Payne elected president of medical informatics organization
Global informatics and data science pioneer will lead American Medical Informatics Association
Payne
Philip Payne, PhD, the vice chancellor for Biomedical Informatics and Data Science at WashU Medicine and the chief health AI officer for BJC Health and WashU Medicine, has been elected president and chair of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). Payne was elected by the 5,600-member organization, which includes clinicians, researchers, data scientists and industry professionals. He officially started his term on Jan. 1.
Payne, who is also the Janet and Bernard Becker Professor at WashU Medicine and a professor of computer science and engineering in the WashU McKelvey School of Engineering, is the founding director of both the Institute for Informatics, Data Science and Biostatistics at WashU Medicine and WashU Medicine and BJC Health’s joint Center for Health AI. His research focuses on improving clinical outcomes and accelerating biomedical research through the application of data and informatics tools.
Payne has long been at the forefront of data analytics and artificial intelligence as they have rapidly transformed the field of medicine. Among other pursuits, his lab specializes in data-driven approaches to characterize biomolecular and clinical information to improve diagnosis and treatments for patients with rare genetic diseases, cancer, and neurodegeneration. He is also investigating new approaches to analyze and leverage patient data to improve treatment recommendations and the quality and safety of care delivered at a systems level.
As president and chair of AMIA, he will lead the organization’s mission to advance the field of informatics by encouraging and providing opportunities to collaborate, as well as through providing training, credentials and career support to its members and the broader health and health-care communities. He will also lead AMIA’s policy advocacy related to the use of informatics to reduce the administrative burden on clinicians, ameliorate systemic biases and discrimination, and to advocate for research funding.
