I just listened to the AMIA closing keynote by Robert Wachter, MD. He presented a compelling argument for use of user-centered design in health information technology. Using powerful examples, he really hammered home the need for understanding work, users, and the transformative nature of switching the work of health to a technological platform. I’m encouraged that a prominent physician really “gets” the critical need for user-centered methods in technology design and development. That he was chosen to deliver a keynote challenging the status quo gives me hope for where the field is headed.

The paper I worked on with Katie O’Leary for AMIA this year, titled “Understanding patients’ health and technology attitudes for tailoring self-management interventions,” won the Homer Warner Award! From AMIA’s website, this award is given to the paper “that best describes approaches to improving computerized information acquisition, knowledge data acquisition and management, and experimental results documenting the value of these approaches.” The paper describes an innovative application of Q-methodology to elicit attitudes toward chronic health management and statistically clustering those results to derive significant composite patient profiles. The important contribution is empirical evidence that demographics like age, race, and educational attainment do not factor into a patient’s use of technology for managing a chronic health condition. These results argue against providers making any assumptions about a patient’s use of information technology based on demographics. Congratulations Katie!

I’m at AMIA in San Francisco right now and although we still have a long way to go, I’m happy to say that Consumer Health Informatics has a much bigger presence than in prior years. Colleagues at University of Washington and UNC-CH made a strong showing. Congratulations to Logan Kendall and co-authors for their Best Student Paper nomination. Also, the paper I worked hard on with Katie O’Leary is up for a Distinguished Paper Award! Yay us!

I landed a Research Assistant Professorship at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – Blue Heaven! My appointment is in the School of Medicine Division of General Medicine and I’m supported my the great NC TraCS center. I’m very happy to join the university and looking forward to working with the talented folks there.