Don Lindberg, High Performance Computing and Communications, and Telemedicine

Abstract

From 1992 to 1995 Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D. served concurrently as the founding director of the National Coordination Office (NCO) for High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) and NLM director. The NCO and its successors coordinate the Presidential-level multi-agency HPCC research and development (R&D) program called for in the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991. All large Federal science and technology R&D and applications agencies, including those involved in medical research and health care, participate in the now-30-year-old program. Lindberg’s HPCC efforts built on his pioneering work in developing and applying advances in computing and networking to meet the needs of the medical research and health care communities. As part of NLM’s participation in HPCC, Lindberg promoted R&D and demonstrations in telemedicine, including testbeds, medical data privacy, medical decision-making, and health education. That telemedicine technologies were ready to meet demand during the COVID-19 pandemic is testament to Lindberg’s visionary leadership.

Donald A.B. Lindberg, pioneer in biomedical and health informatics: His involvement in creating professional organizations

“…Dr. Lindberg's and NLM's roles in those activities are detailed elsewhere in this book, including the outreach efforts for NLM bibliographical content embodied in the Grateful Med and PubMed interfaces. During the years 1992-95, Don was also the Director of the National Coordinating Office for High Performance Computing and Communications [8]. In addition, he served from 1996 to 2000 as the US Coordinator for the G-7 Global Health Applications Project, nominated by the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).…”

Donald A.B. Lindberg and the U.S. National Library of Medicine transformed biomedical and health informatics

“…Several trailblazing NLM projects made key contributions that changed this situation. Their nationwide (and often global) impacts facilitated establishment of biomedical informatics as a modern, professional discipline [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]14]. Lorenzi and Stead describe the development and evolution of the Integrated Academic Information Management Systems project in NLM and the IAIMS Initiative: cross-institutional academic/advanced systems contributing to the evolution of networked information and resources [3].…”

“…Masys and Benson in Don Lindberg and the creation of the National Center for Biotechnology Information document the second critical development (NCBI), which has had world-wide impact in promoting "omics" research [10]. The third development, the High-Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) project, is described by Ackerman, Howe and Masys in Don Lindberg, high performance computing and communications, and telemedicine [11]. Finally, Ackerman, in The Visible Human project [12], details development of a resource that had implications well beyond anatomy representation.…”

“…as its Director from 1984 to 2015, the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) introduced complementary transformations that radically altered and advanced the landscape of biomedical and health informatics in the United States. The chapters of the Informatics Section of the book, Transforming biomedical informatics and health information access: Don Lindberg and the U.S. National Library of Medicine document these transformations [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

The U.S. National Library of Medicine and standards for electronic health records: One thing led to another

“…Many factors contributed to this outcome including: the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS); Lindberg's pre-NLM informatics and health services research contacts; helpful actions by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) (now National Academy of Medicine); the U.S. Congress, HHS, and other federal agencies. Other contributions included: Lindberg's appointment as the first Director of the National Coordinating Office for High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC); and his decisions to use NLM's authorization to "engage in such other activities as the Secretary [of HHS] determines appropriate and as the Library's resources permit [13][14][15][16]".…”