Laird Center for Medical Research

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Biomedical Informatics Research Center (BIRC)

Information technology is key to transforming health care during the 21st century.

Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation founded the Biomedical Informatics Research Center, or BIRC, in 2005. Its mission is to accelerate improvements in human health and well-being through informatics research while providing integrated tools, services and reliable management of information assets in support of the mission of Marshfield Clinic. BIRC collaborates with other research centers and Information Systems to advance scientific discoveries and develop new visualization, analytics and workflow technologies.

Housed within BIRC are the Research Data Center, the office-based research area occupied by scientists and programming staff, the Applied Informatics Lab, where interactive devices are developed and tested, and the Interactive Clinical Design Institute.

Interactive Clinical Design Institute

The Interactive Clinical Design Institute and Interaction Lab are housed within BIRC. Computer technology is an essential part of the health care process. Therefore, it is important to understand the way that patients and health care professionals interact with computers. Within the Interaction Lab, researchers observe, record and analyze people interacting with health care computer hardware, software and Internet resources. Information learned from these studies guides the design of new computer systems to make them faster and easier to use, and to reduce medical errors.

*Made possible through a generous investment from Security Health Plan, Inc.

Visit the Biomedical Informatics Research Center Home page.