Telemedical Diagnosis of Retinopathy of Prematurity

描述（由申请人提供）：该候选人具有工程、医学和眼科背景，并计划将其职业生涯扩展到通信和信息技术的临床应用。该提案将通过两阶段的培训计划来支持候选人的职业发展。在第一阶段，通过哥伦比亚大学医学信息系的密集教学将提供医学信息学、计算机科学、生物统计学和临床研究的背景知识。在临床医学信息学领域具有国际权威的导师将指导这项工作。他将在整个颁奖期间提供指导。第二阶段将涉及设计、实施和评估用于低出生体重婴儿早产儿视网膜病变（ROP）远程诊断的远程医疗网络。将进行研究以检验一个基本假设：ROP的远程医疗检测将被证明是安全、准确和有效的，并将在速度、结果、成本和满意度方面提供比现有诊断方法更重要的优势。发展用于保健的计算机化基础设施有可能大大改善医疗保健和研究的提供。眼科特别适合这个领域的研究，因为它是技术驱动和视觉导向的。该项目将由一位在ROP方面具有国际权威的眼科联合导师和一位在远程医疗方面具有特殊专长的医学信息学联合导师指导。哥伦比亚大学在医疗信息系统、远程医疗和公共卫生方面拥有强大的现有框架，将利用这些框架成功完成这一培训和研究项目。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The candidate has a background in engineering, medicine, and ophthalmology, and plans to extend his career into the clinical applications of communications and information technology. This proposal will support the candidate's career development through a two-phase training program. In the first phase, intensive didactic instruction through the Columbia University Department of Medical Informatics will provide background in medical informatics, computer science, biostatistics, and clinical research. A mentor who is an international authority in clinical medical informatics will supervise this work. He will provide guidance during the entire award period. The second phase will involve the design, implementation, and evaluation of a telemedical network for the remote diagnosis of Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) in low birth weight infants. Studies will be conducted to test an underlying hypothesis: that telemedical detection of ROP will prove to be safe, accurate, and efficient, and will provide important advantages over existing diagnostic methods with respect to speed, outcome, cost, and satisfaction. The development of a computerized infrastructure for health care has the potential to dramatically improve the delivery of medical care and research. Ophthalmology is particularly well suited for this area of investigation because it is technology-driven and visually oriented. This project will be supervised by an ophthalmology Co-Mentor who is an international authority on ROP, and a medical informatics Co-Mentor who has special expertise in telemedicine. Columbia University has a strong existing framework in medical information systems, telemedicine, and public health, which will be leveraged to complete this training and research program successfully.