CHIDS is an academic research center with collaboration from industry and government affiliates, and is designed to research, analyze, and recommend solutions to challenges surrounding the introduction and integration of information and decision technologies into the health care system. CHIDS offers the benefit of a world-class research staff and renowned scholars in technology implementation, adoption, assimilation, decision sciences and information technology. CHIDS serves as a focal point for thought leadership around the topic of health information and decision systems.

New & Noteworthy

• January 31, 2012: CHIDS announces the Innovate 4 Healthcare Challenge. CHIDS is challenging students nationwide to develop solutions that radically improve healthcare outcomes by using information technology to improve patient engagement with health care providers.

• November 20, 2011: CHIDS hits 500 followers on Twitter! Are you one of them? If not, follow us at @HealthIT.

• November 1, 2011: The second annual Workshop on Health IT and Economics (WHITE) summit was held in October at the Washington Marriott, where more than 100 participants - including prominent scholars from across the globe - gathered to discuss the latest in health IT and present new ideas with both policy and business implications. Thank you to our sponsors AHRQ, Optimal Solutions Group, University of Minnesota and AcademyHealth. Click here for more on WHITE 2011.

• October 15, 2011: The University of Maryland Center of Excellence in Health IT Research recently hosted the University of Maryland Fall Health IT Summit at the Adele H. Stamp Student Union in College Park. In attendance were representatives from the government, military, academic institutions, healthcare providers and others - all there to discuss the health information technology strategy, policy and technology issues facing both Maryland and the United States. Read more here.

• August 1, 2011: CHIDS is proud to partner with CareFirst, the largest health insurer in the Mid-Atlantic, on a research program to assess the potential impact of emerging social media tools on health IT and determine these tools implications for healthcare finance and delivery. Check out the CHIDS Fall 2011 Newsletter for more.

• June 28, 2011: The University of Maryland Center of Excellence in Health IT Research (COEHITR) a multi-campus initiative with collaboration across the College Park and Baltimore campuses has awarded $15,000 in funding to each of two teams working on promising health information technologies as part of the inaugural Health IT Seed Grant Program. Click here for details.

• June 20, 2011: CHIDS Fellow Brad Greenwood, presents findings from the paper “The Information Value of Online Physician Ratings” at INFORMS Healthcare 2011 in Montreal, Quebec. The paper is co-authored by CHIDS Director Ritu Agarwal, CHIDS Senior Fellow Guodong “Gordon” Gao, and PhD candidate Brad Greenwood, all from the Smith School, along with Jeffrey McCullough of the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. The authors investigated potential biases among Internet users rating general practitioners on websites such as Angie’s List, healthgrades.com, RateMds.com, Vitals.com, and Yelp.com. Click here for Working Paper. Click here for Podcast.

Research in Focus

• CHIDS researchers follow the adoption of a document management system Children’s National Medical Center. [Download Working Paper]
• What does health information privacy really mean? What type of health information are individuals willing to disclose for digitization purposes and to whom? Ph.D. candidate Catherine Anderson studies the complex nature of privacy concerns. [Download Working Paper]
• Does healthcare IT investment improve country health indicators? Professor Sunil Mithas and CHIDS Research Fellow Jiban Khuntia examine the link between investment and health outcomes across nations.
• Why do some hospitals choose to voluntarily disclose their quality performance online? Prof. Gordon Gao and his team explore the determinants of quality disclosure.