American Medical Informatics Association Announces Suzanne Bakken, RN, DNSc as 2006 Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award Recipient

The following is an excerpt from the Award Announcement from AMIA:

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)announces Suzanne Bakken, RN, DNSc as the recipient of the 2006 Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award. The Virginia K. Saba Informatics award recognizes an individual’s distinguished career with significant impact permeating the care of patients and the discipline of nursing. The award honors a professional with exemplary principles and practices and a substantial record of contribution to the field of nursing informatics. Among the criteria for nomination, the recipient has demonstrated the use of informatics to transform patient care; visionary leadership; goal impact; enduring contribution to professional practice, education, administration, research, and/or health policy; and a commitment to AMIA demonstrated through membership.

Suzanne Bakken is Alumni Professor in Nursing and Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University. She completed her doctoral study in nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, followed by a National Library of Medicine post-doctoral fellowship in Medical Informatics at Stanford University. Dr. Bakken currently directs the Center for Evidence-based Practice in the Underserved and the Reducing Health Disparities Through Informatics (RHeaDI) pre- and post-doctoral training programs; both funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR). Her most recent NINR-funded research project, Mobile Decision Support for Advanced Practice Nurses, is a randomized controlled trial that is testing the impact of PDA-based decision support for depression screening, smoking cessation, and obesity management on guideline adherence. Other research and training efforts are currently funded by the National Cancer Institute and the Health Services Resources Administration.

Dr. Bakken has published more than 140 papers and has been recognized for her nursing informatics research by receiving the Harriet H. Werley Award three times as well as the Rutgers Award for Advancement of Computer Technology in Health Care and the Eastern Nursing Research Society Distinguished Contribution to Nursing Research Award. In 2006, Dr. Bakken and her team received the 21st Century Achievement Award in Education and Academia from the ComputerWorld Honors Program for their innovative use of PDA technologies in the care of underserved populations. She has been active in healthcare standards initiatives serving on the Institute of Medicine Committee on Data Standards for Patient Safety, the Clinical LOINC Committee, and as the prior Chair of the Nursing Working Group of the SNOMED Editorial Board and lead of the Technical Task Group for the International Standards Organization standard on reference terminology models for nursing diagnoses and interventions.

Dr. Bakken has participated in AMIA in multiple roles including serving as the Chair of the 2001 Annual Symposium and on the JAMIA editorial board. She is currently the U.S. representative to the International Medical Informatics Association Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group. In recognition of her outstanding contributions, Dr. Bakken was elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine in 2006.

The Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award will be presented at the AMIA 2006 Annual Symposium during the AMIA 2006 Leadership Dinner on Saturday, November 11, 2006 at The Cosmos Club in Washington, DC.

More information on the AMIA 2006 Annual Symposium and Awards Program is available at: http://www.amia.org.