BCIG SPEAKER EVENT: “Complexity and Bio-Medical Informatics”

ABSTRACT:

The world is a complex place, and to help mange these complexities our society increasingly turns to information technology (IT).  However experience has shown that the success of IT solutions can very.  Healthcare delivery and medical research are amongst the complex of human endeavors, and the fields of medical informatics and bioinformatics are being called upon to contribute solutions that improve the quality, and safety of medical care while furthering the discovery of novel treatments.  In developing and maintaining Health Information Technology (HIT) systems what considerations should be given to the various sources of complexity found both in the HIT system and the healthcare or research environments they are designed to support?  This talk will broadly overview several themes that relate to this issue. For example, drawing on the literature:

1)      What are the boundaries between highly structured information (such as coded data stored in relational databases) and natural language approaches found in information retrieval systems (e.g. internet search engines)?

2)      When can knowledge derived form the science of computational complexity be used as a guide in project management?

3)      What is known about the scalability of ontology and terminology mapping efforts?

4)      What empiric data exist regarding data accuracy and validation of biomedical systems?

5)      Are their relevant lesions for prior project management experience from the field of artificial intelligence?

The goal will be to have a critical exchange with the audience to better understand the barriers and opportunities in developing advanced biomedical applications.

3:30 - 5:00 pm March 12, 2009

James Sorace MD MS

For the past three years at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Office of Clinical Standards and Quality (OCSQ), Dr. James Sorace has worked extensively in Heath Information Technology (HIT) as the Subject Matter Expert for the Doctors Office Quality Information Technology Project (DOQ-IT). This national HIT project, run by the CMS, is fostering the adoption of Electronic Healthcare Records and their use for the improvement of patient care by physician offices. DOQ-IT is the largest national HIT project of its kind and to date has worked with over 3900 practices. While at CMS, Dr. Sorace has collaborated with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) on a variety of eHealth projects and proposals. Prior to joining CMS, Dr. Sorace was the Chief of the Blood Bank and Hematology Laboratories at the Baltimore Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center where he worked with the VA’s VISTA health information system. While at the VA, in addition to his interest in medical informatics, Dr. Sorace pursued several basic science research projects in inflammation, bioinformatics, and proteomics. His article in BMC Bioinformatics (see 1 below) is often cited. Dr. Sorace is a board certified pathologist with a Masters Degree in Information Systems from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Currently, Dr. Sorace is a Senior Medical Officer at the Assistant to the Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the Department of Heath and Human Services where he continues to work in HIT and related policy issues.

Related Links