U of M, LHS Inc. Collaboration Will Aid Shelby County Children
For release: Feb. 24, 2003
For press information, contact Curt Guenther

Funded by a $2 million grant from LHS Inc., The University of Memphis has established a program to collect, analyze, maintain, monitor, and report health data about children throughout Shelby County.

The announcement was made today jointly by Eugene K. Cashman Jr., president/CEO of LHS Inc., and Dr. Shirley Raines, president of The University of Memphis.

The Child Health Data Consortium will focus initially on health needs of children, but plans are for the program eventually to expand its focus to the health issues of people of all ages.

Data collected and studied by the staff of the Consortium can be used in a number of ways, including policy formulation, modification of existing delivery systems, and creating new health innovations, Cashman said. He also said it should be noted that health data are defined to include wellness and prevention initiatives that affect a child's well being, such as violence, early childhood education, and lifestyle.

Raines said the new program will work closely with the University's existing program of Health Care Administration, which is part of the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy, and with the soon-to-be-announced Center for Healthcare Economics in the Fogelman College of Business and Economics.

The interim director of the Consortium, U of M professor Richard Janikowski, said it will pull together much data that already exist, but that have never been compiled into one place. "Various government agencies and private health care providers have compiled information that is helpful to each of them," Janikowski said, "but currently there is no mechanism for all that information to be shared community-wide. The Consortium will be that mechanism."

Janikowski also estimated that parts of the county-wide database will be operational by the end of 2003. When the program is fully functional, health care planning in Shelby County will benefit from having a significant amount of additional data available to form a basis for better decisions about children's health.

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