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Dr. Sandberg named CIMIT Site Miner at MGH

Warren S. Sandberg, MD, PhD, an anesthesiologist and operating room innovator at Massachusetts General Hospital, has been named CIMIT Site Miner for that institution. He has been a leader of CIMIT’s Operating Room of the Future Project, and has been involved in CIMIT projects focused on improving the process of patient care.

In announcing the appointment, MGH President Peter L. Slavin, MD, said, “Site miners look for novel products, ideas or technologies that may be brought to CIMIT for further development. They help uncover areas within the institution where new innovations could help caregivers better the lives of patients. We congratulate Dr. Sandberg on this new critical role.”

CIMIT Executive Director John Parrish, MD, said, “We are very pleased to have Dr. Sandberg as site miner at MGH. He brings a new level of energy and enthusiasm to this critical role. He believes that by seeking out and encouraging innovations that leverage electronic data from medical devices and information systems we can and will improve medical care. Dr. Sandberg will be an inspirational mentor to many at MGH and throughout the CIMIT community.”

Site miners are unique to the CIMIT network. They seek out, encourage and engage emerging innovators who show a passion for transforming patient care through technology. Boston’s teaching hospitals are a mecca for creative, passionate doctors, technologists and clinical researchers. A key role of the site miner is to identify clinicians who have the most promising ideas, and help find the means to implement them.

“The CIMIT Site Miner should thrive on helping others succeed,” said Dr. Sandberg, “and have a voracious appetite for new ideas and an intuition for how novel combinations of ideas and problems can advance medical science and the process of care. Because of my passionate commitment to the CIMIT mission and to CIMIT’s continued success in meeting that mission, I look forward to this opportunity.”

Dr. Sandberg earned an MD at the Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, and a PhD at the University of Chicago. In addition to serving as the CIMIT Site Miner for MGH, he is director of OR Innovation, Technology and Analysis, and leads the liver transplantation anesthesia team. An associate professor at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Sandberg’s clinical specialties are thoracic anesthesia, regional anesthesia, anesthesia for liver transplantation, OR safety, innovations in perioperative systems design and OR process management.

Dr. Sandberg said, “My research interests originated in the ORF, and my program of research is directed at creating systems that are specifically designed to accomplish the goals of procedural and surgical care, with a patient-centric and safety-oriented focus, while allowing clinicians to focus on core activities.”

MGH researchers interested in contacting Dr. Sandberg can do so at wsandberg@partners.org.