The Center for Applied Health Informatics (CAHI) works with informatics researchers to define and use methods for applying data and information to clinical care and population health.
We develop and study innovations in informatics to improve both clinical and population health outcomes and work across disciplines to harness the power of data and technology. We strive to improve the lives of patients and communities in St. Louis and beyond.
Research Highlights
The Center for Applied Health Informatics leads in the research and application of informatics principles to clinical care and population health, and the identification and use of methods for improving health and health care with data and information. As a collection of applied researchers, we collaborate to share discoveries and approaches for applying clinical informatics.
The center also provides access to and training in the use of computationally derived (“synthetic”) and health services administrative data. We additionally provide data analysis and visualization services to advance applied clinical and population health research. Learn more about consultations and core services.
We demonstrate and provide support for various informatics approaches, including:
- Integrating cognitive and behavioral informatics techniques
- Clinical decision support
- Supporting clinical reasoning and workflow
- Advanced analytics for clinical data
- Informatics to promote patient safety and quality
- Supporting care continuity across transitions of both providers and patients
- Human factors and human-computer interaction analysis
- Applications of natural language processing
- Creating and using computable phenotypes
- Supporting clinicians adapting to health information technology
- Use of information to support precision care
- Application of biostatistical and machine learning algorithms to clinical data
- Maintaining data repositories and managing data assets and data dictionaries
- Training investigators, laboratory staff, and students on the ethical and secure use of data assets
- Providing leadership on the analysis and visualization of clinical and population health data
- Facilitating collaboration among interdisciplinary investigators
- Advancing the use of data to inform researchers and the St. Louis community about health and healthcare
Joanna Abraham, PhD, FACMI, FAMIA
Director, Center for Applied Health Informatics
Professor of Anesthesiology
- Email: joannaa@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Handoffs, Perioperative Mental Health, Telemedicine, Clinical Decision Support, Medication ordering, Patient Safety
Zachary Abrams, PhD
Instructor of Biostatistics
- Email: abramsz@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: AI, Translational Bioinformatics, NLP, Clinical Informatics
Alison Antes Schuelke, PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Chih-Hung Chang, PhD
Professor of Occupational Therapy, Medicine and Orthopaedic Surgery
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Psychometrics, Informatics, Clinical Outcomes, Adaptive Learning Technologies
Mackenzie Hofford, MD
Associate Chief Research Information Officer, School of Medicine
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine School of Medicine
- Email: mhofford@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Biomedical Informatics, Predictive Modeling, Internal Medicine, Chronic Diseases, Health AI, Clinical Informatics
Thomas Kannampallil, PhD, FAMIA
Chief Data Scientist
Assistant Dean for Data Science
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology
Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science
- Email: thomas.k@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Biomedical Informatics, Pragmatic clinical trials, Human-AI interactions, Applied Clinical Informatics, Patient Safety, Health AI
Albert M. Lai, PhD, FACMI, FAMIA
Chief Research Information Officer
Assistant Dean for Biomedical Informatics
Deputy Director, Institute for Informatics, Data Science and Biostatistics (I2DB)
Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine & Geriatrics
Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science
- Email: amlai@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Biomedical Informatics, Telemedicine, Clinical Research Informatics, Consumer Health Informatics, Large Language Models, Natural Language Processing, Health AI
Sunny C. Lin, PhD, MS
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine & Geriatrics
- Email: linsc@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Health Policy, Health Disparities, Health Care Quality, Health Information Management, Electronic Health Records, Health Care Delivery, Health Information Exchange
Andrew P. Michelson, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
- Email: amichels@nospam.wustl.edu
Inez Oh, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics
- Email: iyoh@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Electronic Health Records, Predictive Modeling, Natural Language Processing, Large Language Models
Philip R.O. Payne, PhD, FACMI, FAMIA, FAIMBE, FIAHSI
Director, Institute for Informatics, Data Science and Biostatistics (I2DB)
Janet and Bernard Becker Professor
Vice Chancellor for Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, WashU Medicine
Chief Health AI Officer, BJC Health System and WashU Medicine
- Email: prpayne@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Health AI, Electronic Health Records (EHRs), Clinical Decision Support, Biomedical Informatics, Clinical and Translational Science, AI
Alexander S. Plattner, MD, MBA
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Infectious Disease
- Email: aplattner@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Clinical Decision Support, Patient Safety and Quality Improvement, Antimicrobial and Diagnostic Stewardship
Beth Prusaczyk, PhD, MSW
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medical Sciences
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Implementation Science, Health Information Technology, Community-Based Research
James (Jimmy) Rudloff, MD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
- Email: rudloff@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Applied Health Informatics, Clinical Decision Support, Large Language Models
Ahmed Said, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Critical Care Medicine
Medical Co-Director ECMO Program, St. Louis Children’s Hospital
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Clinical Decision Support, Predictive Modeling, Translational Biomedical Informatics, Data-driven Critical Care
Adam Wilcox, PhD, FACMI
Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine & Geriatrics
- Email: a.wilcox@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Analytics, Clinical Quality Improvement, Artificial Intelligence, Research Methodology
Laura K Wiley, PhD, FACMI, FAMIA
Associate Professor of Neurology
- Email: lkwiley@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Computational phenotyping, Learning Health Systems, Precision Medicine, Clinical Research Informatics
Po-Yin Yen, PhD, RN, FACMI, FAMIA, FAAN
Deputy Director for Education
Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine & Geriatrics
Associate Professor, Goldfarb School of Nursing, Barnes Jewish College
- Email: yenp@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: EHR Data Analytics, EHR Documentation, Visual Analytics, AI in Healthcare
Linying Zhang, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics
- Email: linyingz@nospam.wustl.edu
Publications & Research Interests →
Key interests: Causal Inference, Federated Learning, Multimodal Foundation Models, Cancer Prevention, Ophthalmology