Associate Professor of Health Information Sciences and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs;
PI and Co-Director, AHRQ Training Program in Patient Safety and Quality
Contact
Todd.R.Johnson@uth.tmc.edu
7000 Fannin, Suite 600 Houston, TX 77030
Voice: 713-500-3921
Fax: 713-500-3929
Education
- Ph.D. 1991 The Ohio State University (Artificial Intelligence with minors in cognitive science and the theory of computation)
- M.S. 1986 The Ohio State University (Computer and Information Science)
- B.S. 1984 The Ohio State University (Computer and Information Science)
Research
My research uses cognitive science, computer science, and human factors engineering to solve biomedical informatics problems. I view informatics as the science of information, where information is defined as data + meaning. In other words, informatics is the science of meaningful data. This definition immediately indicates why informatics is so hard: machines are best at processing data, whereas humans are best at constructing and processing meaning. To better manage and utilize the increasing amount of biomedical data, we need to find ways to program computers to act
as if they understand the meaning of that data, or to help us derive meaning from data. By doing this, computers can begin to give us information, instead of overloading us with data. Part of this view is presented in a recent talk I gave entitled
"What are data, information, and knowledge?"
Paper: What is Biomedical Informatics?
The following paper, now available online, defines informatics as the science of meaningful data and describes how this definition clarifies the relationships among informatics and related disciplines, such as biomedicine, statistics, and computer science.
Bernstam, E. V., Smith, J. W., & Johnson, T. R. (n.d.). What is biomedical informatics? Journal of Biomedical Informatics, In Press, Accepted Manuscript. doi: 10.1016/j.jbi.2009.08.006.
Presentation on iTunesU: Informatics as the Science of Meaningful Data: Implications for Health Information TechnologyI gave this talk on July 24th, 2009 to the local HIMSS South Central Chapter. It explores two questions from the perspective of informatics as the science of meaningful data: Why isn't health information technology working (the failure rate is over 50%), and what can we do to improve it?
My specific research interests include:
- Exploring the implications of informatics as the science of meaningful data
- Assessing and Improving Medical Device Usability and Safety
- Improving patient safety and quality using human-centered design of Health Information Technology
- Ontologies and knowledge sharing in the context of clinical and translational research. This work is being done as part of the UT Center for Clinical and Translational Science.
- Information visualization and human-centered tools for exploring large biomedical datasets
- Automating the evaluation of human-computer interaction through discovery and analysis of user interface finite state machines (in collaboration with Dr. Harold Thimbleby)
- Computational models of human cognition and problem solving
