President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC)

Briefing to the

Advisory Committee to the Director,

National Institutes of Health,

Bethesda, MD

December 6, 2001

Larry Smarr

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Jacobs School of Engineering, UCSD

Director, California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology

Coordination of Federal IT R&D Programs

WHITEHOUSE

Executive Office of the PresidentOffice of Science and Technology Policy

National Science and Technology Council

National Coordination Office (NCO) for Information TechnologyResearch and Development

High EndComputing

Coordinating Group(HEC)

Large ScaleNetworking

Coordinating Group(LSN)

HighConfidence

Software and Systems

Coordinating Group(HCSS)

Human Computer

Interaction & Information

ManagementCoordinating

Group(HCI & IM)

Software Design and Productivity Coordinating

Group(SDP)

President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee

(PITAC)

Federal Information

Services and

ApplicationsCouncil(FISAC)

Interagency Working Group on Information

Technology R&D

Social, Economic and Workforce

Implications of IT and IT Workforce

DevelopmentCoordinating

Group(SEW)

Participating Agencies: AHRQ, DARPA, DOE, EPA, NASA, NIH, NIST,

NOAA, NSA, NSF, ODUSD (S&T)

U.S. Congress

IT R&DAuthorization and Appropriations

Legislation

President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC)

• Top IT Experts From Academia and Industry.• 22 Members Who Advise the Administration – How to Accelerate the Development and Adoption of

Information Technologies • First Report– Information Technology Research: Investing in Our

Future (1999) – Recommended Increasing Strategic Investments From:

– $1.46 Billion in FY 2000 – To $2.83 Billion in FY 2004

– Four Priority Areas for Long-term R&D:– Software– Scalable Information Infrastructure– High-end Computing– Socioeconomic Impact

PITAC Membership ListCo-Chairs

Current MembershipRaj Reddy (CMU) & Irving Wladawsky-Berger (IBM), Chairs• Eric A. Benhamou, Ph.D. / 3Com Corporation• Vinton Cerf, Ph.D. / WorldCom• Ching-chih Chen, Ph.D. / Simmons College• David M. Cooper, Ph.D. / Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory• Steven D. Dorfman (retired) / Hughes Electronics Corporation• Robert Ewald / Learn 2 Corporation• Sherrilynne S. Fuller, Ph.D. / University of Washington School of Medicine• Hector Garcia-Molina, Ph.D. / Stanford University• Susan L. Graham, Ph.D. / University of California - Berkeley• James N. Gray, Ph.D. / Microsoft Research• W. Daniel Hillis, Ph.D. / Applied Minds, Inc.• Robert E. Kahn, Ph.D. / Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI)• Ken Kennedy, Ph.D. / Rice University• John P. Miller, Ph.D. / Montana State University• David C. Nagel, Ph.D. / Palm, Inc.• Edward H. Shortliffe, M.D., Ph.D. / Columbia University • Larry Smarr, Ph.D. / University of California - San Diego• Joe F. Thompson, Ph.D. / Mississippi State University• Leslie Vadasz / Intel Corporation• Steven J. Wallach / Chiaro Networks

PITAC Follow-on Reports

• In 2000, three panel reports were released:– Resolving the Digital Divide: Information, Access and

Opportunity– Transforming Access to Government through Information

Technology– Developing Open Source Software to Advance High End

Computing

• In 2001, three panel reports were released:– Transforming Health Care Through Information

Technology– Using Information Technology To Transform the Way We

Learn– Digital Libraries: Universal Access to Human Knowledge

The Two Reportswww.itrd.gov/ac

February 1999 February 2001

PITAC Panel on Transforming Health CareFinal Report February 2001

• Co-Chairs– Sherrilynne Fuller, Ph.D. / University of Washington School of Medicine– Edward Shortliffe, M.D., Ph.D. / Columbia University

• Panel PITAC Members– Robert E. Kahn, Ph.D. Corp. for National Research Initiatives– John P. Miller, Ph.D. Montana State University– Larry Smarr, Ph.D. University of California - San Diego

• Other Members– Bruce Davie, Ph.D. Cisco Systems– Don E. Detmer, M.D. University of Virginia– John Glaser, Ph.D. Partners HealthCare System– Eric Horvitz, M.D., Ph.D. Microsoft Research– Takeo Kanade, Ph.D. Carnegie Mellon University– Sid Karin, Ph.D. San Diego Supercomputer Center– Russell J. Ricci, M.D. IBM Corporation– Bonnie Webber, Ph.D. University of Edinburgh

PITAC Healthcare Panel Had Input From:

• Office of the Secretary of HHS• Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and

Evaluation (DHHS)• National Institutes of Health• National Cancer Institute• National Library of Medicine• National Center for Research Resources• National Center for Health Statistics• National Science Foundation• Centers for Disease Control• Food and Drug Administration• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Examples of IT Research Challenges Relevant to Biomedical and Health Care Applications

• Interactive Large-Scale Biological Simulations• Data-Driven Modeling of Biological Processes• Data Mining in Large Clinical and Biological Databases• Multimodal Information Management• Biomedically Motivated User-interface Hardware and Software• Advanced Networking Services, Including QoS and Wireless• High End Systems to Support Biomedical Research,

Simulations, and Modeling• Privacy, Security, and Authentication• Language Understanding / Text Processing• Clinical Records and Their Integration• Access to Information Systems for People With Disabilities• Automated Policy Inference• Research on the Implications of IT on the Health Care System

PITAC Healthcare Panel Findings

• The U.S. lacks a broadly disseminated and accepted national vision for information technology in health care.

• Critical, long-term research, technology, and policy issues need to be addressed if we are to realize the potential of information technology to improve the practice of health care.

• A critical and enabling investment in biomedical computing infrastructure and enabling technologies has not yet occurred

• Achieving the potential of information technology to improve health care will be constrained until we develop a larger cadre of researchers and practitioners who operate at the nexus of health and computing/communications.

PITAC Healthcare Panel Findings

• The biomedical community, including the Federal research agencies, has tended to rely on information technology innovations that are produced by investments in other parts of Government. – This adversely affects the pace at which biomedicine

benefits from IT research – Solutions to IT research issues may never reflect the

needs of biomedicine without involvement of the biomedical community

• The introduction of integrated decision-support systems that can proactively foster best practices requires enhanced information-technology methods and tools.

PITAC Healthcare Panel Findings

• Advances in IT are critical in order for DHHS to accomplish its mission to improve the quality of U.S. health care

• The role and management of information technology in DHHS has several limitations, which must be addressed if the health care community is to benefit from the promise of the information age.

PITAC Healthcare Panel Recommendations

• R1. Establish pilot projects and Enabling Technology Centers to extend practical uses of information technology to health care systems and biomedical research.

• R2. NIH, in close collaboration with NSF, DARPA, and DOE, should design and deploy a scalable national computing and information infrastructure to support the biomedical research community.

• R3. Congress should enhance existing privacy rules by enacting legislation that assures sound practices for managing personally identifiable health information of any kind.

PITAC Healthcare Panel Recommendations

• R4. Establish programs to increase the pool of biomedical research and health care professionals with training at the intersection of health and information technology.– The Panel applauds the NIH’s Biomedical Information

Science and Technology Initiative (BISTI)• R5. DHHS should outline its vision for using

information technology to improve health care in this country and subsequently devote the necessary resources to do the basic information technology research critical to accomplishing these goals.

• R6. DHHS should appoint a senior information technology leader to provide strategic leadership across DHHS and focus on the importance of information technology in addressing pressing problems in health care.

NIH is Funding a National-Scale Grid Federating Multi-Scale Neuro-Imaging Data

National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure

Part of the UCSD CRBS Center for Research on Biological Structure

Biomedical Informatics Research Network

(BIRN)

Wireless “Pad” Web Interface

NIH Plans to Expand to Other Organs

and Many Laboratories