Dear Friends,
Some changes are obvious. If you visited Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center five years ago and returned today, you couldn't fail to notice that our campus has been physically transformed. We have made significant investments in new buildings and equipment, providing state-of-the-art facilities to support the work we do. The sense that Cincinnati Children's is a growing, dynamic environment is palpable everywhere.
Other changes are less visible but no less important. One such change is the subject of this year's annual report, which focuses on our innovative use of technology.
Over the last five years, Cincinnati Children's has invested significantly in information technology. Recognizing that technology alone isn't enough, we have progressively learned how to combine excellence in technology implementation with real process improvement. Today, the marriage of advanced technology and process and culture change is transforming the medical center as dramatically as the physical facilities.
In the clinical arena, we are bringing timely and relevant computerized information to the bedside for hospital staff who directly deliver patient care and to community physicians at their practice or at home. Care is now safer and more efficient, and we are winning national recognition for our efforts.
This summer, Cincinnati Children's was selected to receive the Nicholas E. Davies Award of Excellence, a major national award for improving patient care through information management. We are the first children's hospital ever to win this prestigious award.
In the research arena, we have built a world-class technical infrastructure and have recruited the experts essential for understanding the vast amount of data generated by clinical-genomic research. Our researchers are pioneers in combining clinical and genomic information for the benefit of children. They are embarking on exciting new studies and are winning major external grants to support their work, including a $25.2 million grant from the state of Ohio's Third Frontier Project for a collaborative program with the University of Cincinnati to establish a Center for Computational Medicine.
To tell the story of technology at Cincinnati Children's, this annual report presents a day in the life of the medical center. Please read on to see how technology is transforming everything we do and positioning Cincinnati Children's as the leader in improving child health, now and into the future.
