From the early 1980's until approximately 1997 the focus of the Clinical Center Information Systems Department was the TDS 7000 Medical Information System (MIS) and the Honeywell Laboratory Information System (LIS). MIS was a mainframe hospital information system while the LIS was a laboratory information system. Access to MIS originally was through dummy terminals with light pens and then eventually through a Macintosh User Interface called MAC/MIS. All order entry was through MIS. Orders were sent to LIS with results sent back to MIS.
The Department was organized into a Mainframe Group, a MIS CADRE group (which included training, help-desk and configuration for MIS), a LIS Team and Operations Technicians (OPS Techs) to support user desktops and printers. There was also a team to support other applications and systems including small home-grown systems but it was small and ad-hoc.
Around 1997 the Department grew in many areas including Network Support, Desktop Support, Database Applications including web applications and the Clinical Center Website. In 1999 improvements began in the Clinical Areas, specifically Ancillary Systems. The Laboratory Information System included Laboratory Medicine, Microbiology, Anatomic Pathology, Bone Marrow, and Transfusion Medicine. Tests such as HLA, Cell Processing and Blood Product Management were installed early in 1999. The Radiology Information System was installed in late 1999. During the same year PYXIS Medication Management, the SoftMed Medical Record Transcription System and the EKG System were implemented.
Then in 2001, the Department began planning for the replacement of MIS now known as Clinical Research Information System (CRIS). To handle the requirements of CRIS, as well as, the increasing demands of IT, the IT department (then known as the Information Systems Department, ISD) split into two departments: Department of Clinical Research Informatics (DCRI) and Department of Network and Applications (DNA). DCRI focused on Clinical IT including MIS, MIS Support, Ancillary System Support and the planning for CRIS while DNA focused on the necessary infrastructure for all IT needs and included Data Center Management, Desktop Support, Systems and Monitoring, Networking, Server Administration and Database and Custom Application Development. In 2004, prior to the deployment of CRIS, DNA and DCRI merged back together and focused on full IT support for the Clinical Center. The name of the combined department remains DCRI.