Robert P. DiLaura, DBA, MBA, CPHIMS

Co-Director Cleveland Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative; Adjunct Assistant Professor, General Medical Sciences in the Center for Clinical Investigation at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine; Research Staff at Lerner Research Institute, Dept. of Quantitative Health Sciences at Cleveland Clinic

Bob stepped into the CTSC Informatics role after leading a central service core of analysts, Robert P. DiLaura, DBA, MBA, CPHIMSprogrammers, systems engineers, DBAs and other technical resources to support the many clinical research studies and regulated clinical trials run from the Quantitative Health Sciences department at Cleveland Clinic. His prior groups maintain their own dedicated research data center that currently runs three technology platforms (Oracle/Oracle Clinical, ASP.Net, and XServ/Macs) independent of the central IT organization for governance and funding. They now operate research information systems through VMWare, thus cutting costs, going "green", and reducing start-up time for new studies. Bob has direct experience in creating research databases, and in assisting investigators with immediate and strategic needs involving technology, including for grant submissions. Bob was elected in October 2008 to a two-year term by his peer Informatics Directors at the 37 other CTSAs to help lead the national Consortium (Biomedical Informatics Key Function Committee Operations Group). Bob is a member of the AMIA board appointed Clinical Research Informatics Steering Task Force, helping to bring changes to that organization consistent with the interests of research informaticians and technologists. He is also a member of the AMIA membership committee. He was a member of the 2008 Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) records work group project for health IT terminology. He was the 2004-2005 national president of the NIH/NCRR General Clinical Research Center's Association for Information Technology Professionals, representing 80 Centers around the country. He was a founding member of the GCRC Informatics Working Group, a national collaborative application development and support initiative. He was previously bioinformatics manager at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center GCRC at The Children's Hospital of Denver in pediatric research associated with the CU School of Medicine. He has published and spoken frequently over the past several years on the challenges and opportunities of integrating clinical research data management with central electronic health record (EHR) systems, including at the MEDINFO triennial conference held in 2007 in Brisbane Australia. Prior to his healthcare focus, Bob spent most of his career in business and technology, previously with GE as a VP/Quality Leader of Six Sigma; with Accenture as a global quality team leader responsible for Business Process Management and IT outsourcing; as a SVP of business operations and head of technology research for an Internet company; and as head of operations for a software company. Originally Bob hails out of the Detroit area, and was a polymer chemist after getting his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University. His Masters degree is in International Business, and his doctorate is in Information Systems. Bob is also a certified mediator and arbitrator, with extensive international experience in process reengineering, team building and conflict resolution.