Dr. Juan Carlos Puyana to Share $1.6M Grant

Dr. Juan Carlos Puyana to Share $1.6M Grant

McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Juan Carlos Puyana, MD, associate professor of surgery and critical care, University of Pittsburgh, and trauma surgeon, director of Surgical ICU, and director of the Surgical Critical Care Program at the Presbyterian Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, is the principal investigator of a grant received from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in its first round of funding from Fogarty’s Global Health Research and Research Training eCapacity Initiative. In an effort to increase the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in global health interventions and address technical expertise gaps among scientists in developing countries, this new NIH initiative has awarded $1.6 million over 3 years to 5 institutions. Monies will support the efforts of former and current grantees to establish education programs designed to teach trainees to incorporate ICT resources into their research and research training activities.

Dr. Puyana’s project entitled “eCapicity for Trauma Information Systems and Research Education (eCATIS)” includes a collaboration of investigators from Pitt, the University of British Columbia Department of Surgery (Canada), Fundacion Meditech (Neiva, Colombia), Centro de Informatica e Investigacion Clinica [CIIC] (Rosario, Argentina), and Oregon Health & Science University [OHSU] (Portland, Oregon). Colombia, Paraguay, and Guatemala are the countries targeted for this research training program.

Developing a trauma information system for regions in the world where injury is the greatest burden of disease, as injuries kill more patients than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis all combined, has the extraordinary potential of changing a paradigm in global public health. eCATIS for low and middle income countries (LMICs) is a fundamental and critically needed step towards understanding the magnitude of injury and the burden of disease. Such information is pivotal to design and implement public health interventions, allocate resources, and answer research questions relevant to the environment in LMICs. An additive benefit of this project will be the delivery of trauma information systems capable of gathering data relevant to the local epidemiology of injury and providing the basis for designing injury prevention initiatives, quality improvement programs, and facilitating research endeavors to meet LMICs’ most pressing questions regarding trauma/injury care.

Fogarty’s Global Health Research and Research Training eCapacity Initiative aims to support innovative research education programs to teach researchers at LMIC institutions the knowledge and skills necessary to incorporate ICT into global health research and research training. Funding from this effort was also received by Cayetano Heredia University (Lima, Peru), Johns Hopkins University, Tulane University, and University of Washington.