NIH awards $9.23M in informatics grants

The John E. Fogarty International Center, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in Bethesda, Md., will award more than $9.23 million to eight global health informatics programs over the next five years.

The NIH is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases

Fogarty's Informatics Training for Global Health program is intended to increase informatics expertise in low- and middle-income countries by training scientists to design information systems and apply computer-supported management and analysis to biomedical research.

The grants are being awarded to both new and ongoing informatics programs at various international sites in Columbia, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, India, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Participating with Fogarty as NIH funding partners in the informatics training program are the National Library of Medicine and the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Around the web

Positron, a New York-based nuclear imaging company, will now provide Upbeat Cardiology Solutions with advanced PET/CT systems and services. 

The nuclear imaging isotope shortage of molybdenum-99 may be over now that the sidelined reactor is restarting. ASNC's president says PET and new SPECT technologies helped cardiac imaging labs better weather the storm.

CMS has more than doubled the CCTA payment rate from $175 to $357.13. The move, expected to have a significant impact on the utilization of cardiac CT, received immediate praise from imaging specialists.