During the past decade, biomedical and health informatics research at the UW has flourished. The research effort has matured from a loose confederation of researchers into a strong core group of informatics research faculty under the leadership of Dr. Sherrilynne Fuller. Fuller is professor and founding head of the now 4-year-old Division of Biomedical and Health Informatics in the Department of Medical Education, School of Medicine. She also directs the Health Sciences Library and Information Center.

UW researchers have made substantial contributions in the areas of structural informatics; clinical informatics; knowledge retrieval, representation, analysis, and application; bioinformatics; and emerging technologies in health care. In addition, there is a core expertise in health technology evaluation and two emerging areas of research: population-based informatics and patient-centered health services.

While basic science and educational informatics research is also being conducted by faculty in the division, these investigators represent some of the clinically related research activities:

Dr. Sherrilynne Fuller specializes in integrated health sciences information systems design and evaluation to support decision-making at the place and time of need. She is developing approaches to represent and map the results of scientific research in support of knowledge discovery. Fuller and colleagues recently completed a regional project called Bench to Bedside and Beyond. The goal was to develop a regional telemedicine testbed connecting health professionals and patients from big cities, small towns, and sparsely populated areas in Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho (WWAMI) to provide timely access to vital health information.

Fuller also served as the principal investigator for the Integrated Advanced Information Management System (IAIMS). The program served as a nidus for the clinical informatics group and has initiated a number of informatics research, development, and training activities including a seminar series, graduate training, and use of the Internet in delivering health-care knowledge resources and decision support tools. She is collaborating with a multidisciplinary group of UW researchers led by Dr. Brent Stewart, professor of radiology, who are exploring applications of the Next Generation Internet technologies to support patient-centered collaborative cancer care. This research project grew out of the IAIMS initiative and the Bench to Bedside and Beyond regional telemedicine projects.

Dr. Harold Goldberg, associate professor of medicine and director for clinical informatics development, uses the UW clinical data repository MIND (Medical Information Networked Databases) and its suite of applications to study clinical performance. His past research included the initial design and development of the MIND repository and the creation of automated clinical alerts integrated with the electronic medical record to improve patient care. Goldberg is developing a diabetes disease management module for the UW Web-based electronic medical record, MINDscape, for use by both patients and providers.

Dr. Peter Tarczy-Hornoch, associate professor of pediatrics in the Division of Neonatology and associate professor of medical education and head of the Division of Biomedical and Health Informatics, works on delivering just-in-time information at the point of care. His research interests include clinical genetic databases, data integration systems for genetic databases, and linkage of knowledge resources to the electronic medical record. He was the informatics lead on the MINDscape Web-based electronic medical record project. He now serves as informatics lead on a directory of medical genetics laboratories providing testing and a companion knowledge base. He is also principal investigator on a genetics project, GeneSeek, which investigates the application of data integration systems that can process semi-structured data.

Dr. Tom Payne’s research interest is in the use and evaluation of computer-based medical records in patient care, clinical research, and quality assurance. Payne is medical director of Academic Medical Centers Information Systems and clinical associate professor of medicine, health services, and medical education. Payne is one of the leaders of the UW Clinical Informatics Group of researchers who are developing, applying, and evaluating information technology to improve the quality of day-to-day care of patients. He is an investigator in the Order Entry Systems and Workflow project, which is evaluating hospital physicians’ workflow under a hybrid system that is both paper and electronic. The project will re-evaluate physicians’ workflow after deploying a paperless system with automated order entry.