Faculty News

Dear Colleagues - I am dropping you all a note to review the highlights of the Health Informatics Program over the past year. 

Firstly thank you all very much for all your support and interest in the program. We now have, I believe, a very solid program and a first class group of students, and it is an honor to be able to represent you all. It is also very pleasing to hear positive things about our program, our students and our faculty from so many places, and I believe that as a program we are now becoming increasingly well known and respected both throughout California, and the nation. 

The highlights I would like to pick out, in no particular order, are as follows: 

Student admissions to the masters program: 

We have had 31 fully completed student applications for the 2008-09 academic year and have accepted 21 of these overall, with several students already started, and another 12 new students due to start in Fall. We will have a total of 27 students, including 5 full time, on the program from Fall onwards, which is more than twice as many as in any year previously. The admissions committee of Jim Case, Matt Bishop and Don Hilty have done an enormous amount of work and have ensured that we have very high quality students. Jen Bannister and Mark Carroll have done superlative jobs helping the students along, and Mark (and Kathy Chorba before she sadly left recently) have been excellent with his marketing and promotion of the program. We have had booths at 3 national informatics conferences that has greatly enhanced our visibility and I am sure has led to us receiving so many applications. 

Certificate program with UCD Extension: 

This has commenced very successfully, with over 40 students enrolled in the introductory course taught by Mark Carroll and Jose Galvez. I start teaching a course on internet health in a few weeks, and will be followed by Mike Hogarth teaching EMR. 

Student achievements:

Sanjeev Tandon gained a prestigious fellowship with the CDC and he and Kent Anderson were our first graduates from the new research focussed program. I was very pleased to see excellent evaluations of the courses and our lecturers, and continuously positive feedback about our courses. Jonathan Flores has also gained an excellent summer internship at the WHO in Geneva and is there now. 

Awards and Memberships 

We are founder members of the AMIA Academic Forum and the Telemedicine course I teach was accredited by the American Telemedicine Association - one of only two such courses in the country so accredited. The CME conference in March was a great success, with over 100 attendees, and we are already involved in planning next years which will be run collaboratively with several other health groups as well as the Northern California Chapter of HIMSS. 

Collaborations: 

Our partnerships with the Dept of Public Health and the Betty Irene School of Nursing are very positive. We have changed our course rules, re-written our bylaws, and are about to submit our PhD program proposal, all altered and updated to take into account these partnerships and to make our program much more flexible. In particular the School of Nursing decision to mandate at least 4 units of health informatics for all their graduate students will be a great draw for our program, and along with our excellent relationship with the Rural PRIME program from the School of Medicine, will ensure that we have large numbers of excellent students doing our courses, along with our own enrolled students. We are working on developing internships for our students and already have a lot of interest in these from several organizations. 

Future Directions: 

With the development of an increased interest in health informatics nationally, led by President Obama, I am confident that there are significant opportunities for expansion of our program, and for the creation of more badly needed faculty positions to increase our research strength and assist with teaching and mentoring. It is my impression that the Deans of all Schools involved in our program are very supportive of the program, and despite the desperate economic times of the University, I believe that our program may well attract increased interest and support. 

Thanks indeed for all your help and interest in our program 

Peter 

Peter Yellowlees MBBS, MD

Professor of Psychiatry, UC Davis

Director of the Health Informatics Graduate Program, UC Davis

UC Davis Innovation Progress Magazine, By Jo Ann Shroyer, January 2009. Professor Cristina Davis is highlighted in this article and video clip explaining how technology will affect our lives in the next century.

See this Blog interview with Graduate Group Chair Dr. Peter Yellowlees regarding virtual worlds by Dennis Shiao of All Virtual World Press.

Dr. Dick Walters exploring Tunisia

Dr. Dick Walters, Graduate Group Member and UC Davis Professor Emeritus, Department of Computer Science, recently traveled to Tunisia in search of collaboration opportunities for the Health Informatics Program.

The American Telemedicine Association has accredited the UC Davis "Telemedicine" course taught by Dr. Peter Yellowlees and Dr. Don Hilty. Beginning on May 1, 2009, the accreditation will be valid for three years. More information on this course can be found here.

Dr. Marcin will be chairing the 4th Annual Pediatric Telehealth Colloquium, to be held Sept. 24 - 25, 2009, in Palm Springs, CA. It will be the featured track at the ATA's 3rd Annual Mid-Year meeting.

Graduate Group Chair Dr. Peter Yellowlees discusses the Health Informatics Master's Degree Program, Certificate Program, and Ph.D. here. 

Please email faculty news items to healthinformatics@ucdavis.edu.