Indiana U. given $4M to study health IT ethics, law
The Lilly Endowment"a private family foundation created by the founders of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. "has given Indiana University $4 million study the legal, ethical and social implications of the use of health IT.
The funds will support the creation of the Center for Law, Ethics and Applied Research in Health Information (CLEAR Health Information). The center will be a collaboration between the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, part of the Pervasive Technology Institute at IU, and the IU School of Medicine's Center for Bioethics.
CLEAR will also pull together university and state resources in health sciences, information technology, law, ethics and other disciplines to study the ethical, legal and social issues associated with the creation and sharing of electronic health information, according its principals.
The center will be run by four co-directors, among them Fred H. Cate, a law professor and director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, and Stanley W. Crosley, former chief privacy officer of Eli Lilly and Co., co-founder and chair of the International Pharmaceutical Privacy Consortium and a member of the board of the Indiana Health Informatics Corp.
"While we are succeeding at building better and better systems, vexing ethical, legal and social issues remain," said Cate, adding that center will aim to help ensure "the right data are available at the right time for the benefit of patients today and in the future."
Eric M. Meslin, director of the Indiana Center for Bioethics and an IU professor of medicine and philosophy, said the approach of jointly focusing on legal and ethical issues will distinguish CLEAR Health Information's efforts. "We need to address both to really develop top-notch policy," he said in the announcement.
