translational medical research institute dedicated to translating scientific discoveries into applications for medical practice.

Dipak Kalra President of the European Institute for Health Records and of the European Institute for Innovation through Health Data

Dipak Kalra is President of the European Institute for Health Records and of the European Institute for Innovation through Health Data. He undertakes international research and standards development, and advises on adoption strategies, relating to Electronic Health Records.

Brisbane Diamantina Health Partners (BDHP) is the first Advanced Health Research Translation Centre in Queensland, Australia. The organisation’s purpose is to strengthen the linkages between healthcare, research and education in order to deliver better health outcomes for the community. By encouraging and supporting collaboration, BDHP assists the translation and integration of cutting-edge research and innovation into healthcare delivery.

References