Shortliffe named top executive of biomedical informatics group

[Source: The Arizona Republic, Ken Alltucker] - Edward "Ted" Shortliffe, the former dean of the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, has been named the top executive of a national biomedical informatics group.

As president and chief executive officer of Bethesda, Md.-based American Medical Informatics Association, Shortliffe will strive to promote and grow a niche medical field that he worked to shape at Stanford University, Columbia University in New York and at the UA medical school in Phoenix. He will assume his new role on a full-time basis in July.

The group has 4,000 members and works to promote the use of technology to advance areas such as clinical research, personal health management and translational research.

Shortliffe said he also sees it as a chance to highlight the work at the Phoenix medical school.
"Probably no school has thought about this (biomedical informatics) as much as the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix," Shortliffe said.

Shortliffe has been on the faculty of the UA downtown medical school since he resigned as dean in April. Shortliffe is a professor of medicine and basic medical sciences and an ASU professor of biomedical informatics. He said he will still live in the Phoenix area and will travel frequently.