Health Sciences Information Services update

The Health Sciences at Yale has a tradition going back over 100 years. Comprising of the Schools of Medicine, Public Health, Nursing, and the clinical services offered by Yale Health and Yale Medicine, it represents over 80% of the research and nearly half of the overall operations for the university. The nature of health education, research, and clinical services results in some unique underlying technology needs.

Over the past five years, there have been focused activities on campus to restructure the IT services for Health Sciences to bring it closer to the stakeholders and the mission area. In 2018, the role of Associate Chief Information Officer (ACIO) for Health Sciences was created. At the time, the health sciences technology team was a handful of relationship managers focused on helping faculty in professional schools navigate IT. Now, a team of over ninety individuals provides various foundational and transformational technology services.

FY23- with shifts in internal alignment and clarity of goals- was a year of significant transformation for Health Sciences Information Services (HSIS). These changes were spurred by the IT Balanced Scorecard initiative and inspired the development of a Balanced Scorecard for HSIS. There were multiple efforts to coordinate processes and teams for more cohesive services, including desktop IT support, audiovisual renovations, new applications and data portals, and beyond. A new walk-in center was opened in the heart of the medical campus in partnership with the library. Governance groups were launched for analytics, bioinformatics, and multiyear planning. The team completed technical analyses, workshops, and other training to simplify application data development and integration. Over half of the clinical providers were integrated into a new enterprise physician scheduling (QGenda) joint with the Yale New Haven Health System. Throughout these efforts, customer focus remained the key theme. In July, all staff in the department were invited to a customer service workshop with external trainers. One of the key takeaways was that the mission to deliver positive, responsive customer support experiences extends beyond internal department interactions in HSIS to client departments.

To learn more, read theFY23 end-year progress summary online.

What’s coming next?

FY24 is anticipated to be another ambitious year for the health campus. Recently, new deans were selected for the Schools of Nursing and Public Health, a new CEO was chosen for Yale Health, and a new ACIO was named for Health Sciences, all of whom started within the first month of FY24. HSIS has the same objectives for the next fiscal year, with additional ones in discussion.

If you have any ideas or lessons on simplifying applications and developing data integration and want to brainstorm, we invite you to contact us directly to join us in this vital work or email us at medicineandhealth@yale.edu.