This strategic plan to manage our information resources is meant to provide all institutional stakeholders with a clear, high-level view of the information systems and strategies. It serves as both a roadmap and justification for the resources that VUMC will invest in biomedical informatics and information systems.

The ultimate customers for information management services are diverse. Internal customers include attending physicians and house staff, patient care staff, ancillary service staff, billing staff, affiliated health care providers, patient care center leadership, business development and marketing staff, quality improvement project staff, research investigators and their support staff, medical and nursing students and other learners, and the administrative leadership of each organizational unit. External customers include patients and their families, other current or potential health care consumers, referring physicians and other health care providers, payers, regulators, employers, attorneys, sponsors of grants and contracts, collaborators in educational and research initiatives, other governmental and community agencies, and bench marking partners.

Strategic Vision Statement

Our strategic information vision is built on two premises. First, that the current US health care system needs to be transformed and that informatics/information is a major component in that transformation. Second, that the world’s information resources are moving more and more toward being all digital. The convergence of these statements leads to our vision.

Our vision at Vanderbilt University Medical Center is to create a completely transformed health care system whose information and information resources are completely integrated with a seamless flow of clinical and research information to support education, clinical care and research.

In order to accomplish our strategic vision we envision that it will be information and informatics that will be one of the cornerstones in the transformation of our medical center, therefore our over arching goal is to be the transformation cornerstone for this transformation.

Goals

1. To achieve the maximum beneficial use of information and information technology in support of VUMC's missions and strategic directions.

• Align information management priorities with VUMC's strategic directions in patient care, education, and research.
  
• Coordinate information technology investments across the Medical Center.
  
• Provide a unifying information architecture to maximize integration.
  
• Assure data integrity and confidentiality.
  
• Evaluate the impact of information management techniques and technologies.
  
• Teach members of the VUMC community how to use information management technology in their daily activities.
  
• Integrate information among different systems to support decision-making and increase operational efficiency.
  
• Develop a staff skilled in technology, project management and change management.

• Coordinate development of core and departmental databases to ensure benefit to the institution as a whole.
  
• Develop standard data definitions and adhere to them across systems.
  
• Support one-time capture of data at the point of its creation.
  
• Develop and maintain documentation of system interface requirements and a plan to support them.
  
• Maintain sharable documentation of information technology resources (e.g., personal computers, networks, CD-ROM drives, modems, types of wiring, computer "gurus," etc.) in each department.

• Provide connectivity to facilitate communication and allow access to data and expertise at the time and place it is needed.
  
• Create a digital library of information and information technology-based tools, whether of local or global origin.

• Evaluate, recommend, implement, and support technological approaches to streamline and enhance VUMC's patient care, research, and education processes.
  
• Provide tools to support the redesign of work processes.
  
• Support information-based decision making.
  
• Implement clinical systems to improve quality, efficiency and to reduce the potential for medical errors.