BETHESDA, MD --- The Board of Directors of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) announced today the selection of Suzanne Bakken, RN, PhD, FAAN, FACMI, as the new Editor-in-Chief of the AMIA peer-reviewed informatics journal, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA). Dr. Bakken, is the Alumni Professor of Nursing and Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University. She has published more than 300 scientific papers in more than 50 journals and has served as principal investigator for more than $29 million in research grants over the past 25 years. Dr. Bakken is a noted expert in applying informatics and data science methods to address health disparities affecting underserved and Latino communities.

The appointment, effective Jan. 1, 2019, brings Dr. Bakken full circle with the journal. She authored a paper published in the very first edition of JAMIA, Volume 1, Issue 1, January 1994: "Terms Used by Nurses to Describe Patient Problems: Can SNOMED III represent nursing concepts in the patient record?" In her new role, she will imbue JAMIA with the spirit of "consequentialist informatics" — informatics that makes a difference in the real-world health challenges facing communities and society today, such as opioid addiction, Alzheimer's Disease, and caregiving burden.

"We are privileged to have someone of Dr. Bakken's caliber taking the helm of JAMIA, particularly at this critical time for our field and for health care in general. Sue will bring not only her deep expertise as a researcher, author, editor, and mentor in the field with more than 30 years of published work, but also her broad perspective at the intersection of informatics, biomedicine and health care that will be so critical to the important work of the journal," said Peter J. Embi, MD, MS, FACP, FACMI, AMIA Board Chair, and President and CEO, Regenstrief Institute.

Dr. Bakken has a vision for JAMIA as a multi-layered, interactive electronic knowledge resource that facilitates broad understanding of innovative thought and rigorous discovery and application in informatics and data science for health and biomedicine. JAMIA content must be translatable for a variety of audiences including practice, policy, education, industry, patients, and health care consumers.

"In my role as Editor-in-Chief of JAMIA, I will build upon the foundation of excellence and thought leadership established by JAMIA's three previous editors. I view informatics and data science within a broad sociocultural context that considers social determinants of health, and I believe in the power of our innovations and methods to advance discovery and precision health and to address critical health issues to promote health and equity" said Dr. Bakken.

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