Guest post by Allison Dennis, PhD, Program Officer for the Division of Extramural Programs, National Library of Medicine.
The National Library of Medicine Division of Extramural Programs (EP) oversees NLM’s extramural research investments. One area that NLM invests in is using informatics methodologies and tools to understand and improve the way health care is delivered and health overall. In the ever-evolving health care landscape, the intersection of technology and research plays a pivotal role in advancing patient care and outcomes.
Two closely related yet different domains within this intersection are Clinical Informatics Research and Clinical Research Informatics. While their names may sound similar, these fields encompass different foci and methodologies. NLM funds research in both of these areas as they contribute to our mission in distinct ways.
Clinical Informatics Research
Clinical Informatics Research involves the study of information management and technology applications within health care settings. This research focuses on optimizing the use of information to improve patient care, streamline health care processes, and enhance overall system efficiency. Researchers in this field delve into topics such as electronic health records (EHRs), health information exchange, data interoperability, and the design and implementation of clinical decision support (CDS) systems. NLM’s interest in Clinical Informatics Research contrasts with that of other NIH institutes and centers because it seeks to unleash the broad potential of data and informatics to improve health care in general.
NLM supports many grants in the field of Clinical Informatics Research. These include NLM-supported research that is:
- Establishing an informatics framework to improve and automate the referral process between primary care providers and specialists
- Advancing automated documentation algorithms that interpret the dialogue between patients and clinicians, generate relevant encounter summaries, and develop new and improved ways to capture what happened during a visit
- Developing an adaptive CDS system that can adapt to variations in clinician fatigue levels in emergency departments
These studies have considerable potential to make health care more efficient and equitable. Their innovative data science and informatics approaches may improve health care transitions for patients, alleviate clinicians’ documentation burden, offer new ways to study implicit bias in clinical encounters, provide foundational knowledge for creating health information technology that adapts to clinicians and patients, and inform guidelines for the design and implementation of more responsive systems. Through investments in Clinical Informatics Research projects like these and the new and exciting ways they can improve health care delivery, NLM is excited to continue advancing its strategic priorities for enabling a future of data-powered health.
Clinical Research Informatics
Clinical Research Informatics is centered around leveraging informatics methodologies to enhance the research processes by introducing new paradigms for discovery and knowledge management. This field aims to innovate how data are harnessed to characterize, predict, prevent, diagnose, and treat disease more efficiently and accurately. As such, many NIH institutes and centers invest in Clinical Research Informatics research as it relates to particular health topics. However, NLM is uniquely interested in projects that provide broad and generalizable insights applicable to and relevant across disease domains.
Some of the many NLM-supported Clinical Research Informatics projects are:
- Tailoring innovative information retrieval methods to handle complex EHR data for cohort discovery
- Improving the generalizability of clinical trial findings to real-world populations through the development of new causal and statistical methods that address biases in cluster trials
- Creating risk prediction models that can learn from medical codes commonly found in the EHR and reduce the need for annotation from experts
These studies have the potential to enhance the data-driven capabilities of health-related research. They are developing domain-independent and reusable methods for leveraging data and models to design stronger clinical trials, better understanding and applying the knowledge generated from clinical trials in the real world, and using EHRs for precision medicine research. Through investments in Clinical Research Informatics, including projects like these, NLM continues to advance its strategic priorities for enabling a future of biomedical discovery.
Appreciating the Distinction, Funding Both
Both Clinical Informatics Research and Clinical Research Informatics play important roles in advancing health care delivery, improving patient outcomes, and driving innovation in health care. On one hand, Clinical Informatics Research focuses on optimizing the use of information technology in clinical settings to enhance workflow efficiency, patient safety, and communication among health care professionals. On the other, Clinical Research Informatics enables the efficient collection, analysis, and interpretation of vast amounts of data, facilitating evidence-based decision-making, and the development of new treatments and interventions. Together, these interdisciplinary fields contribute to the continuous evolution of health care practices, ultimately leading to better patient care and health outcomes. NLM is committed to supporting both Clinical Informatics Research and Clinical Research Informatics studies that elucidate and address the complex challenges facing modern health care systems and ensure the delivery of high-quality, patient-centered, and data-informed care.
Are You a Researcher with Innovative Ideas?
We encourage researchers interested in advancing data-driven capabilities and developing novel approaches to Clinical Informatics Research and Clinical Research Informatics to consider applying for NLM Research Grants in Biomedical Informatics and Data Science. Please reach out to an NLM Program Officer. We are always happy to discuss the scope of a potential project and appreciate the opportunity to review draft specific aims.
Now is the perfect time to become part of the NLM-supported community that is creating the cutting-edge technologies needed to improve patient care and enhance health care delivery while advancing our ability to study and understand human health.
Allison Dennis, PhD
Program Officer, Division of Extramural ProgramsDr. Dennis serves as the scientific contact for Bioinformatics, Translational Informatics, Personal Health Informatics, and the SBIR/STTR program in the NLM Extramural Research Program. Prior to joining NLM, Dr. Dennis was a Technical Lead in the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy, where she oversaw initiatives in artificial intelligence, and a Health Informatics Officer with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, where she advanced health IT standards for scientific discovery. Dr. Dennis holds a PhD in Biology from Johns Hopkins University. She has nearly a decade of experience conducting data-driven biomedical research in the NIH Intramural Research Program.