"Continuing advances in biology, clinical research, health care, computer science, and telecommunications - and changes in the way information is produced, stored, and accessed - will combine to change the nature of biological and medical knowledge."
In September the National Library of Medicine released its planning document, Charting the Course for the 21st Century: NLM's Long Range Plan 2006-2016. The foundation of the long range plan is a strategic visioning document that imagines 'what might the next twenty years hold' for advances in research, technology, and the changing health care environment. The document spurred the thinking of four planning panels on these topics:
- Resources and Infrastructure
- Health Information for Underserved and Diverse Populations
- Support for Clinical and Public Health Systems
- Support for Genomic Science
The panels deliberated and produced separate documents that outlined directions for NLM in order to respond to specific trends, changes, and challenges in the health sciences.
The Chapter 1986-2006, "Two Decades of Progress", outlines the major areas of NLM's work since its Long Range Plan of 1986. The report also discusses directions where NLM should continue to work and identifies new directions and specific examples for new initiatives, resources, and technologies.
The four overall goals of the Long Range Plan are outlined in the Executive Summary with a seventeen recommendations. The four goals are:
Seamless, uninterrupted access to expanding collections of biomedical data, medical knowledge, and health information.
Trusted information services that promote health literacy and the reduction of health disparities worldwide
Integrated biomedical clinical and public health information systems that promote scientific discovery and speed the translation of research into practice
A strong and diverse workforce for biomedical informatics research, systems development, and innovative service delivery.
The vision document describes the possible innovations and advances made by the year 2025 in 9 areas of health information. Some of these visions include:
Scientific discovery will be fueled digitally archived research results that are freely available shortly after initial production or publication.
An environment where information and data "talk to each other" and report findings or relationships back to humans for further analysis...also referred to as discovery systems
NLM will be a part of a network of repositories that acquire content to be digitally archived
Lifelong just-in-time learning will replace just-in-case education with learning resources available on-demand.
The overlapping of clinical and genomic research studies factor all interactions between genetic make-up, behavioral and environmental factors, disease resistance, drug response and clinical outcomes.
The idea of a Personal Health Knowledge Base with not only a record of care, but also genetic make-up, best applicable practices, and individual directives
And although the plan predicts greatly reduced technical barriers to information, there will still be a need for knowledgeable people to helping populations make effective use of information and resources.
You can access the more information on the Long Range Plan, the planning process, and separate reports from the four planning panels at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/plan/lrpdocs.html.
Javier Crespo, Associate Director
Javier.Crespo@umassmed.edu
The Upper Corner