UWeek Vol.18, No.2 October 5, 2000

Biomedical and health informatics program next week

“A Vision for Informatics” is the topic for the first Biomedical and Health Informatics Symposium beginning at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 12 in room 120 of Kane Hall on campus. A reception following the program will be in Mary Gates Commons from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

The Biomedical and Health Informatics program has been funded by the UW’s University Initiatives Fund and plans to begin offering a master’s degree within the year. The new program is administered by a partnership of the College of Engineering, the Information School, the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, the School of Pharmacy and the School of Dentistry.

The Oct. 12 symposim will feature Dr. Charles Friedman, director of the Center for Medical Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh, speaking on “The Fundamental Theorem of Medical Informatics.” Friedman proposes this theory, which states that the person plus the technology has to be better - in health care, research or education - than the person alone.

“This ‘informatics’ approach,” Friedman notes, “carries an explicit focus on interaction between the person and the machine as partners, in contrast to what may be called a ‘technology approach’ that is focused primarily on the machine and secondarily on the people as users of it.” He is also a professor of medicine and information sciences and associate vice chancellor of biomedical informatics at Pittsburgh.

His address will be followed by a panel discussion featuring experts from the UW and elsewhere. Dr. Sherrilynne Fuller, associate professor and head of the Division of Biomedical and Health Informatics in the Department of Medical Education, and director of the Health Sciences Library and Information Center, will be the moderator.

The participants are:

Dr. Edward Shortliffe, professor and chair of the Department of Medical Informatics at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City;

Dr. Paul Clayton, senior informaticist at Intermountain Health Care, Salt Lake City;

Dr. Peter Tarczy-Hornoch, UW assistant professor of pediatrics and adjunct assistant professor of biomedical and health informatics;

Dr. Ann Marie Kimball, associate professor of health services and epidemiology, and director of the MPH program in health services; and

Dr. Maynard Olson, professor and acting chair of molecular biotechnology, professor of genetics and of medicine, and head of the UW Genome Project.

The free symposium is open to everyone without registration. For more information, call Jennifer Hoffman at 221-6859 or e-mail informat@u.washington.edu. The division Web site is
http://depts.washington.edu/uwmeded/dbi/dbi.html

University Week
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October 5, 2000