Blackford Middleton, M.D., MPH, M.Sc., corporate director of clinical informatics research and development at Partners Healthcare in Boston, will join Vanderbilt later this month in the role of assistant vice chancellor for Health Affairs and chief informatics officer for Vanderbilt University Health System. He succeeds John Doulis, M.D.
“I’m delighted to welcome Dr. Middleton to the university and to this vital role on the health system’s leadership team,” said Bill Stead, M.D., associate vice chancellor for Health Affairs and chief strategy officer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“We have our work cut out as we work to improve care coordination and use of evidence-based decision support both on campus and across our rapidly expanding affiliate network. Blackford will fit in splendidly here and we look forward to his contributions.”
Kevin Johnson, M.D., M.S., professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics, had a key role in Middleton’s recruitment.
“I am excited to have Blackford as a member of the DBMI faculty and as a leader working to maintain and improve our excellent clinical information systems architecture.
“Blackford brings to this job the acumen of a practicing physician, the scientific background of a successful researcher and the pragmatic knowledge necessary to get things done using information technology to improve health care. And, if that wasn’t sufficient, he’s a musician and jazz lover — he’s ideally suited to this role in this town,” Johnson said.
Middleton earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder, his M.D. from SUNY-Buffalo, and completed residency in internal medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Sciences Center.
He received his MPH from the Yale School of Public Health and his M.Sc. in health services research with emphasis in clinical informatics from Stanford University.
His early career included roles as medical director of information management and technology at Stanford University Hospital and senior vice president for clinical informatics and chief medical officer for MedicaLogic, a provider of commercial electronic medical record software.
In 2001 he joined the Harvard faculty in the division of general internal medicine and primary care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He also led the Center for Information Technology Leadership.
In 2008 Middleton was appointed to the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics. He has served as the chair of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and is currently chair-elect of the American Medical Informatics Association.
Middleton is principal investigator of the Clinical Decision Support Consor-tium.
Funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the consortium includes academic medical centers, health systems, health care IT software vendors, publishers and consulting firms seeking to assess, define, demonstrate, and evaluate best practices for knowledge management and clinical decision support across multiple ambulatory care settings and electronic health record technology platforms.
