Journal of Health & Medical Informatics

Jonathan R. Nebeker

Biography

Dr. Nebeker is a geriatrician, epidemiologist, and informatician at the Department of Veterans Affairs and University of Utah. His research has two main foci: adverse drug events (ADEs) and cognitive support for electronic health record (EHR) systems. He leads national programs for analytics infrastructure and EHR modernization. His early interests involved the epidemiology of ADEs and development and evaluation of surveillance rules for ADE prevention and detection. One of his more controversial findings was that ADE rates were high in a setting of electronic prescribing and numerous safeguards ostensibly designed to prevent ADEs. The implication is that many of these safeguards have low value for preventing ADEs and that safeguards need to be focused on dose- dependent ADEs, which are most common. Subsequently, he developed electronic surveillance rules for ADEs in the VA and community Medicaid settings. These rules are based on epidemiological principles and are designed to be more sensitive and specific than previously published rules.Dr. Nebeker also has national leadership roles in VA. He is Director of VA Informatics and Computing Infrastructure (VINCI.) VINCI is a research & development program offering secure, powerful, virtualized computing environment with national clinical data back to 2000. Researchers and engineers at this center develop and deploy tools for advanced analysis including pipelines for transparent, reproducible analysis, data visualization, and natural language processing. He is also national Associate Chief Medical Informatics Officer and lead clinician for VA’s EHR modernization program called VistA Evolution.

Research Interest

Adverse drug events (ADEs) and cognitive support for electronic health record (EHR) systems. He leads national programs for analytics infrastructure and EHR modernization.