The University of Utah has an uncanny knack of getting to the bottom of public health problems.

It leads the nation in health informatics, which involves the use of information from medical records to combat disease and improve public health. Now, earning a new designation by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention as a center for excellence in health informatics, as well as a $5 million grant to head off spreading diseases, the U. will help the state and the country better prepare to track and stop epidemics.

"Research here has produced practical implications that, when implemented, impact public health in a real way," said Joyce A. Mitchell, chair of the U.'s department of Biomedical Informatics and head of the new center's steering committee. She said the grant is a tribute to the research in public health informatics that has taken place at the U. since the 2002 Winter Olympics. "We have a center of excellence that has produced work of national significance."

New communicable disease threats, such as H1N1 flu and the West Nile virus, have heightened concerns about the public health reporting system in the event of an outbreak or epidemic. The ultimate goal of the center will be to foster communication and facilitate the exchange of information, allowing public health departments, health-care facilities, clinical laboratories, health-care providers and schools to share critical information about disease outbreaks.

The Utah center, named the "Rocky Mountain Center for Translational Research in Public Health Informatics," joins three others, at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Indiana University and the University of Pittsburgh, as the only four in the nation chosen to research public health and disease response. All four are funded to discover strategies and tools that increase the ability of health departments, physicians and other health-care providers to promote health and prevent diseases, injuries or disabilities.

"Enhancing our use of information to improve the detection of disease, investigate the causes of health and illness, and improve our ability to prevent disease is critical to the future of public health," said Robert Rolfs, director of Utah's Disease Control and Prevention and state epidemiologist. The state health department, along with Intermountain Healthcare and the CDC will work "to make Utah a leader in making that future a reality," Rolfs said.

The Utah center will receive $5 million during the next five years to develop and test systems to advance core public health missions, such as detection, as Rolfs said, and response to known and emerging disease threats.

Cooperation among public health agencies and health-care organizations like Intermountain, ARUP Laboratories, Denver Health and various county health departments will be critical for the center's success. Colorado agencies are being included to fully serve the Rocky Mountain area, according to Dr. Matthew H. Samore, professor of internal medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine and director of the Informatics, Decision-Enhancement and Surveillance Center at the Veterans Affairs Salt Lake City Health System. He will be the new center's director.

"Technological strategies usually fail without cooperation," he said. "In Utah, a framework of trust exists that allows organizations and individuals to work together in support of health care initiatives."

e-mail: wleonard@desnews.com