Mayo Clinic, ASU announce enhanced formal collaboration, move of Biomedical Informatics department


February 14, 2011

Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University have signed an agreement to broaden and deepen their collaboration in health care, medical research and education. The agreement is a formal commitment to enhance the relationship built over the past eight years.

Mayo and ASU have established a variety of successful programmatic efforts since 2003, including a joint nursing education program, collaborative research projects on a variety of levels, joint faculty appointments and dual degree programs. Download Full Image

The success of the Mayo-ASU partnership has led to the broader, formal agreement, which also sets an ambitious vision for an enhanced level of future collaboration, cooperation and partnership.

“We are very excited about this agreement, which reflects our mutual commitment to working closely with our partners at ASU as we continue to enhance our ongoing collaborations across a broad variety of projects and programs,” says Victor Trastek, M.D., vice president, Mayo Clinic and CEO for Mayo Clinic in Arizona. “One important area of focus with ASU is our collective ability to redesign medical education in ways that align with the future of health care delivery.”

“ASU and Mayo have a long history of working together to advance medical education and research,” adds ASU President Michael Crow. “This agreement will help us deliver new ideas, new solutions and new technologies that will have positive impacts on the future of health care.”

The agreement will help to coordinate future complementary goals of both organizations.

“For Mayo Clinic, this will mean engagement with ASU at all levels across the entire organization, spanning activities in all three shields of practice, education and research,” says John Noseworthy, M.D., Mayo Clinic president and CEO.

“Together with ASU, we will design and implement new ways to deliver high value health care.”

Examples of successful existing Mayo-ASU collaborations include joint work on the new Proton Beam Program at Mayo’s Scottsdale campus, sharing in development of Mayo’s new Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery, joint faculty appointments and joint degree programs such as M.D./J.D. and M.D./M.B.A.

As part of the new agreement, ASU announced it would relocate its Department of Biomedical Informatics to the Scottsdale campus of Mayo Clinic. ASU faculty, staff and students will complete the move by late summer 2011.

Biomedical informatics is a burgeoning field at the intersection of information science, computer science and health care. It deals with the resources, devices and methods needed to optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval and use of health and biomedical information to enhance patient care and human health.

ASU chief research officer, Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan says biomedical informatics research conducted by ASU and Mayo scientists has the potential to significantly impact future patient care. He added that being physically located on the Mayo campus provides many benefits for all parties.

“There are tremendous synergies at work here,” explains Panchanathan. “In order to advance biomedical informatics education and research, we need to be embedded in a clinical environment. Mayo provides access to world-class physicians and researchers. It will provide extraordinary opportunities for ASU faculty and students to work in one of the top clinical facilities in the country and advance education, research and training in biomedical informatics.”

The new set up will allow Biomedical Informatics to draw on the strengths of ASU and Mayo, allowing the program to serve as an informatics engine for practice enhancement and safer, high quality patient care across Mayo Clinic.

Moving the biomedical informatics department into Mayo “is an important opportunity to further our partnership with an advanced biomedical and clinical organization; to expand our joint research, development and technology transfer; and to improve patient care with this new technology,” adds Robert Greenes, M.D., Ph.D., and ASU’s Ira A. Fulton chair and professor of the Biomedical Informatics department.

In the future, the closer ties between Mayo and ASU are expected to lead to new, cutting edge collaborations.

“This is the doorway to create more exciting opportunities between ASU and all of Mayo Clinic,” explains Keith Frey, M.D., vice chair, Executive Operations Team, chief medical information officer at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, and faculty member of the Biomedical Informatics department. “We hope to take two very successful and smart organizations and do more together in integrating scientific research with a world class medical organization.”
 

About Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic is a non-profit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit www.mayoclinic.org/about/">http://www.mayoclinic.org/about/">www.mayoclinic.org/about/ and www.mayoclinic.org/news.

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Arizona State University

Arizona State University is a New American University – a major public educational institution, a premier research center and a leader in innovation. ASU is driven by three core principles: excellence in scholarship, access to education and impact in our global community, making it intellectually vibrant, socially conscious and globally engaged. For more information, visit www.asu.edu.http://www.asu.edu">www.asu.edu. />
Editors Note:
For additional information on this story, please go to pressroom: asunews.asu.edu/pressroom/mayo_asu.">http://asunews.asu.edu/pressroom/mayo_asu">asunews.asu.edu/pressroom/may...

Lisa Robbins

Assistant Director, Media Relations and Strategic Communications

480-965-9370

Mayo Clinic/ASU Collaboration Announcement: Media Backgrounder


February 14, 2011

Under the leadership of Victor Trastek, M.D., CEO of Mayo Clinic in Arizona, and Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University (ASU), Mayo and ASU have been working together on a series of strategic collaborations since 2003.

Both organizations possess unique leadership qualities, creative energy and enthusiasm for learning and innovation. The combination of these qualities — along with several successful collaborations in the last eight years — has served to establish a solid foundation for a deeper and broader relationship.  Download Full Image

The enhanced collaboration between Mayo Clinic and ASU will draw from the major strengths of each organization — Mayo's extensive clinical experience, medical education programs and its vertical integration of research spanning basic science, laboratory-based clinical investigation, clinical trials and population sciences and ASU's recognized leadership as an academic institution in basic research and advanced programs in biodesign, biotechnology and biomedical informatics with the Arizona Biodesign Institute. Both organizations share similar values, and both are focused through this enhanced collaboration on transforming health and healthcare delivery.

The relocation of ASU’s Department of Biomedical Informatics to the Scottsdale campus of Mayo Clinic by late summer 2011 is the first significant component of the enhanced relationship. Biomedical informatics is a burgeoning field at the intersection of information science, computer science and health care. It deals with the resources, devices and methods needed to optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval and use of health and biomedical information with the goal of enhancing patient care and overall human health.

Mayo Clinic and ASU: A history of strategic collaborations
During the past eight years, several successful collaborative endeavors have been developed and implemented:

• ASU College of Nursing and Health Innovation/Mayo Clinic Campus

Mayo and ASU have collaborated to create this unique program, which increases enrollment capacity for nursing students statewide. Students are taught, using ASU nursing curriculum, by a faculty of Mayo Clinic nurses in a classroom environment on the Phoenix campus. A clinical laboratory learning space opened at Mayo Clinic Hospital to further support this successful program.

• Mayo Medical School/ASU Dual Degree Programs:

- M.D./J.D.
- M.D./M.B.A.
- M.D./Biomedical Informatics
- M.D./Biomedical Engineering
- M.D./Communications

• ASU/Mayo Clinic Seed Research Grants

The ASU/Mayo Partnership for Collaborative Research offers a Seed Grant Program for new collaborative research projects between ASU and Mayo Clinic. Projects selected for funding involve hands-on roles of both ASU and Mayo investigators, and are pilot studies that have a high probability of leading to a later submission to the National Institutes of Health or other peer review, grant funding agencies for longer-term support.

• The Mayo-ASU Center for Cancer-related Convergence, Cooperation and Collaboration (MAC5)

Created to support jointly funded collaborative cancer research efforts between Mayo Clinic and ASU. This effort brought together Mayo physicians and ASU computing, engineering and informatics specialists.

Other collaborative initiatives include:

• Joint faculty appointments

• Sonata del Sol program, which involves ASU students writing personalized poems for end-of-life patients at Mayo Clinic Hospital

• ASU biomedical/engineering student innovations implemented at Mayo Clinic Hospital

• Summer scholars at Mayo Medical School

• ASU College of Law and Mayo Clinic Continuing Education together present Ethics and Personalized Medicine

Mayo Clinic and ASU: Prospects for the future

This new formal agreement will pave the way for Mayo and ASU to broaden and deepen their mutual engagement across a full spectrum of activities related to healthcare, medical research and education.

In the years ahead Mayo Clinic and ASU remain committed to building on the strengths of both organizations in exploring opportunities for collaboration.

Quotes from Elected Officials

"The Arizona State University Mayo Clinic partnership is a great example of the public and private sectors collaborating in the design, implementation and delivery of high value health care for the benefit of American citizens." – U.S. Senator John McCain

"This partnership has the potential to generate more jobs and opportunity for Phoenix as other medical and research organizations will no doubt take notice of the synergy that is beginning to take place on and around the Phoenix Mayo Campus." – Phoenix City Councilmember Peggy Neely

Lisa Robbins

Assistant Director, Media Relations and Strategic Communications

480-965-9370