Report to the Dean

Office of Medical Informatics

Richard Rathe, MD
Associate Dean for Information Technology
November 2007

Overview

The Office of Medical Informatics (OMI) was created by the Dean in 1990 to enhance the education and patient care missions of the College of Medicine (COM). OMI is part the of Chapman Education Center and synergistic with the Office of Medical Education (OME). The Director is currently the Associate Dean for Information Technology and reports to the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. We support undergraduate, graduate and continuing medical education; the physician assistant program; and to a lesser degree, the graduate school (IDP).

While focused primarily on education, the office has College and Health Science Center (HSC) wide roles. The following diagram summarizes our major services (orange) in context (see also the historical timeline and previous reports from 1995 and 2003). Arrows indicate a direct line of support. [Note that some minor lines have been omitted for clarity.] Core services are described below.

Core Services

Core Services

Philosophy

The Office of Medical Informatics adheres to the following precepts:

Staff

Richard Rathe, MD (Director)

Dr. Rathe has more than twenty years of experience with computers in medicine. He is an former fellow of Medical Informatics at the Harvard School of Public Health. He has directed OMI since its inception in 1990. He is the author of several major software programs (XAM, EvalCGI, etc.) and works to advance the utility and usability of software within the COM. His current projects include:

In his role as Associate Dean for Information Technology, Dr. Rathe serves on several important committees at the College, HSC, and Campus levels. He is the current chair of the HSC Instructional Support Committee. At various times he has played important roles with patient care systems and Shands Hospital. He is currently involved with the COM Ambulatory Electronic Medical Record project.

Mark Dinsmore (Systems Administration)

Mr. Dinsmore came to us from a successful Internet company (Thinkwell) of which he was a founding officer. He is a highly effective systems administrator and programmer. His current projects include:

Gene Cornwall, MEd (Online Testing and Lab Manager)

Mr. Cornwall came from an educational software background. He is a key support person for the HSC Testing Center (and to a lesser degree the other HSC Colleges and the satellite testing facility in Jacksonville). He works closely with the new Head Proctor to ensure that examinations are smooth, efficient, and secure. His duties include:

Carlos Morales (Webmaster)

Mr. Morales is a talented web designer and photographer. He works broadly across several COM units and departments. His responsibilities include:

Dan McCoy (Lead Programmer)

Mr. McCoy joined us last year from the College of Dentistry. While there he was responsible for ECO (their course management system) and online examinations using XAM. His current projects include:

Charles Poulton (Audiovisual Specialist)

Mr. Poulton has been capturing, editing and producing A/V materials for the COM for more than ten years. His duties vary based on need; the following are representative:

Synergy with Other Units

We work synergistically with several OME staff:

For the past five years we have had an continuous collaboration with the Office of Continuing Medical Education to capture and produce an Grand Rounds Online series.

We have recently undertaken a substantial collaboration with the Department of Radiology to develop state-of-the-art GME curricular tools. The first set of services have entered beta-testing and will be fully operational by early 2008. We anticipate offering these services to all UF program directors by June 2008.

Gaps in Services, Potential Synergies and Areas Needing Improvement

Within OMI

Between OMI and Other COM Units

Between COM and HSC