The Story
Faculty Member Appointed to National Library of Medicine Board of Regents
College faculty member Louis Rossiter, Ph.D., has been appointed to the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine. Courtesy of University Relations.
Professor Louis F. Rossiter has been appointed to the Board of Regents at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) by Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Michael Leavitt. The appointment was effective starting in late October and continues through July 2011.
Rossiter is a research professor, as well as director of the Schroeder Center for Healthcare Policy, part of the Jefferson Program in Public Policy at the College. He is a health economist, which he describes as someone who “specializes in applying microeconomic concepts to the issues of cost, access and quality of healthcare.” Rossiter specifically focuses on reimbursement policy, such as Medicare and Medicaid programs.
The NLM is the world’s largest medical library, located on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. It was established by the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army in 1836.
Projects in the NLM include the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Information Center for Health Services Research and Health Care Technology. Additionally, the NLM also strives to inform consumers and the public about scientific research.
The Library also operates the “Visible Human Male” and “Visible Human Female,” large sets of digital images based on a cadaver. The University of Colorado’s Center for Human Simulation was contracted to develop the images for this database. The project began in 1989, with the first Human Male images released in 1994.
Rossiter wrote in an email, “The NLM maintains important reference databases to search all new medical publications as well as its over 2 million books on medicine from all historical ages (literally).”
As healthcare and Medicare costs go up, he explains, lawmakers are becoming increasingly interested in the NLM as a repository for information about “what really works in medicine.”
“In legislation passed last month, for example, the NLM was tasked with databasing the results from clinical trials and making them available online (www.clinicaltrials.gov)... The Congress wanted the public to have access to all findings, good or bad, from clinical trials,” he wrote.
The position on the Board of Regents is a voluntary position, which will require Dr. Rossiter to provide the best advice possible about the Library’s activities. He says he will “promote the interests of the NLM in scientific, policy and even political circles as appropriate.”
Formerly the Secretary of Health and Human Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia, Rossiter managed 13 agencies, 17,000 employees and a $5 billion budget. According to his website, as Secretary, Rossiter helped apply Virginia’s new private health insurance program, improve the state’s mental health system and manage information technology programs.
Rossiter has published more than 50 articles, edited 14 books and authored the book Medicare Managed Care in 2001. He was recently the principle investigator for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study at the College that examined the rising market of pharmacogenomics and health care competition.
Pharmacogenomics (PGx) is the study of how genetic variation determines a person’s reaction to a drug. The study explored whether current healthcare industry can develop and use the study of PGx. Rossiter found that the existing system is inadequate for PGx products and services to reach their potential.
Another of Rossiter's projects, currently undergoing review at the Commonwealth Health Research Board, shows the value of patients' family health history. He emphasized the importance of sharing this information with doctors. “Such information is the least costly genetic information available, and could lead to patients dramatically changing their current smoking, eating or activity if they know the diseases they are risk of,” Rossiter said.
Regarding his new position on the Board of Regents, Rossiter said, “The NLM will continue to expand its enormous databases on genetic information.” He added that he looks forward to being part of the work in expanding data in the Library.
The NLM is accessible online at http://www.nlm.nih.gov. Those who are interested might want to view PubMed, one of the most visited scientific websites in the world, the Visible Human Project and the Turning Pages Project on the NLM website.