UCSF Launches Center for Digital Health Innovation

Note: Michael Blum, MD, who is tapped to lead the CDHI, will also serve as co-director of CTSI's Biomedical Informatics program.

By Lisa Cisneros via UCSF.edu

UC San Francisco is creating a Center for Digital Health Innovation (CDHI) to lead the transformation of health care delivery and discovery from empiric, generalized, disease-based diagnostic and treatment approaches to the era of individualized precision medicine.

UCSF Chief Medical Information Officer Michael Blum, MD, has been tapped to lead the CDHI in the new position of Associate Vice Chancellor for Informatics. Blum will continue to report to Joshua Adler, MD, chief medical officer at the UCSF Medical Center, and now also UCSF Vice Chancellor of Research Keith Yamamoto, PhD.

In his new role, Blum, a cardiologist and clinical professor of medicine, will coordinate and leverage UCSF’s information technology assets.

The focus of the CDHI is developing new technologies, apps, and systems that, along with the explosion of social media, will generate enormous new data sets. The goals of the CDHI are to: 

  • Create a home that fosters digital health innovation among UCSF’s faculty, staff, and students;
  • Study social media and novel device and sensor usage to understand the characteristics that generate “stickiness” and persistent use in the health care and wellness markets;
  • Validate the functionality and accuracy of new digital health devices, sensors, and technologies, and evaluate whether they bring value to patients and the healthcare system; and
  • Incubate important new digital technologies, apps, sensors, and systems, and bring them to market via collaborations with start-ups and industry and capital partners.

Read more at UCSF.edu