New Information Technology Center Established to Benefit Population Health

Johns Hopkins University is establishing a new center aimed at improving and expanding the use of electronic health record systems, e-health and information technology. The Johns Hopkins Center for Population Health IT— known as CPHIT (or "see-fit")—will draw on faculty skilled in public health, medicine, informatics, computer science, business and systems engineering and will focus on helping public health agencies and private health care organizations utilize e-health tools to increase the efficiency and equity of health care delivery.

“We are currently witnessing the most expansive digitalization of health care in history,” said Jonathan Weiner, DrPH, professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of CPHIT. “Over the coming decade, electronic health records, personal health records and other e-health applications will completely transform health care in the U.S. and around the world. Today the focus is clinicians using these systems to treat the individual patient. Our Center wants to extend this focus to enable public health agencies and accountable provider or payer organizations to also harness these health IT systems to create solutions for the many population health issues facing our nation.”

CPHIT will be based within the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Health, Policy and Management but will involve faculty from the School of Medicine, Whiting School of Engineering, Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University, as well as the Johns Hopkins Health System.

CPHIT is also launching the Johns Hopkins CPHIT Industry Partners Program to develop alliances with private companies interested in using information technology to support population health. DST Health Solutions, LLC, is the first founding member of this partners program. In addition to providing an important source of financial support for CPHIT, an executive from DST will serve on CPHIT's advisory board. Members of the program will have access to CPHIT’s research and development, including research findings and newly developed technologies.

“As a longtime partner and distributor of the Johns Hopkins Adjusted Clinical Groups (ACG) system and software, which is widely used across the U.S. and globally, it was a natural progression for DST to be in on the ground floor of the development of this innovative Center that we believe will ultimately change the way population health is perceived, documented and addressed in the U.S.,” said Steve Sabino, president of DST Health Solutions.

Media contact: Tim Parsons, director of Public Affairs, at 410-955-7619 or tmparson@jhsph.edu.