Winkelstein to lead health care informatics institute

Peter Winkelstein, professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, chief medical informatics officer for UBMD and former chief of the division of general pediatrics, has been appointed executive director of the medical school’s Institute for Healthcare Informatics.

In making the announcement, Michael E. Cain, vice president for health sciences and dean of the medical school, cited Winkelstein’s extensive experience in medical management and in the application of advanced medical informatics in clinical and academic settings.

“Dr. Winkelstein has helped lead physician practices through the adoption of electronic medical records,” said Cain, “and he was instrumental in the strategic and operational implementation of UBMD’s electronic medical-record systems. His expertise will help position the Institute for Healthcare Informatics as a vital resource for UB’s Clinical and Translational Research Center, UB faculty and students, our hospital partners in the Academic Health Center, the Western New York community and the SUNY system.”

Winkelstein has held medical informatics positions in academic and research institutions, as well as in industry. He earned his MD from UB and served as chief resident in pediatrics at UB; he also earned an MBA from UB. A board-certified physician in pediatrics, he was medical director of two outpatient clinics and director of information technology for the UB Department of Pediatrics. He joined Eclipsys Corporation in Boston as a senior clinical informaticist, and later was recruited back to Buffalo to serve as chair of clinical and scientific informatics at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. He also co-founded UB’s Advanced Certificate in Medical/Health Informatics program.

Winkelstein, whose research interest is ethical issues in informatics, has published and presented extensively in the field. A member of the American Medical Informatics Association, he is past chair of its Ethical, Legal and Social Issues Working Group and of its Ethics Committee.

Launched in 2010 with a $15 million investment in services and equipment from Dell, the Institute for Healthcare Informatics is a Tier II+ secure computing center, designed to host mission critical servers and computer systems. At the institute, health care data are stored, aggregated and analyzed using innovative tools. Such analysis leads to better monitoring of patient care, enhanced measures to prevent disease and identification of more-effective treatments, which leads to better patient outcomes and reduced medical costs.

The institute facilitates clinical research and the development of novel methods in biomedical informatics by securely housing health data and providing core biomedical informatics expertise, analytics and support to investigators and clients who store data at the institute.

The institute, which is located in the Roosevelt Building, 923 Main St. on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, also serves as a resource for UB’s Clinical and Translational Research Center.