Regenstrief Institute appoints a new Chief Information Officer

Regenstrief Institute, the University of India-affiliated research organization focused on healthcare informatics, data science and electronic health record integration, has appointed its in-house research scientist Chris Harle as its new Chief Information Officer.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Harle has held various positions at IU and Regenstrief over the past decade. He will continue in his current role as a research scientist at Regenstrief’s Center for Biomedical Informatics, and as chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at IU’s Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and as assistant professor of clinical analytics at IU. Indianapolis Kelley School of Business.

With his added new role as CIO, Harle – who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in decision and information sciences from the University of Florida and a doctorate in information systems and management from Carnegie Mellon – will lead Regenstrief Data’s business and management Services, the institute says.

He will be tasked with leading customer service and data expertise for researchers accessing healthcare data for research studies. Regenstrief Data Services annually provides data and expertise to more than 200 educators seeking assistance in all stages of scientific research, including research design, data acquisition, algorithm validation and implementation.

Harle’s responsibilities include overseeing access to the Indiana Network for Patient Care – one of the largest statewide health information exchanges – for research purposes, which was founded by the Regenstrief Institute in 1994 and is managed by the Indiana Health Information Exchange.

He will work closely with Jiang Bian, who was recently appointed chief data scientist at Regenstrief, and Dr. Shaun Grannis, the institute’s vice president for data and analytics.

Harle’s previous experience was as Chief Research Information Officer for University of Florida Health, where he led research data services strategy and operations.

His current research focuses on bringing together diverse teams from different academic disciplines, healthcare systems and IT services to design, implement and evaluate the impact of health information systems.

THE BIG TREND
Just two weeks ago, we interviewed Harle for an episode of our HIMSCast podcast, where he discussed the current state of play and future innovations in clinical informatics and decision support: EHR optimization, UX design, provider experience, patient safety , artificial intelligence and more.

In the episode, Harle β€” who will soon be inducted as a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics β€” also described his work on a clinical tool known as the Chronic Pain OneSheet decision support system, designed to help primary care physicians embrace safer opioids. prescribe for chronic pain. The tool has been deployed at two major healthcare systems to date, and Harle is working to distribute OneSheet nationwide.

ON THE RECORD
β€œWe welcome Dr. Chris Harle to his new leadership role at Regenstrief,” said Rachel Patzer, PhD, MPH, President and CEO of the Institute. β€œHis broad experience and his commitment to studying and improving health information systems align well with our goals, as we want to ensure that researchers can efficiently use data and tools to accelerate the translation of research into real-world impact to improve health and transform healthcare.”