The Office of Technology and Information Systems (TIS) was formed in 1996 and reports to the Deputy Director for Administration. The Department is responsible for formulating and implementing a strategic design for an institution wide information infrastructure for workstations, network and databases.

The Psychiatric Institute has a wide area network of over 1,300 computers connected to a network backbone. Each machine has full access to the Internet including E-Mail, Calendar, Groupwise and World Wide Web Services. All facilities within the Institute are connected via a fiber optics backbone Utilizing OC3 ATM protocol and 100 megabits per second (mbs) Fast Ethernet protocol to the desktop. This allows for the high speed transfer of graphics including PET, SPEC and other medical imaging. Planning is in place to migrate to gigabit Ethernet which will allow for even greater throughput.

In addition TIS has established the Computer Training Center a small drop-in center and group training facility composed of 12 networked PC's. Located on the L2 level of the Kolb Annex, the center Classes are given in many statistical and application software throughout the year.

The Department distributes the TIS Newsletter periodically. TIS maintains and upgrades PI’s Web Site.

Also, TIS in conjunction with the Columbia University Department of Informatics established the Institute's first Psychiatry Informatics Fellowship.

TIS was instrumental in major institutional initiatives including the move to the new building in 1998 and the Y2K preparedness project in 1999.

TIS Major Initiatives
1. HIPPA (Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act)
2. The National Institute of Health Issued revised guidelines regarding monitoring of all intervention studies to ensure the safety of participants and the validity and integrity of the data.
3. FDA Electronic Records, Electronic Signature Rule (ER/ES - 21 CFR 11). and the newly published Guidance on Computerized Clinical Trials.

Technical preparedness and support for OMH Initiatives
1.NIMR’s (New Incident Management Report System)
2. FM1/CMMS Facility Management Work Order System
3. Mental Health Automated Record System (MHARS)
4. MedSolutions Pharmacy System

Support for funded research programs
1. The Telepsychiatry Project funded by the Department of Agriculture (William Tucker, MD)
2. The Cogent Support Grant (Jack Gorman, MD)
3. The Jerusalem Project (Dolores Malespina, MD)

External to PI
1.A Pilot Study of Neurocysticerosis Treatment in Ecuador. (W. Allen Hauser, MD)
2. Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease with Estrogens (M. Sano, PhD)