Meliha Yetisgen-Yildiz is joining the BHI core faculty as an Assistant Professor starting December 1st.  She received her BS degree in Computer Engineering and Information Science from Bilkent University (Ankara, Turkey) and MS degree on Computer Engineering from Middle East Technical University (Ankara, Turkey).  She received her PhD from the University of Washington with a thesis on Biomedical Informatics in December 2007.  After working as a post-doctoral researcher at UW, she joined Kiha, Inc. as a text mining researcher.  Her current research interests include biomedical text mining and information extraction.  She will be focused on a project working with Peter Tarczy-Hornoch and other leadership of the Northwest Institute for Genetic Medicine (http://www.nwigm.org/) using Natural Language Processing approaches to extract phenotype from the electronic medical record for research purposes (funded by the NWIGM LSDF award).

NLM-RWJF recently awarded $37,000 to the Division of Biomedical and Health Informatics for Dr. Anne Turner to develop educational materials to incorporate Public Health Informatics training into graduate Public Health core courses.  

We are pleased to announce that Cayetano-Heredia University, Lima Peru received an NIH Fogarty grant  to establish the "QUIPU: Andean Global Health Informatics Research and Training Center," a center of excellence for training and research in global health informatics (GHI) to serve as a hub for addressing the national and regional needs for high-quality training in the Andean Region (AR).  A subcontract to UW/CPHI will provide funding for training and support for the QUIPU program.

Each year our graduate students nominate BHI faculty and vote for who they believe should receive the BHI Teaching Award.  This award goes to a faculty member who shows commitment to teaching and demonstrates dedication to enriching students' learning experience.  Please join BHI in congratulating David Masuda, who is the recipient of the 2009 BHI Teaching Award.

"Developing capacity in health informatics in a resource poor setting: lessons from Peru."  Kimball AM, Curioso WH, Arima Y, Fuller S, Garcia PJ, Segovia-Juarez J, Castagnetto JM, Leon-Velarde F, Holmes KK. Human Resources for Health 2009 Oct 27;7(1):80. PMID: 19860918.  See link.

Please join me in congratulating Blaine Reeder who successfully passed his PhD General Exam on Friday, November 6.  Blaine presented his project entitled, "Characterizing information needs for public health continuity of operations: A scenario-based design approach" and is now ready to continue his important work in public health informatics.

Please extend your congratulations to Jamie Pina, who has passed his Ph.D. General Examination on the topic of "Improving Communicable Disease Reporting through Applied Informatics Research."  Jamie's exam was held on Friday, October 23.

George Demiris has been nominated for the "Distinguished paper award" for his paper being presented at the AMIA 2009 Annual Symposium.  (S18) "Video-mediated Communication in Hospice Interdisciplinary Team Meetings: Examining Technical Quality and Content."  G. Demiris, University of Washington; D. Parker Oliver, University of Missouri; E. Wittenberg-Lyles, University of North Texas; K. Washington, University of Missouri. 

From a slate of candidate papers recommended by the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium Scientific Program Committee, the Awards Committee will recognize five notable and distinguished papers from the Annual Symposium.  Distinguished papers will be awarded at the AMIA 2009 Annual Symposium in San Francisco.  Latest version of the AMIA 2009 on-site program here:  AMIA link

New System for Monitoring Emergency Department Visits for Influenza-Like Illness.  MMWR 58(39);1105.  Website link.

Lober W, Wagner S, Quiles C. Development and Implementation of a Loosely Coupled, Multi-Site, Networked and Replicated Electronic Medical Record in Haiti. In Proc of SOSP Workshop on Networked Systems for Developing Regions 2009.

Abstract: Since 2005, we have been developing and implementing an electronic medical record (EMR) that supports both individual and population health care for HIV-infected patients in Haiti. The need to support countrywide monitoring and evaluation drove early architectural decisions to support linking systems under conditions of network uncertainty. Despite numerous challenges including frequent power outages and inadequate Internet access and support, the system (iSanté) is currently implemented in 55 clinic sites nationwide, tracks over 41,000 patients, and synchronizes patient data between in-country sites and the central site databases on a daily basis.  Full-text at link.