Chair: Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, PhD (Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Former Director, National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health)
Title: “The Past, Present, and Future of Health Informatics”
Discussant:
Suzanne (Sue) Bakken, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI, FIAHSI
Columbia University
Dr. Suzanne Bakken is the Alumni Professor of Nursing and Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University and Vice Dean for Research at the Columbia University School of Nursing. She directs the Center for Community-Engaged Health Informatics and Data Science.
Dr. Bakken currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, American College of Medical Informatics, International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She received the Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence in Medical Informatics in 2023 and was named a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing in 2024.
Discussant:
Tianxi Cai, PhD
Harvard Medical School
Dr. Tianxi Cai is John Rock Professor of Population and Translational Data Science at Harvard Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and a Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School (HMS). She is the founding director of the Translational Data Science Center for a Learning Health System at HSPH and HMS. Dr. Cai’s research includes statistical learning methods for efficient analysis of multi-institutional electronic health records data, real world evidence, and precision medicine using large scale genomic and phenomic data.
Discussant:
James (Jim) Cimino, MD, FACMI, FACP, FNYAM, FAMIA, FIAHSI
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Dr. James (Jim) Cimino is a board-certified, practicing internist with a long career in academic biomedical informatics. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science at the Heersink School of Medicine, University of Alabama-Birmingham. James has been a Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at Columbia University and Chief of the Laboratory for Informatics Development at the NIH Clinical Center and National Library of Medicine. He has an international reputation as an expert in several subdomains of informatics, including controlled terminologies, clinical decision support, studying the information needs of clinicians and patients, and clinical research informatics, with over 400 peer-reviewed publications. His honors include Fellowships in the American College of Physicians, the New York Academy of Medicine, the American College of Medical Informatics (Past President) and the International Academy of Health Science Informatics, the Priscilla Mayden Award from the University of Utah, the Donald A.B. Lindberg Award for Innovation in Informatics and the President’s Award, both from the American Medical Informatics Association, the Medal of Honor from New York Medical College, the NIH Clinical Center Director’s Award (twice), induction into the National Academy of Medicine, and the Morris F. Collen Award for Excellence from the American College of Medical Informatics and the American Medical Informatics Association.
Discussant:
William R. (Bill) Hersh, MD, FACP, FACMI, FAMIA, FIAHSI
Oregon Health & Science University
Dr. William R. (Bill) Hersh is a Professor in the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Dr. Hersh served as the inaugural Chair of DMICE from its inception in 2003 through 2022. He also served as Director of OHSU’s Biomedical Informatics Graduate Program, from its inception in 1996 through 2023. The program includes two master’s degrees (research and professional), a PhD degree, and Graduate Certificate, and has nearly 1000 alumni. Dr. Hersh conceptualized and implemented the first offering of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 10×10 (“ten by ten”) program, which has been completed by more than 3000 individuals since 2005. He serves as Editor of the textbook, Health Informatics: Practical Guide, 8th Edition. Dr. Hersh’s research focuses on the area of information retrieval, where he has authored over 200 scientific papers as well as the book, Information Retrieval: A Biomedical and Health Perspective, 4th Edition.
Discussant:
William W. (Bill) Stead, MD, FACMI, FIAHSI
Vanderbilt University
Dr. William W. (Bill) Stead is McKesson Foundation Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He moves comfortably between envisioning the long-term potential of informatics and computation to transform health and biomedicine, and research and development to test the ideas. His current focus is on diagnostic and prognostic prediction, pairing data science with knowledge management to surface patterns hidden in electronic health record data.
