I am currently serving as Clinical Terminology Lead on a Defense Medical Information Exchange (DMIX) project to facilitate interoperability between the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) by mapping clinical terms from production systems to standard terminologies. Primary responsibilities include project management, relationship handling, and data analysis.Under a subcontract with the VHA, I have actively participated in the IHSDO Observables and Investigation Model development project. I also monitored several other ongoing IHTSDO efforts, including the Modeling Advisory Group and the Content Managers Advisory Group.I previously served as informatics lead on a project for the US Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to represent items on data collection forms in simplified information models known as LEGOs (Lightweight Extensions of Granular Objects), where content is modeled primarily by using post-coordinated SNOMED CT expressions.

REPRESENTATIVE CONSULTING ENGAGEMENTSFor the National Children’s Study, worked with clinical experts to develop a neonatal ontology based on SNOMED CT. Worked with VHA clinical experts to extend existing ophthalmology concepts in SNOMED CT with new content based on a specialty-specific electronic medical record. Wrote software to construct “clinician friendly” names and corresponding high-level categories for a set of commercial laboratory tests that had previously been mapped to LOINC. Worked with the library of a major biopharmaceutical company to facilitate the use of standard terminologies (primarily SNOMED CT) in a variety of ongoing operations.Helped a large healthcare improvement alliance migrate from use of an internal terminology to standard terminologies (SNOMED CT, Multum Drug, and UMDNS) for mapping and aggregating charge master data from hundreds of hospitals.As part of a project with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), provided semi-automated creation of value sets of SNOMED CT concepts that might suggest the presence of a substance abuse problem and thereby raise privacy concerns if these concepts are used to encode identifiable patient data in electronic health records.Served as Apelon’s principal consultant to the American Medical Association (AMA) in its effort to enhance the electronic version of CPT by adding named relationships to SNOMED CT concepts. Worked with the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) to facilitate the use of Apelon software tools in maintaining ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM.Worked with a major EMR vendor to develop an “Orderable Concepts Dictionary,” primarily based on MEDCIN, for use in an electronic order entry system under development.Prototyped an extended hierarchical representation of LOINC, with the addition of intermediate-level concepts, for the US Veterans Administration Enterprise Reference Terminology (VA-ERT) project.

Prepared an extensive analysis of various approaches to concept-based indexing of proprietary multimedia content using multiple standard terminologies.Authored design documents for a proprietary content syndication platform based on XML document transformation technology.

Designed and implemented the knowledge-based component of a prototype system to provide patient-specific dosing advice at the point of medication order entry. Acquired considerable experience in business rules automation and object-oriented knowledge design, using the Elements Expert development environment from Neuron Data.Worked closely with expert clinical pharmacists in analyzing how to represent complex drug dosing information in ways amenable to computer processing.Prepared analyses and recommendations concerning the need for the company to integrate its proprietary drug knowledge bases with standard biomedical terminologies.

Directed Phase I and II clinical trials for a novel peptide therapeutic being developed as an intrathecally administered analgesic agent for intractable pain.Coordinated Phase II and III clinical activities to address outstanding NDA requirements for an intravenous antihypertensive agent licensed from a major pharmaceutical company.Maintained effective working relationships with clinical investigators, consultants, and contract research organizations (CROs) to accomplish project objectives.

Played a significant role in early research and development efforts for the US National Library of Medicine’s Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus, which is arguably the world’s largest repository of standard biomedical terminologies.Designed and implemented the first system for maintaining and enhancing the UMLS Metathesaurus over time.

Acquired formal training in computer science and information systems, including course work at the University of California, Berkeley.Undertook a project to investigate the ongoing update and maintenance issues that were expected to arise after the initial version of the UMLS Metathesaurus was released.

Managed clinical trials, from Phase I studies through NDA filing, for an investigational antihypertensive agent (terazosin) that subsequently received FDA approval.Developed and revised a comprehensive clinical plan for the drug development project. Designed study protocols, recruited clinical investigators, and monitored the progress of numerous studies.Prepared extensive study summaries and clinical overviews. Met key deadlines for the initial NDA filing and for a major NDA revision.Directly supervised a clinical project team consisting of clinical research associates and administrative support staff. Maintained effective working relationships with personnel in other departments, including Biostatistics, Data Processing, Regulatory Affairs, and Project Management.Helped establish division-wide policies and procedures for reporting and coding of adverse events.