Michael Dell, president and CEO of Dell, today announced the company is making a $15 million investment in computer equipment and services to support the launch of the University at Buffalo’s new Institute for Healthcare Informatics. UB and Dell made the announcement at a news conference held at the Roosevelt Building at the corner of Main and Carlton streets, where the UB Institute for Healthcare Informatics will be located.
Dell’s investment is critical to the creation of UB’s Institute for Healthcare Informatics and establishing it on the Roosevelt Building’s first floor. The 15,000-square-foot space will be renovated to accommodate Dell’s high-powered computers and 100 employees from UB, Dell, Buffalo-based technology company CTG, and UB Associates, the management service organization supporting the 450 physicians in the UBMD medical practice plans. The project has the potential to create approximately 115 new high-paying jobs in computer programming and data analysis, and new entry-level positions in medical records management.
Medical informatics is an emerging health care field centered on using information technology to analyze and share patient information among health care practitioners and across health care institutions. Such analysis leads to better monitoring of patient care, enhanced measures to prevent disease and identification of more-effective treatments, which leads to better patient outcomes and reduced medical costs.
Creation of the UB Institute for Healthcare Informatics will help establish UB and the Buffalo region as a major hub for medical informatics in the SUNY system, throughout New York State and beyond.
The UB institute initially will focus on sharing data among the 450 health care practitioners who participate in UBMD, said David Dunn, MD, PhD, UB vice president for health sciences. The institute’s data analysis and records management resources eventually will be extended to health care practitioners — doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. — throughout the region and New York State.
“Creation of the Institute for Healthcare Informatics will enable UB to attract additional millions of dollars in research funding,” said Dunn. “This funding will establish UB and Buffalo as a national leader in medical informatics, leading to better patient care and potentially producing hundreds of new jobs and new businesses in Buffalo.”
For Dell, the partnership with the UB Institute for Healthcare Informatics advances the company’s expansion into the health care technology sector, with a focus on data-driven medicine. Dell’s partnership with UB builds on the company’s fruitful relationship with the university. Installation of new Dell high-performance computing clusters in 2002 in UB’s Center for Computational Research, located within UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, enabled UB to nearly double computing capacity for university research.
Launch of the UB Institute for Healthcare Informatics is part of UB’s continuing expansion into downtown Buffalo under the UB 2020 strategic plan. Construction of the UB-Kaleida Health clinical care and research building is nearing completion on High Street, two blocks from the new UB institute, and UB last week broke ground for construction of a new Educational Opportunity Center building on Goodell Street.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said establishing Buffalo and UB as leaders in medical informatics is critical to Buffalo’s future and the emergence of a new, knowledge-based economy. The mayor noted that relocating 100 employees to the Roosevelt Building, along with the potential of creating an additional 115 new jobs, is precisely the kind of development that will continue the revitalization of the Main Street border to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC).
“This is truly an exciting and critically important development for the City of Buffalo, the University at Buffalo and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus,” said Mayor Brown. “Investing in the knowledge-based economy, which has been made possible through the continuing growth and success of the BNMC, is precisely what will continue job creation and new opportunities for new initiatives like the UB Institute for Healthcare Informatics. I am thrilled that Michael Dell has confirmed the viability and benefit of this venture by making such a strong commitment to its success.”