The University of Dundee is to provide a focus for research on social dimensions of health with the establishment of a new Centre for Health Informatics in partnership with Tayside Primary Care Trust. The £1.8 million initiative will bring together anonymised data from a range of health projects and sources creating a pool of secure information for research and its translation into practice.
The project is one of three successful initiatives from the University of Dundee to have secured a total of £8,196,000 under this round of the Science Research Investment Fund.
The Centre for Health Informatics will be built at the Ninewells site, close to the University's Tayside Centre for General Practice. Research groups within the centre will include the Dental Health Services Research Unit (DHSRU) as well as medical scientists working on asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, drug safety, genetic epidemiology and health technology including the impact of information technology on health. The interaction between biological, clinical and social scientists will facilitate the study of different aspects of health within the same population and research is also expected to lead to the identification of new targets for biotechnology and the development of better treatments and healthcare.
The project is being led by Professor Peter Davey of the Medicines Monitoring Unit, a research group involving the University's Departments of Clinical Pharmacology, General Practice and Medicine. Professor Davey said:
"Health care information is an extremely valuable resource with a wide range of applications. We are incredibly fortunate in Tayside to have superb collaboration between colleagues working for NHS Tayside and the University of Dundee. This will allow the centre to bring together information about health AND to look at ways at how to manage it in the most effective way.
Health informatics has the potential to revolutionise healthcare by improving research that will have direct benefits for the treatment of patients.
"The Centre will help Scotland to develop solutions to the ethical and technical barriers to realising the full research value of health data. In future Scotland will be able to conduct long-term studies of health in a population of 5,000,000 people using highly efficient methods for data management. In the short term the centre will be highly attractive to biotechnology companies seeking to identify promising targets for innovation."
Dental Health Services Research Unit (DHSRU) Director Professor Pitts said "This is an excellent step forward for DHSRU and will allow us to further our mission to improve oral health and effective dental healthcare. The new expanded facilities will enable DHSRU to both take forward its work on dental services, dental caries and dental practice, and also explore the interactions between dental health and other health indicators. This research will allow us to identify potential targets for new treatments to improve dental and/or general health".
The project has been made possible by the award of grants from the Science Research Investment Fund and the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. DHSRU is core-funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Executive Health Department.
One of the key foundation stones on which the new Dundee centre is based, is the capacity to link information from primary or secondary care for each individual. Scotland is already far ahead of England and Wales, the US and most of Europe in health informatics because of this, but only in Tayside is the linking fully implemented in all health activities. MEMO has already shown how useful this resource is for research to establish an international reputation for work on drug safety and through the DARTS project on diabetes. The Centre for Health Informatics will provide purpose built new facilities to expand the range of projects and attract new researchers to realise Tayside's unique opportunities.
The centre will be geared to handle sensitive health data in a secure system, linking information on dental health for example with medical data. "This could mean that, say, data collected from volunteers recruited for a study into tooth decay might also be used to inform research into heart disease," said Professor Davey. "The centre's work would, of course, be strictly within the confines of the Data Protection Act and indeed will conduct research on its implications for health research. On the whole this is excellent news for Tayside!"
Two key programmes of research involving the University's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, will examine population health and the use of incentives to improve efficiency and quality of healthcare. The first of these also builds on the partnership between the Universities of Dundee and St Andrews.
The new centre is expected to be complete by next summer and will house 60 staff including 20 new posts./ends
Contact
Professor Peter Davey
01382 632575
peter@memo.dundee.ac.uk
Professor Nigel Pitts, DHSRU
01382 635959
n.b.pitts@dundee.ac.uk