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About ITI
What We Are?
The Indiana Telemedicine Incubator (ITI)
is a multidisciplinary consortium for the development of distributed, multimedia
database technology for the health care industry. It will develop technologies
for which there are critical needs in all major areas of telemedicine:
consultation, diagnosis, and administration.
This consortium is
broad-based, including researchers, practitioners, educators, service providers,
and product developers. This community will enable a perpetual process of
research, development and return on investment (ROI). The Indiana Telemedicine
Incubator (ITI) is, therefore, in formation as a perpetual entity -- not a fixed
length project. Its goals are, therefore, articulated around a set of processes.
Our initial funding is from the 21st Century Research &
Technology Fund of the State of Indiana.
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What We Do?
The ITI is leveraging the latest
research and technologies to create a world-class telemedicine research,
development, and delivery infrastructure; and to foster economic development
opportunities through an aggressive technology commercialization program.
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The Need for ITI
Challenges remain in managing medical
data because they exist in many formats, some are not compatible with
traditional database systems, and they present serious security and privacy
requirements.
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Our Initial Project
The initial idea for incubation will be
a system called InterMed, a distributed, multimedia database system and
network infrastructure to support health care delivery, clinical trial
management, and medical education. InterMed will address a critical set of
patient and market needs; it is a project that best leverages the collective
expertise and resources of consortium members; and it offers the widest range
of economic development opportunities for telemedicine in Indiana at this
time.
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The objective of this project is to leverage and integrate the ongoing
research efforts of consortium members to produce a set of applications that serve the needs of health care
providers, educators and
researchers and that have other potential applications beyond medical care.
The resulting system will be
made available as unique resources to the state of Indiana, and will be
transformed into economic
resources through additional productization and additional research funding.
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Impacts
- Economic Impact:
Health care is a trillion dollar industry. Telemedicine will become a
multi-billion industry -- through the help of Internet and other new
technologies. The clinical trial industry represents a multi-billion dollar
industry that could apply telemedicine technologies to reduce costs. Our
consortium can capitalize on these opportunities and produce commercial
products through its work on the InterMed system. Economic growth will be
generated through aggressive commercialization of the results of this
project.
- High Financial
Leveraging: Several federal government initiatives exist in the area of
advanced information technologies (IT). NSF
has launched a $90 million
program in IT research and a presidential panel has issued the PITAC report
that indicates the significant impact of IT on the US economy and societal
applications such as medicine and health care. It recommends a significant
increase in IT funding and its applications. The 21st Century Research &
Technology Fund is the only vehicle to leverage these resources and provide
the large cost sharing required. Members of this consortium have
demonstrated the ability to attract large-scale funding from the government
and industry, including a $2.2 million infrastructure grant from NSF
$1.5
million from the Army, $2 million equipment grants from NSF and Intel
corporation, and several smaller grants.
- Collaboration:
This consortium is an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional
collaboration among key public and private organizations in Indiana. It
consists of leaders in research, medicine, technology transfer, business,
and distance learning from Purdue
University; University of Notre
Dame;
Clarian Health Network; Indiana University School of
Medicine; Indiana Center for Medical Education;
- Med Institute, Incorporated; Micro
Data Base Systems, Inc.; and the Indiana Health Industry
Forum.
- Development of
long-term resources: This project will create a unique and permanent
telemedicine test bed facility in the state of Indiana for future product
development. It will consist of a telemedicine multimedia database system,
network facilities, and distance diagnostic and educational facilities.
- Project
assessment: This proposal is the result of a careful analysis of
telemedicine needs and market opportunities, made in direct consultation
with consortium members. Members have extensive experience in the use and
development of telemedicine and related technologies. The results of this
project will be assessed continuously through peer review, requirements
analyses, multiple user trials, post-trial market analyses, and technology
intelligence gathering.
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