Other Affiliations
Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh Medical School
Research Interests
My main area of research interest is improving the design and usability of electronic health records and health IT systems in general, using a novel paradigm together with modern web technical approaches. This is based on giving nonprogrammer clinicians more control via a drag/drop platform approach which allows them to create their own software and tools. It has promise to increase the software’s efficiency and cognitive support, fit to clinician ways of thinking, work contexts, public health emergencies, ease of use, and evolvability to meet future needs and different specialty and work contexts. This also involves finding improved ways to visualize clinical data to aid clinicians.
My other major areas of interest are using informatics for patient/consumer engagement to aid health, particularly in minority communities and the underserved or patients who are otherwise outside the mainstream, global health informatics, and analytics to improve healthcare. Recently I have begun use of process mining to detect causes of diagnostic delay and system biases.
Professional Interests
Currently I primarily conduct informatics research and teach informatics, particularly research methods and technology development. I have worked as webmaster for the Columbia Health Sciences campus, a very large academic medical center in New York City, as well as for Harlem Health Promotion Center and other research institutes. Other work has included French-English technical text translation and a variety of other positions. I am interested in how to foster innovation development in healthcare as well as in other domains.
Impact
Our work has contributed to design and use of various informatics tools, both clinician- and patient-facing.