Cleveland Clinic Creates Chief Research Information Officer Role to 'Drive Innovation'

Lara Jehi, MD, appointed to position from within the system to create a 'bridge between research and patient data with clinical care.'

In recognition of the emerging value of healthcare data to drive innovation, Cleveland Clinic has created the executive position of chief research information officer and appointed an expert from within its ranks to fill the role.

As chief research information officer, Lara Jehi, MD, will establish and oversee Cleveland Clinic's research informatics environment to advance biomedical research, according to the organization. Her role involves working closely with information technology, research, finance, and other departments to optimize the enterprise’s digital infrastructure to support research activities and accelerate new patient treatments.

“As healthcare has become vastly more data-intensive, the chief research information officer role will bridge research and patient data with clinical care,” says James Young, MD, Cleveland Clinic’s chief academic officer in a news release. “Dr. Jehi’s expertise as both a data-based researcher and physician will provide strategic vision to leverage large clinical informatics systems to drive innovation.”

Jehi began working for Cleveland Clinic in 2006 as an epilepsy specialist, and she spearheads multi-institutional National Institutes of Health-funded grants focused on data science. She led teams that developed a model for individualized outcome prediction after epilepsy surgery, which was featured as one of the top five innovations of 2015 by Lancet Neurology. Her data-driven algorithms for clinical care decision-making are being used, studied, and expanded worldwide, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

“We owe our patients a healthcare system that harnesses technology, creativity, and science to provide the best care of today, and develop the pioneering care of tomorrow,” Jehi says in the release. “As digital health care delivery matures, our team will harness Cleveland Clinic’s robust health information and data sources to shape research innovation in basic and translational science, clinical research, and healthcare delivery.”

Jehi holds several research leadership roles at Cleveland Clinic:

• As co-director of Network Capacity for the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Cleveland, her team facilitates multi-center clinical trials through streamlined recruitment efforts, using the electronic health record.
   
• She is the principal investigator of Cleveland Clinic’s Biorepository, a role leveraging information technology, enterprise analytics, and regulatory support to efficiently scale up and incorporate biobanking efforts within clinical workflow.
   
• She also serves as vice-chair of Cleveland Clinic’s Institutional Review Board.

Jehi is professor of neurology at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. She received her medical degree from American University of Beirut and completed her residency in neurology and fellowship in clinical neurophysiology at Cleveland Clinic. In addition, this February she will receive a master’s degree in Health Care Delivery Science from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.