Medical school hotline: John A. Burns School of Medicine's Office of Information Technology--services beyond technical support.

Information technology (IT) is an essential part of today's organization. From personal computers, the Internet, and communication technology to specialized software and hardware applications, leveraging IT solutions reduce costs and increase the quality, efficiency, and innovation of an organization.1 Examples of technology trends include the proliferation of mobile devices, cloud environments, social media, virtual environments, interactive content, and administrative business applications. In a medical school environment, technology is a vital resource in increasing academic productivity, enhancing teaching and learning modalities, and facilitating research by providing technical solutions to enable innovation. As the sophistication and application of such technology increase, careful strategic planning is needed for successful integration, implementation, and sustainable usage. For IT to be leveraged optimally, a synergistic combination between other organizational resources must be established.1 This is especially true in the academic environments, where time and resource constraints on faculty and staff may not afford the training and knowledge needed to take full advantage of available technological opportunities.2 In facilitating the information technology needs of an organization, the IT department is an essential component in both support and application development. Areas in which a medical school's IT department is vital include the following: web-based educational programs; simulation and virtual technology; evaluation tools; technology to support administrative tasks and procedures; library support; databases for information storage, networking and communications infrastructure; portals for faculty and staff information and training; technical support both on the user and administrative ends; and security for both data and physical infrastructures. The John A. Burns School of Medicine's (JABSOM) Office of Information Technology (OIT), under the Office of Administration, Finance, and Operations, is the IT backbone for the school of medicine. OIT supports the educational mission of JABSOM by providing information technology to faculty, staff, and students. The job of OIT is to provide technical support and application development services needed by departments and programs. The Director, Henry Glaspie, is now well versed in JABSOM's technological needs. His vision on the sustainable future for IT at JABSOM includes: Upgrading the networking infrastructure Consolidating of the IT infrastructure, both on campus and off campus locations Enhancing the physical security of buildings (ie, video cameras and emergency communication systems) Ensuring data security and compliance to security policies Facilitating data management and storage Developing a new up-to-date website Offering IT solution services to JABSOM departments and programs Training staff to maintain competency and learn opportunities in the evolving IT world Following are examples of projects that JABSOM's OIT has been working on to support the needs of specific departments and programs. This includes the development of applications to streamline and add efficiency, as well as, improve the infrastructure by increasing bandwidth and Internet connectivity both to and across locations outside of the main medical school campus at Kaka‘ako.