Regenstrief Institute, the India University-affiliated research organization focused on healthcare informatics, data science and electronic health record integration, has appointed its own research scientist Chris Harle to be its new chief information officer.

WHY IT MATTERS
Harle has served in various roles at IU and Regenstrief over the past decade. He will continue in his current position as a research scientist in Regenstrief's Center for Biomedical Informatics, and as chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the IU's Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and an associate faculty member teaching 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 PhD in information systems and management from Carnegie Mellon – will lead operations and management of Regenstrief Data Services, the institute says.

He'll be tasked with leading its customer service and data expertise for researchers accessing healthcare data for studies. Regenstrief Data Services provides data and expertise to more than 200 faculty annually who seek assistance in all stages of scientific research, including study design, data acquisition, algorithm validation and implementation.

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

He'll be working 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 prior experience was as chief research information officer for University of Florida Health, where he led strategy and operations of research data services.

His current research is focused on convening diverse teams from different academic disciplines, health systems and IT services to design, implement and evaluate the impact of health information systems.

THE LARGER TREND
Just two weeks ago, we interviewed Harle for an episode of our HIMSSCast podcast, where he discussed the current state 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 – who is soon to be inducted as a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics – 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 opioid prescribing for chronic pain. The tool has been implemented at two major health systems so far, and Harle is working to get OneSheet distributed nationally.

Other recent Regenstrief IT and informatics initiatives include: studies on how EHRs are really working for physicians; a framework to assess the efficacy of patient matching alrorithms and an interoperability effort linking its own LOINC standard with SNOMED CT.

ON THE RECORD
"We welcome Dr. Chris Harle to his new leadership role at Regenstrief," said Institute President and CEO Rachel Patzer, PhD, MPH. "His broad range of experience and his dedication to studying and improving health information systems is well aligned with our goals as we seek to ensure researchers can efficiently use data and tools to accelerate the translation of research into real world impact to transform health and healthcare."

Mike Miliard is executive editor of Healthcare IT News
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.