INDIANAPOLIS — William K. Barnett, Ph.D. has been named Chief Research Informatics Officer, a newly-established joint position within the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and the Regenstrief Institute, with the goal of integrating and advancing the two organizations’ research informatics efforts to support improved health care.
A highly respected institutional information technology leader, Barnett will lead the development of information technology strategies to support research and the design of infrastructures for the acquisition, management and analysis of research data.
“From recruiting research study participants through electronic patient records to mining ‘big data’ in health care, research informatics is a really hot area right now,” said Titus Schleyer, Ph.D., D.M.D., director of the Regenstrief Institute’s Center for Biomedical Informatics and the Clem McDonald Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Indiana University School of Medicine. “With Dr. Barnett joining us, we will take a huge step forward in leveraging informatics for clinical and translational research. In the end, we are focused on only one thing: How can we improve the health of people in Indiana and beyond?”
The new Office of the CRIO will have a dual mission: to provide information technology and informatics services for health sciences research and to develop and implement novel information technology and informatics solutions to health care issues.
“We are delighted to be able to recruit Dr. Barnett to lead the CRIO initiative. Establishing this office cements an important, and we think unique, partnership between the Indiana CTSI, with its statewide research collaborations, and the applied informatics expertise of the Regenstrief Institute, and will provide a tremendous resource to researchers across Indiana,” said Anantha Shekhar, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Indiana CTSI.
In addition to his new position, Dr. Barnett will continue to serve as associate director of the IU Center for Advanced Cybersecurity Research. He will also hold the position of visiting associate research professor of medical and molecular genetics in the IU School of Medicine. He is the former director of the National Center for Genome Analysis Support and of Science Community Tools, both at IU.
In addition to his expertise in information technologies for the life sciences, Barnett has experience with digital libraries and multimedia technologies. He has worked in academic, museum and nonprofit environments.
Before coming to IU in 2007, Barnett served as vice president and chief information officer at the Field Museum in Chicago. He holds an undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary and a Ph.D. in archeology from Boston University.
“Health care is an information intensive business. The quality and safety of health care depends on the effective and efficient delivery and management of information, and so does health-related research,” said William M. Tierney, M.D., president and CEO of the Regenstrief Institute and associate dean of clinical effectiveness research at the IU School of Medicine. “Bill Barnett will help maintain Indiana and the Regenstrief Institute as national leaders in using health information to enhance health care delivery and research.”
The Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute is a statewide collaboration of Indiana University, Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame, as well as public and private partnerships, which facilitates the translation of scientific discoveries made in the lab into clinical trials and new patient treatments in Indiana and beyond.
The Regenstrief Institute is an internationally respected informatics and healthcare research organization, recognized for its role in improving quality of care, increasing efficiency of healthcare delivery, preventing medical errors and enhancing patient safety. Regenstrief’s Center for Biomedical Informatics develops and applies health information technology solutions to generate knowledge about health, disease and treatment; help clinicians make optimal decisions; empower patients; and inform healthcare policy.