BETHESDA, MD — The Board of Directors of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) announced today the selection of Suzanne Bakken, RN, PhD, FAAN, FACMI, as the new Editor-in-Chief of the AMIA peer-reviewed informatics journal, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA). Dr. Bakken, is the Alumni Professor of Nursing and Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University. She has published more than 300 scientific papers in more than 50 journals and has served as principal investigator for more than $29 million in research grants over the past 25 years. Dr. Bakken is a noted expert in applying informatics and data science methods to address health disparities affecting underserved and Latino communities.
The appointment, effective Jan. 1, 2019, brings Dr. Bakken full circle with the journal. She authored a paper published in the very first edition of JAMIA, Volume 1, Issue 1, January 1994: “Terms Used by Nurses to Describe Patient Problems: Can SNOMED III represent nursing concepts in the patient record?” In her new role, she will imbue JAMIA with the spirit of “consequentialist informatics” — informatics that makes a difference in the real-world health challenges facing communities and society today, such as opioid addiction, Alzheimer’s Disease, and caregiving burden.
“We are privileged to have someone of Dr. Bakken’s caliber taking the helm of JAMIA, particularly at this critical time for our field and for health care in general. Sue will bring not only her deep expertise as a researcher, author, editor, and mentor in the field with more than 30 years of published work, but also her broad perspective at the intersection of informatics, biomedicine and health care that will be so critical to the important work of the journal,” said Peter J. Embi, MD, MS, FACP, FACMI, AMIA Board Chair, and President and CEO, Regenstrief Institute.
Dr. Bakken has a vision for JAMIA as a multi-layered, interactive electronic knowledge resource that facilitates broad understanding of innovative thought and rigorous discovery and application in informatics and data science for health and biomedicine. JAMIA content must be translatable for a variety of audiences including practice, policy, education, industry, patients, and health care consumers.
“In my role as Editor-in-Chief of JAMIA, I will build upon the foundation of excellence and thought leadership established by JAMIA’s three previous editors. I view informatics and data science within a broad sociocultural context that considers social determinants of health, and I believe in the power of our innovations and methods to advance discovery and precision health and to address critical health issues to promote health and equity” said Dr. Bakken.
Dr. Bakken is no stranger to AMIA as a long-time member since 1991. She has been active throughout the organization as a member of the Board of Directors and chair of the AMIA 2000 Annual Symposium Scientific Program Committee. She is also a fellow and current immediate past-president of the American College of Medical Informatics and is a recipient of the Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award (2006).
At Columbia University School of Nursing, she currently directs the Precision in Symptom Self-Management (PriSSM) Center and the Reducing Health Disparities Through Informatics Training Program, and co-chairs the Health Analytics Center of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University. Following doctoral study in nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, she completed a National Library of Medicine (NLM) post-doctoral fellowship in Medical Informatics at Stanford University.
Dr. Bakken’s research activities have support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Nursing Research and the NLM. In 2010, she received the Pathfinder Award from the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research and she will be inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame in July 2018. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
The Editor-in-Chief works with the AMIA Board of Directors and a Journals and Publications Committee to ensure coordinated journal strategies. The current JAMIA Editor-in-Chief, Lucila Ohno-Machado, MD, PhD, FACMI, closes her term in December 2018 after two successful 4-year terms. Dr. Bakken’s term begins on Jan. 1, 2019, and continues through Dec. 31, 2022, with an option for an additional 4-year term.
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JAMIA, published by Oxford University Press, is a monthly peer-reviewed journal for biomedical and health informatics. Covering the full spectrum of activities in the field, JAMIA includes informatics articles in the areas of clinical care, clinical research, translational science, implementation science, imaging, education, consumer health, public health, and policy. JAMIA's articles describe innovative informatics research and systems that help to advance biomedical science and to promote health. Case reports, perspectives and reviews also help readers stay connected with the most important informatics developments in implementation, policy and education.
AMIA, the leading professional association for informatics professionals, is the center of action for 5,500 informatics professionals from more than 65 countries. As the voice of the nation’s top biomedical and health informatics professionals, AMIA and its members play a leading role in assessing the effect of health innovations on health policy, and advancing the field of informatics. AMIA actively supports five domains in informatics: translational bioinformatics, clinical research informatics, clinical informatics, consumer health informatics, and public health informatics.