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Academics: Fellowship Opportunities at OHSUOHSU offers predoctoral and postdoctoral research training fellowships in biomedical informatics. Support for the programs comes from the National Library of Medicine, Kaiser-Permanente, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. By providing a structured research experience with the option of coursework and/or pursuit of a degree, the program prepares fellows to undertake independent biomedical informatics research in the academic community, or to assume leadership positions in the growing number of hospital and/or commercial efforts in biomedical informatics. By providing a structured research experience, with the option of course work and/or pursuit of a degree, the program prepares fellows to enter the academic community and undertake programs of independent biomedical informatics research, or to take leadership positions in the growing number of hospital and/or commercial efforts in biomedical informatics. Fellows engage in a rigorous and dynamic program of study - though they survey the field broadly during their fellowship, they also focus on and complete a significant research project which is presented in both oral and written form. All classes within the department are made available to fellows, as well as courses throughout OHSU and our consortium of other nearby universities. Kaiser-Permanente FellowshipThis opportunity is a new and innovative partnership between OHSU and Kaiser Permanente Northwest. This position is open to an MD and has a clinical practice component. The fellow is expected to work on a project with Kaiser's advanced clinical information system. The fellowship package includes a stipend, health insurance, conference travel, and tuition and fees for one course per academic quarter. The goal of this fellowship is to equip the trainee with knowledge and skills in medical informatics, in order to become a leader in applying information technology to clinical practice and to health care systems. During the course of the fellowship, the fellow is required to take a minimum of six courses in the OHSU biomedical informatics graduate program. The fellow will also engage in a substantive medical informatics project working with a Project Mentor at Kaiser Permanente Northwest. The project must involve an aspect involving information technology, but may be research-oriented or oriented toward quality or organizational improvement. In order to maintain a clinical orientation and focus, the fellow will be assigned to clinical care duties within their specialty for approximately three half-days per week at a Kaiser Permanente facility. The fellow will be expected to present a written proposal for a medical-informatics related quality improvement project based on experiences in the Kaiser clinical setting. This opportunity is through our existing collaborative fellowship program between OHSU and the Portland Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center. This position is open to an MD and has a clinical practice component. The fellow is expected to work on a project with the VA's advanced clinical information system. The fellowship package includes a stipend, health insurance, conference travel, and all tuition and fees. ResourcesFellows are provided with numerous specialized resources intended to foster their research. Each fellow is provided with primary office space in the BICC, and may have additional office space at other institutions where he or she is conducting research or taking courses (all classes within the department are made available to fellows, as well as courses in other departments and our consortium of nearby universities). Several conferences are available to fellows--the Division of General Internal Medicine at the neighboring Veterans Affairs Medical Center, for instance, has a biweekly didactic seminar in research methods, to which the division faculty and other training program faculty contribute. This conference helps to "round out" the fellows' education in research methods. The division also has a weekly research-in-progress seminar that uses the talents of faculty, senior staff, master's students and fellows. Once a week, the fellows meet to present updates of current trends in informatics, tutorials on topics of interest, and training in areas of special concern such as the ethical conduct of research. Fellows are also encouraged to attend at least two national meetings where they present their own research and participate in the discussion of research by colleagues. Such meetings typically include the fall AMIA conference and the annual NLM training program meeting. ResearchThe principal activity of OHSU's fellows is learning the skills and responsibilities of research as apprentices to junior and senior faculty. The major portion of the time spent by the fellows is in the research laboratories of the BICC and its collaborating scientists. While fellows may launch their own research projects, every effort is made to have them connect with a faculty member's personal interests for optimal mentoring. Fellows are therefore encouraged to involve themselves with the ongoing faculty projects described here, or with projects related to their main research interests and that are sponsored by other faculty at OHSU. Evidence-based Medicine and Health OutcomesDr. Mark Helfand is the lead researcher in this area, supported by Drs. Heidi Nelson and Cynthia Morris. Fellows are able to work within clinical domains, building cooperative outcomes data systems for gastrointestinal endoscopy, for example. Alternatively, fellows are able to work with Dr. Helfand to develop research methods and database construction methods. They also can work with Drs. Nelson and Morris, and the Oregon Health Policy Institute, under the direction of Dr. Greenlick, in population-based outcomes research areas and in health services research. Information RetrievalDr. William Hersh directs this line of inquiry. He is interested in end-user information searching and the World Wide Web, concept-based retrieval, and the use of advanced front-ends on search engines. He also is well connected with the UMLS project and conducts research relating to clinical vocabularies for information retrieval. Information Needs of Primary Care PractitionersDr. Paul Gorman's research in this area is crucial to understand how to bridge the gap between the needs of practitioners and the availability of pertinent information for clinical decision-making. Dr. Gorman has been a consultant in the use of ethnographic methods, and collaborates with Drs. Joan Ash and William Hersh in the evaluation of information dissemination technologies. Other Faculty Research AreasInformatics faculty work on a variety of research projects of their own as well as institutional projects. Other broad categories of research activity include clinical information systems and computer-based patient records, medical decision making, patient information systems, neural networks, bioinformatics, evidence-based medicine, and cost-effectiveness analysis. Coursework for Postdoctoral Fellows
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