Opportunity Details
Institute for Informatics, Data Science & Biostatistics
Tenure
Commensurate w/Experience
Director of Informatics in the Department of Anesthesiology
The Department of Anesthesiology and the Institute for Informatics (I2) at the Washington University School of Medicine are seeking highly qualified applicants for a senior faculty position (Associate Professor or Professor) who will be responsible for the creation and operations of a new Division of Informatics within the Department of Anesthesiology. Successful candidates will be engaged in both original scholarship and operational leadership as it relates to the design, delivery, and optimization of healthcare information systems and data analytics platforms that support and enable the clinical, research, and teaching missions of the Department, Institute, and School. Specific areas of emphasis for this opportunity include but are not limited to:
- Translational Bioinformatics (TBI)
- Clinical Research Informatics (CRI)
- Healthcare Information System Design, Optimization, and Evaluation
- Clinical Decision Support
- Human Factors and Workflow Analysis
- Telemedicine
- Biomedical Data Science (including the management, representation, and analysis of large-scale and complex data sets spanning scales from molecules to patient to populations)
The Director of Informatics in Anesthesiology will collaborate with research leaders in the Department of Anesthesiology, which is one of the most successful, well-funded, and scientifically influential academic anesthesiology departments in the United States. The successful applicant will play a crucial role in developing the informatics infrastructure of the Anesthesiology Department, and will be tasked with building and leading a dynamic and innovative team. The new Director will oversee the acquisition of high quality and comprehensive data; work collaboratively with a variety of clinicians, scientists and investigators to identify quality improvement priorities; refine research questions, develop and initiate studies, organize and analyze data for presentation to scientific and clinical audiences, and prepare manuscripts for publication.
This new position provides an exciting opportunity to bring information technology to bear on relevant scientific questions so that crucial decisions about effective healthcare delivery can be made. There will be ample opportunities to assimilate information from electronic health records, hospital databases, biomarker repositories, and other datasets, allowing the conduct of rigorous research and quality assessment exercises. Improvements in patient care will be facilitated by the provision of information to clinicians, researchers, and leaders in quality, and by implementation of quality improvement initiatives. There is a unique database of more than 50,000 patients in the Anesthesiology Department, which has thorough phenotyping of surgical patients, granular perioperative data, and comprehensive patient reported outcomes up to one year postoperatively. Other innovative projects are the Anesthesiology Control Tower (analogous to an air traffic control tower) and the Telemedicine Center for Intensive Care. Both of these sophisticated telemedicine initiatives are yielding large amounts of data on surgical and critically ill patients. These data lend themselves to state-of-the art analytical approaches, including machine learning.
In building an innovative Division of Informatics, the Director will be tasked with the important role of training a cadre of scientists from varying backgrounds to become leaders in academic informatics. In this role, the new Director will work closely with Dr. Philip Payne, and will contribute meaningfully to the newly established Masters of Information Sciences. The Anesthesiology Department is currently training a cohort of physician-scientists with outstanding academic pedigrees. Many of these will be enthusiastic about pursuing academic opportunities under the information technology umbrella. The directorate is also a career-enhancing opportunity to work as a leader in an outstanding academic Anesthesiology Department at one of the top medical schools in the United States.
Candidates should have doctoral and/or post-doctoral level training Biomedical or Health Informatics or an analogous area of study. In addition, candidates should have a substantial track-record of scholarly excellence, including extramural funding, peer-reviewed publications, and trainee mentorship. Further, given the highly interdisciplinary nature of activities in the Department of Anesthesiology and the Institute for Informatics (I2), individuals with demonstrated experience building and sustaining diverse and high impact operational and research focused teams are preferred.
Racial, ethnic, gender, and other forms of diversity will be prioritized as part of this faculty recruitment opportunity.
Compensation, start-up packages, and other financial support will be highly competitive and commensurate with candidate rank, experience, and performance.
Candidates will be evaluated on an ongoing basis, consistent with the needs and priorities of this search.
Environment
The Department of Anesthesiology strives to foster an academic culture in which clinical care, research and education are seamlessly integrated. The Department is organized in subspecialty-based divisions, all of which share a common research and educational platform. The department places a strong emphasis on innovative education and comprehensive, personalized clinical training. Our goal is to develop leaders in all aspects of anesthesiology, including clinicians, educators and investigators. The department is perennially one of the top three U.S. anesthesiology departments in NIH funding for research and has substantial programs in both clinical science (investigator-initiated clinical trials and outcomes research) and in basic science. The department has a robust research culture and training environment for graduate students, physician-scientists and postdoctoral fellows.
The Institute for Informatics (I2) is a comprehensive home for Biomedical Informatics and Data Science research, education, and services spanning WU, BJC, and affiliated entities. I2 was created in response to the changes currently being experienced across the modern healthcare and life sciences environments wherein there has been as fundamental shift towards trans-disciplinary, integrative, and data-intensive approaches to basic, clinical, translational, and population level research. These developments have been coupled with the widespread use of information technology platforms to re-engineer of healthcare delivery and achieve greater value alongside improved outcomes and safety. The complex data, information, and knowledge needs associated with these trends requires a comprehensive and systems-level approach to Biomedical Informatics and Data Science research, education, and practice. In response to the these trends, and as noted above, WU created I2 to provide an academic and professional “hub” for Biomedical Informatics and Data Science research, training, and practice. I2 engages faculty, staff, and trainees, as well as external partners, drawn from The School of Medicine as well as the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Institute for Public Health, the Brown School of Social Work, the Olin School of Business, the Health Systems Innovational Laboratory and Center for Clinical Excellence at BJC HealthCare, and the Cortex Innovation Community. I2 pursues innovative research, workforce development, and dissemination activities targeting a variety of critical areas of need, including:
- The integration and dissemination of heterogeneous data, information, and knowledge resources;
- Computational approaches to the interpretation of bio-molecular, image, and clinical phenotypes to inform precision medicine;
- The acceleration of clinical and translational research through the systematic management of study protocols, data resources, and analytical pipelines;
- The creation of learning healthcare systems in which cyclical evidence generation and application becomes integral to care delivery;
- The use of ubiquitous computing and sensing technologies capable of facilitating population health monitoring and intervention strategies; and
- Methodological and technical approaches to enable and enhance research reproducibility and rigor.
Washington University in St. Louis (WU), founded in 1853, is a medium-sized, private research university with approximately 12,000 full-time students, half of whom are enrolled in graduate and professional programs, and nearly 2,100 part-time students. The diverse student body represents all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and more than 100 countries around the world, with approximately ninety percent of undergraduates derived from outside the state. With 30,000 applicants for 1,600 places in the freshman Class of 2016, the university’s undergraduate program was the 7th most selective in the nation, and the most recent U.S. News & World Report ranks WU 14th among national universities. For 2016, WU undergraduate and graduate programs in entrepreneurship have been recognized as among the top 25 in the United States by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine survey of more than 300 schools. This strength in entrepreneurial studies complements recent St. Louis recognition as among the best startup cities in the nation, evidenced in the CORTEX Innovation District and their 20 partners.
The Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) is a world class research intensive academic health center. Since its founding in 1891, WUSM has trained nearly 9,000 physicians and has contributed groundbreaking discoveries in many areas of medical research. WUSM is internationally known for research in neuroscience, genetics, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, oncology, immunology, diagnostic imaging, and many other specialty areas. WUSM was ranked #7 by U.S. News & World Reports in its 2017 survey of the nation’s research-oriented medical schools, and #5 by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research in its 2016 survey of total NIH funding received by Medical Schools in the United States. In addition, WUSM is currently ranked #1 among the nation’s Medical Schools for student selectivity. WUSM currently has 1,983 full-time faculty members.
BJC HealthCare (BJC) system includes 13 community hospitals in Missouri and southern Illinois with 3,479 staffed beds, and is one of the largest academically-based health care systems in the country. The system serves regional residents through hospitals, nursing facilities, and a comprehensive outpatient care network. Barnes-Jewish Hospital (BJH) and St. Louis Children’s Hospital (SLCH) constitute the academic core of BJC. BJC is recognized for its ability to integrate health services in a cost-efficient manner, while providing an innovative medical data and imaging repository to enhance physicians’ access to patient data. BJC has more than 100 sites in the St. Louis metropolitan area for medical care and services, and is the dominant health care provider in the region with a 34 percent market share – more than double that of the next largest system. BJC is the first health care system in the nation to integrate an academic medical center with suburban, rural, and metropolitan-based health care facilities. Both BJH and SLCH are on the WUSM campus and serve as regional, national, and international referral centers, offering comprehensive care and providing a full range of health services and research for complex populations across the lifespan
Candidates should submit a cover letter, CV, research statement, teaching statement, and at least three professional references to Alex S. Evers, M.D. c/o Sue Kinder (kinders@wustl.edu)
Sue Kinder
7/24/2017
5/4/2018
An Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action Employer
Washington University in St. Louis is committed to the principles and practices of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action. It is the university’s policy to recruit, hire, train, and promote persons in all job titles without regard to race, color, age, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, veteran status, disability, or genetic information. Washington University seeks an exceptionally qualified and diverse faculty; women, minorities, protected veterans and candidates with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.