Boston Medical Center Wins Federal Grant For Health Disparities Research

Recombinant Data Corp. selected to deliver informatics platform

BOSTON & NEWTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Boston Medical Center (BMC), today announced that it has been awarded a Grand Opportunities (GO) grant by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant will allow researchers to study disparities in cardiovascular health based on racial, ethnic, gender, language, socioeconomic, and geographic factors, including the impact of healthcare reform and the economic downturn in relation to these factors. The research study will be supported by patient data from BMC and the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), as well as an informatics platform and data warehouse implementation from Recombinant Data Corp.

“Collaborative informatics efforts such as ours have the potential to transform the way we study and understand health and healthcare both locally and across the country”

“Healthcare reform in Massachusetts has drawn national attention, but little is known about the impact of reform on patients of differing economic and ethnic backgrounds,” noted Nancy Kressin, Associate Professor of Medicine and co-principal investigator of the project at Boston Medical Center. “This study will specifically focus on patients with or at risk for cardiovascular disease to further our understanding of how healthcare reform and the economic downturn have affected health outcomes for different population groups.”

A vital technological component of the research study is the i2b2 Workbench, an NIH-funded open source informatics framework that enables researchers at BMC and UMMS to access large scale de-identified patient data for aggregate-level analysis. This component of the work will be led by William G. Adams, MD, co-principal investigator, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Director of BU-CTSI Clinical Research Informatics at Boston University School of Medicine/BMC.

“Collaborative informatics efforts such as ours have the potential to transform the way we study and understand health and healthcare both locally and across the country,” said Adams.

“UMass Medical School was a national leader in adopting i2b2 as part of our MICARD translational research project,” said Ralph Zottola, PhD, Associate CIO, UMass Medical School. “i2b2 presents a radical advance in the ability to use clinical data for translational research and disparities monitoring while adhering to the utmost privacy protection for patients.”

Recombinant Data Corp., the commercial support provider for the i2b2 platform, specializes in the tools and techniques necessary to integrate and de-identify healthcare data from disparate source systems into data warehouses for secondary use and analytics.

“Recombinant is pleased to support BMC and UMMS in this ground-breaking disparities research project,” stated Peter Emerson, CEO, Recombinant Data Corp. “Having previously implemented i2b2 at each institution, we have a significant head start in delivering the expert technical assistance required to ensure this unique research collaboration succeeds.”

About Boston Medical Center

Boston Medical Center (BMC) is a private, not-for-profit, 625-licensed bed academic medical center located in Boston’s historic South End. The hospital is the principal teaching affiliate for Boston University School of Medicine. Emphasizing community based care, BMC is a partner with 15 Boston HealthNet health centers located in neighborhoods throughout Boston. BMC’s mission is to provide the highest quality health care services to all and fulfill our pledge to provide "exceptional care without exception" to every patient regardless of their social status or ability to pay. For more information on Boston Medical Center, visit http://bmc.org.

About the University of Massachusetts Medical School

The University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) attracts more than $200 million in research funding annually, and its innovative programs are the centerpiece of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Initiative. Consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the leading medical schools in the nation for primary care education, UMMS comprises a medical school, graduate school of nursing, graduate school of biomedical sciences and an active research enterprise, and is a leader in health sciences education, research and public service. UMMS is the academic partner of UMass Memorial Health Care. For more information, visit www.umassmed.edu.

About Recombinant Data Corp.

Recombinant provides leading-edge data warehousing and clinical intelligence solutions to healthcare providers, academic medical centers, and life sciences researchers to deliver higher quality outcomes, accelerate personalized medicine, and lower costs. Our team of industry veterans is focused on improving the flow of reliable data to power clinical and research applications in a secure, compliant environment. For more information about Recombinant’s products and services, visit www.recomdata.com.