Telemedical Diagnosis of Retinopathy of Prematurity

应聘者描述(由申请人提供)：应聘者具有工程学、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。这项提议将通过两个阶段的培训计划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学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。一位在临床医学信息学方面具有国际权威的导师将监督这项工作。他将在整个颁奖期间提供指导。第二阶段将涉及远程诊断低出生体重儿早产儿视网膜病变(ROP)的远程医疗网络的设计、实施和评估。将进行研究来检验一个潜在的假设：远程医疗检测ROP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重要的优势。发展计算机化的保健基础设施有可能极大地改善医疗保健和研究的提供。眼科特别适合于这一研究领域，因为它是以技术为导向的，以视觉为导向。该项目将由一名在ROP方面具有国际权威的眼科合作导师和一名在远程医疗方面具有特殊专业知识的医疗信息学合作导师监督。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计划。

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.