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Can medicine tame big data? Three Northeast Ohio health care heavyweights are determined to take advantage of large amount of clinical info they’ve collected By TIMOTHY MAGAW tmagaw@crain.com
If Cleveland’s biomedical powerhouses — Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University’s medical school — wanted to make mean-
ingful progress with using big data in advancing their research efforts, they knew they had to play nice with each other in the city’s sandbox. As such, the three recently locked arms to launch the Institute of Computational Biology — an ef-
fort its founders say will allow them to take advantage of the hulking amount of clinical information they’ve each collected over the years. The difficult task at hand is taking clinical data housed within the hospitals’ individual medical record systems, stripping it of sen-
sitive personal information and converting it into a format that can be digested by researchers at all three institutions. It’s not a cheap undertaking, either. Officials at Case Western Reserve, which is taking the lead on the project, said the three institutions contributed a combined $21.5 million to the institute. The university declined to break down each institution’s individual contribution, but officials stressed none
could launch an initiative like this on its own. “Big data is costly,” said Dr. Pamela Davis, dean of Case Western Reserve’s School Davis of Medicine. “There’s a certain economy of scale of being able to do this together.” See DATA Page 6
PARTYING HEARTIER ERC survey shows 10 percentage point jump in employers planning holiday get-togethers By MICHELLE PARK LAZETTE mpark@crain.com
C
aterers say they’re enjoying a taste of the action revealed in a local survey, which found the percentage of employers in Northeast Ohio planning holiday parties is the highest by far since the survey started asking about such festivities in 2009. This year’s Holiday Practices Survey by ERC, a human resources organiza-
tion in Highland Heights, found 83% of the respondents are planning parties for their employees, a 10 percentage point jump from 73% in 2012. That increase dwarfs any since the survey’s inception. In 2009, 2011 and 2012, 73% of respondents reported planning a holiday party, and in 2010, the figure was 71%. The survey also found 71% of the respondents this year say their parties will be catered, up from 64% in 2012.
INSIDE: More survey results. Page 17
See PARTIES Page 17
COMPANIES ARE FEELING FESTIVE A look at the percentage of organizations planning a holiday party this year, and how it compares to 2011 and 2012: 83% 73%
73%
73% 58%
27% 27%
58%
17% 6%
7%
9% 4%
8%
2011 2012 2013
2011 2012 2013
2011 2012 2013
2011 2012 2013
2011 2012 2013
We are planning to have a holiday party.
We are not planning to have a holiday party this year.
Yes, but we are budgeting less than last year.
Yes, and we are budgeting the same as last year.
Yes, and we are budgeting more than last year.
CRAIN’S PUBLISHER RETIRES
SPECIAL SECTION
FAREWELL
CITY LIVING
NEWSPAPER
74470 83781
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■ Source: “2013 ERC Holiday Practices Survey”; view the full survey at tinyurl.com/n9gd48b
0
6%
Brian Tucker looks back on his career ■ Page 4
Apartment construction could be the next big thing in Downtown Cleveland ■ Pages 13-15
PLUS: RETIREMENT PARTY PICS, Page 10
PLUS: URBAN BOOM IS FELT ELSEWHERE ■ PROFILES IN LIVING
Entire contents © 2013 by Crain Communications Inc. Vol. 34, No. 48