HIMSS Foundation establishes Dorenfest Institute

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Foundation has formed the Dorenfest Institute for Health Information Technology Research and Education (Dorenfest Institute).
   
According to HIMSS, the Dorenfest Institute will provide a variety of detailed historical data about information technology (IT) use in hospitals and integrated healthcare delivery networks at no charge to universities, students, U.S. federal, state and local governments using the data for research purposes, and collaborative efforts with governments of other countries.
   
The donated data include the entire library of Dorenfest 3000+ Databases and Dorenfest Integrated Healthcare Delivery System Databases for the period 1986 through 2002 as well as many publications on IT used in the healthcare industry during that same time period.
   
HIMSS said it will work with student members and chapters of the organization as well as the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) to contact academic researchers, faculty and students regarding the availability and use of the free data.

A library, located at the HIMSS office in Alexandria, Va., will house historical healthcare IT data that has been collected in annual printed updates.
   
The Dorenfest Institute will distribute applicable research updates including an annual year-end report as well as student and faculty research available for publication through the institute. The Dorenfest 3000+ Databases and The Dorenfest Integrated Healthcare Delivery System Databases, annual IT market reports, research documents and other historical data will be available electronically at no charge for use by beneficiaries of the Dorenfest Institute through request of the HIMSS office in Chicago. HIMSS Analytics will provide annual updates to the institute beginning in July 2005.
   
For more information on the Dorenfest Institute, contact epantuso@himss.org.

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