NMDP Receives

Computerworld Smithsonian Award In Medicine

The National Marrow Donor Program's (NMDP) life-saving and sophisticated computer networking and database system has been recognized for its visionary use of information technology to help save lives. The NMDP's STAR^® (Search Tracking and Registry) computer system, used to facilitate unrelated donor stem cell transplants for patients with life-threatening blood diseases who do not have matching donors in their families, received the prestigious 2000 Computerworld Smithsonian Award in the Medicine category. The STAR system was one of the five finalists in the Medicine category.

"The NMDP is proud to know that a case study about these wonderful tools will be described and forever preserved in the National Museum of American History as part of the Permanent Research Collections of the Smithsonian Institution. Through the creative use of the very best offerings in the areas of technology, we, at the NMDP, have established a world-class system and should be proud that it is worthy of being recognized as part of American history in the information age," said Devan Shepherd, director of Information Systems. "I applaud and congratulate the many staff in the Information Systems department and the teams throughout the NMDP who have partnered so effectively to architect the STAR system."

The STAR computer system manages all patient searches, tracks detailed patient histories and maintains the NMDP Registry of approximately 4 million potential unrelated volunteer marrow and blood stem cell donors. At any given time, the STAR system is processing searches for more than 3,000 patients. The system handles more than 650 new donor searches and accepts more than 40,000 new volunteer donors to the Registry each month.

Since the STAR system's implementation in late 1992, the NMDP Registry has grown from 600,000 to almost 4 million volunteers and the number of transplants facilitated has increased dramatically. The STAR system's success also has drawn the attention of foreign registries, which are interested in adapting it for their own registries.

Nominated by Mr. John Chen, president and chief executive officer Sybase, Inc., the STAR system was selected by a panel of distinguished judges based on its innovative use of information technology to benefit society. A case study about the STAR system was formally presented to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History on April 3 on the National Mall in front of the Smithsonian Castle.

Established in 1988, the Computerworld Smithsonian Program was created to search out and publicly honor organizations and individuals whose use of information technology produces positive social, economic and education change. The STAR system will become part of the Smithsonian's Permanent Research Collection at the Museum of American History. The STAR system is part of a collection that includes more than 440 of the year's most innovative applications of technology from 38 states and 21 countries. The entire 2000 collection is available to scholars, researchers and the public at www.cwsmithsonian.org, the official Web site of the Computerworld Smithsonian program.