Unique Partnerships and Grants

Unique Industry/Government Partnerships

Big and small — lots of opportunities for CI fellows
MetroHealth has partnered with organizations for over 15 years on innovations in clinical informatics

Epic (epic.com)

MetroHealth was the first public/safety-net healthcare system to install Epic in 1999 and has been an early adopter of many Epic features and functions over the decades.  Core faculty serve on a number of Epic advisory boards (ASAP Board, Cosmos Governing Council, Medication Reconciliation Brain Trust, Nexus QHIN Transitional Council, Opioid Management Brain Trust, Payer Platform Governing Council, Pediatric Primary Care Steering Board). CI fellows can participate in quarterly conference calls with Judy Faulkner, founder and CEO of the Epic corporation, as well as being on the forefront of implementing new Epic initiatives.

Currently, CWRU is the first medical school piloting Epic’s Lyceum product to teach EHR core competencies to preclinical medical students. MetroHealth was the first health system to sign up for, submit data to, start using, and publish using Cosmos, Epic’s EHR data aggregation platform.

CI fellows can be involved in implementing Lyceum and working with Cosmos, among many other activities in the special MetroHealth-Epic partnership — for example being an early adopter of Epic’s generative AI products (e.g., draft responses to patient MyChart messages and patient summaries) and Epic predictive models (sepsis and no-shows).

Ovatient (ovatient.com)

An early stage startup health IT company offering 100% telehealth services, jointly owned by MetroHealth and the Medical University of South Carolina.  Core faculty member Dr. Yasir Tarabichi is its Chief Medical Informatics Officer.  CI fellows can learn and experience what it is like to start a telehealth startup, and how to combine a career with a startup while being in an academic medical center.

CareMesh (caremesh.com)

A medium stage startup health IT company with a goal to improve health information exchange and care coordination.  CareMesh was founded by Dr. Peter Tippett who completed an MD/PhD at Case Western Reserve University and clinical training at MetroHealth, while creating Norton Antivirus. Dr. Tippett regularly meets with CI fellows.

Elimu (elimu.io)

A medium stage startup health IT company involved in EHR-agnostic clinical decision support and health information exchange.  MetroHealth’s partnership with Elimu was CI fellow-initiated and driven over the past 5 years. Learn how to interact with and obtain value from a health IT startup from a customer perspective.

Hyland (hyland.com)

Makers of OnBase (used by most Epic EHR customers for document scanning/management) as well as enterprise imaging including the Acuo vendor neutral archive, NilRead universal imaging viewer, and PACSGear imaging middleware. MetroHealth is a demonstration site for this northeast Ohio-based health IT company. CI fellows have been involved in meeting with Hyland R&D staff to provide input on new features/functions of products, testing new products, and helping to deploy Hyland products at MetroHealth.

TriNetX (trinetx.com)

A late-stage start-up health IT company that aggregates and de-identifies EHR data for over 100 million patients from scores of healthcare systems.  MetroHealth is the largest customer user of TriNetX in the world. CI fellows can learn how to use TriNetX for retrospective observational research — MetroHealth has over 70 peer-reviewed publications using the TriNetX platform.

Wolters Kluwer (wolterskluwer.com)

One of the largest health IT content providers in the US with products including UpToDate, Lexidrug, Medi-Span, and Lippincott. If you have used an EHR, it most likely included content from Wolters Kluwer. MetroHealth has had numerous partnerships with Wolters Kluwer over the years — consultant for Lexidrug (formerly Lexicomp), advisory board member and beta test site for UpToDate, and currently a large drug alerting project with Medi-Span. CI fellows can participate in partnership activities with Wolters Kluwer.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (cdc.gov)

MetroHealth is working with the CDC to help answer infectious disease related questions useing Epic’s Cosmos (largest aggregated EHR data platform in the US with over 250 million patients).  CI fellows can participate in this unique “academic-government” partnership.

MITRE (mitre.org)

A not-for-profit company bridging the gap between the academic research community and industry which operates federally funded research and development centers.  MetroHealth has a partnership to use generative AI to identify oncology trial patients from Epic EHR data. CI fellows can participate as team members in the unique partnership.

Unique Grants

Lots of research grants — lots of opportunities for CI fellows
Almost $10 million and 40 different grants over 15 years; current active areas of grant funding listed

Antimicrobial Stewardship (PCORI funding)

BIOS is a multi-center study to improve pediatric antibiotic stewardship related to upper respiratory infections.  CI fellows can learn about and participate in use of EHR data and clinical decision support to improve appropriate antibiotic prescribing.

Asthma Guidelines Implementation (PCORI funding)

A multi-center study to implement new asthma guidelines in adults, based on a prior multi-center study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) helping develop these guidelines (Israel et al., NEJM 2022). CI fellows can learn about and participate in implementing and tracking clinical guideline compliance in the EHR. 

COPD (NIH funding)

A multi-center study to implement COPD guidelines.  CI fellows can learn about and participate in implementing and tracking clinical guideline compliance in the EHR.

COVID (NIH funding)

Several multi-center studies investigating COVID-19 and its sequalae in the pediatric population.  Cl fellows can learn about and participate in how to use the EHR for prospective study patient identification and recruitment. 

Drug Repositioning (NIH funding)

Several grants in conjunction with CWRU’s Center for Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery (https://case.edu/medicine/aicenter/about).  CI fellows can learn about and participate in use of aggregated “real-world” EHR data for research and work with PhD informaticists at CWRU.

Hepatitis C/HIV (CDC/NIH funding)

Several implementation grants to increase screening and management, leveraging EHR tools, related to Hepatitis C and HIV.  CI fellows can learn about and participate in using the EHR to increase screening for chronic conditions and manage populations with chronic conditions.

Northern Ohio Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) (https://case.edu/medicine/ctsc/) (NIH funding)

MetroHealth is the lead health informatics site for the Northern Ohio CTSC which includes Cleveland Clinic, The MetroHealth System, University Hospitals of Cleveland, the University of Toledo, and Northern Ohio Medical University.  CI fellows can learn about and participate in developing and implementing an applied research informatics program across multiple institutions in northern Ohio.

Oral Health (NIH funding)

A large 7-year NIH study in conjunction with the CWRU School of Dental Medicine to improve oral health screening in adult primary care clinics.  CI fellows can learn about integrating screening into provider and non-provider workflows as part of face-to-face visits and use of the EHR for prospective study patient recruitment.

Smoking Cessation in Children and Adults (American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, NIH funding)

Multiple grants with collaborators at Harvard University and Oregon Health and Science University using the EHR to improve smoking cessation.

Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting (Centers for Disease Control funding)

Multiple grants over more than a decade to develop an open-source system to automate vaccine adverse event detection and reporting to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  This work had led to a 30-fold increase in vaccine adverse event reporting to the CDC (Baker, et al., Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2015).