David Dorr, M.D., assistant professor of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, has received the 2007 New Investigator Award at the annual symposium of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) in Chicago.
The award – presented at the AMIA leadership dinner on Nov. 10 – is given annually in recognition of an individual's early informatics contributions and significant scholarly contributions on the basis of scientific merit and research excellence.
Dorr's work at OHSU currently is focused on collaborative care, chronic disease management and quality enhancement – and the clinical information systems required to support them. He is the principal investigator for the OHSU senior care program known as Care Management Plus, a technology-intensive, innovative primary care model that reduces hospitalizations, lowers costs and improves health outcomes for older adults with chronic illnesses. The program is a cooperative project funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation and led by OHSU and Intermountain Healthcare of Salt Lake City.
Dorr works locally as well with the RADAR (Research on Adverse Drug Events and Reports) project at Northwestern University to improve quality and patient safety through informatics applications.
Dorr's focus also includes broader clinical information needs, including electronic health record deployment and health information exchange and interoperability between health care providers and a range of other health care participants as a way to expand systems-based approaches to all of health care.
"It is always gratifying for a high-quality academic program when one of its up-and-coming members receives an honor like this," said William Hersh, M.D., professor and chairman of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology, and OHSU School of Medicine.
Dorr earned his bachelor's in economics and his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis. He completed an internal medicine residency at OHSU and earned a master's in medical informatics and health services administration from the University of Utah. He did several years of biostatistical consulting during his undergraduate years and at medical school. He worked previously at Intermountain Healthcare.
About AMIA
The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) is an organization of leaders shaping the future of health information technology in the United States and abroad. AMIA is dedicated to the development and application of medical informatics in support of patient care, teaching, research and health care administration. For more information about AMIA, go to http://www.amia.org.
About Bioinformatics and OHSU
Biomedical informatics (BMI) is the interdisciplinary field that integrates the structure, acquisition, use and analysis of health and biomedical data and is playing an increasingly significant role both in health care and biomedical research worldwide. OHSU's department of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology (DMICE) has been a pioneer in this rapidly evolving field and has grown into one of the nation's most respected informatics academic programs. The BMI graduate program recently accepted its 500th student and more than 200 students were enrolled this year alone both on the OHSU campus and in the department's popular distance-learning program. For more information about DMICE, go to http://www.ohsu.edu/dmice/
About the John A. Hartford Foundation
Founded in 1929, the John A. Hartford Foundation is a committed champion of training, research and service system innovations that promote the health and independence of America's older adults. Through its grantmaking, the Foundation seeks to strengthen the nation's capacity to provide effective, affordable care to this rapidly increasing older population by educating "aging-prepared" health professionals (physicians, nurses, social workers), and developing innovations that improve and better integrate health and supportive services. The Foundation was established by John A. Hartford. Mr. Hartford and his brother, George L. Hartford, both former chief executives of the Great Atlantics & Pacific Tea Company, left the bulk of t heir estates to the Foundation upon their deaths in the 1950d. Additional information about the Foundation and its programs is available at http://www.jhartfound.org.