S4-S&SI2-4 - Community Partnerships for Enhanced Research Experience in Biomedical Informatics

1. Innovative Practice Full Paper
Huanmei Wu^1
1 Department of BioHealth Informatics, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

Introduction
Indianapolis, known as the Crossroads of America and one of the cities with the most rapid growth in biotechnology and life science, is where the Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) locates. Our Department of BioHealth Informatics (BHI) is the home to an interdisciplinary group of faculty and students in the four programs: Bioinformatics, Health Informatics, Biomedical Informatics, and Health Information Management. The campus is surrounded by IU School of Medicine, the Simon Cancer Center, Regenstrief Institute, Eli Lilly, Dow AgroSciences, the Cook RegenTec, Indiana Bioscience Research Institute (IBRI), and many other biomedical research centers and industrial businesses, such as the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE). This paper will discuss how BHI has leveraged the surrounding communities and partner institutes to promote interdisciplinary research and student success in the ever-changing field of biomedical informatics.

The BHI faculty have worked together to develop a 5-year strategic plan to commit our department to high-quality education, student success, research excellence, and community partnerships. One major development is to enhance our faculty research success and student industrial experience through a community partnership and industrial collaboration. We have prioritized the top seven strategic areas through community partnerships, each area with its objectives, action items, and expected outcomes for 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year. 

• Area I is to promote faculty and student research portfolios by increasing both internal and external funding to support them in research activities, publications, and conference presentations. 
• Area II is to establish productive internal and external collaborations, by fostering constructive dialogue across traditionally separated disciplines on important intellectual issues with our local communities. 
• Area III is to build the BHI Research Center (BHIRC), which gives corporate partners unprecedented access to emerging technologies and some of the best minds in BHI, to provide intelligent data analytics and solutions with industry engagement. 
• Area IV is to advocate translational and transformative research, through research entrepreneurship, by increasing the visibility of research innovation, advocating their developed systems, encouraging patent applications, and seeking commercialization.   
• Area V is to enhance the community impact by our faculty research and student work through civically engaged research, service, and community outreach. 
• Area VI is to formalize the advisory board structures and meeting schedules, making the advisory board meeting an integral part of the department, which promotes and helps the growth of the department.
• Area VII is to improve the quality of student experiential learning and integrate research, development, entrepreneurship, and innovation by redesigning the practicum courses, internship programs, and capstone projects with our community partners. 

The BHI strategic plan guides our faculty research, teaching, and services, with students as the center of all the activities. It helps BHI faculty and students to build strong collaborations with local communities. It diversifies student learning styles, provides research opportunities, and offer practicum and entrepreneurship opportunities to students. For example, we have developed many joint research and training projects and grants with local healthcare centers and bioscience institutes, including community health centers, primary care associations, hospitals, and cancer centers.