Vanderbilt’s Laurie Novak, PhD, MHSA has been elected to the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) class of 2024. The 25 new fellows will be inducted into the ACMI at the 2024 American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium, held in San Francisco.
The ACMI is an honorary college of more than 400 elected fellows from the United States and abroad who have made significant and sustained contributions to the field of medical informatics and who have met rigorous scholarly scrutiny by their peers.
“I’m honored to be elected to the college and look forward to participating in its service to the field of biomedical informatics and to our society, as both wrestle with the role of technological progress in health and medicine,” said Novak, associate professor of Biomedical Informatics, AI researcher and deputy director of the AI Discovery & Vigilance to Accelerate Innovation & Clinical Excellence (ADVANCE) Center.
Novak is an anthropologist specializing in the cultural intersection of technology with everyday life and work. Her projects currently focus on the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine, including human-centered design, worker competencies, and organizational capabilities required to deploy and manage AI tools. She was inducted as a Fellow of AMIA in 2021.
She currently collaborates on AI projects with a variety of co-investigators across VUMC, including ADVANCE co-directors Peter Embí, MD, MS, professor and chair of Biomedical Informatics and Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation; Bradley Malin, PhD, Accenture Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Biostatistics and Computer Science and vice chair for Research Affairs in DBMI; and Susannah Rose, PhD, MSSW, associate professor of Biomedical Informatics, Health Policy, core faculty in the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society and executive director of ADVANCE.
Novak and Rose recently established a VUMC AI Patient and Family Advisory Group to ensure that patient voices are meaningfully integrated into the development and deployment of AI into VUMC policies, operations and research initiatives. They are also in the process of researching and developing safe, ethical and effective AI-powered health chatbots aimed at addressing patients’ questions and needs.
“A key element of ADVANCE is working with groups impacted by health AI, including frontline health professionals, patients and their caregivers, to understand their needs and develop educational and other support resources to assist in the safe and effective use of AI in clinical settings and beyond,” Novak said.
Novak joins a robust list of Vanderbilt ACMI fellows. Former DBMI chair Kevin Johnson, MD, MS, will also be honored this year with the Distinguished Fellow designation.
