Russell Leftwich Md Famia Email & Phone Number

I am a physicianeer: an engineer who went on to a career in medical practice. The problem-solving discipline of an engineer and the understanding of technology were the basis of my very successful clinical practice career. And my chosen specialty of internal medicine is the problem-solving discipline of healthcare. A decade ago I transitioned from clinical practice to clinical informatics and was one of the early cohort who earned board certification in that new medical sub-specialty. My career transition was motivated by increasing concern as I practiced with the variability of practice I observed and the declining quality of the care I observed as technology advanced and the task of clinical decision making in the care of complex patients became implausible even for someone with the best training practicing in the best medical organizations. It was clear that accelerating the digital transformation that was lagging behind technology in other areas was an imperative. One of my great talents throughout my career has been an ability to explain technology to clinicians and an even greater aptitude for bringing an understanding of clinical workflows to technologists and engineers. I have enthusiastically exercised these talents over three decades with the American Medical Informatics Association and the standards development organization HL7 International where I am one of the leads in the Clinical Interoperability Council and am founder and a leader in the Learning Health Systems workgroup. I am recognized as a global expert in the next generation standards platform HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources – FHIR (fire). Full disclosure: my vanity license plate is DR FHIR. I have delivered a very well received FHIR workshop to over 40 audiences in the US and Internationally. I served 5 years as the Chief Medical Informatics Officer for the state of Tennessee helping to lead digital transformation and health information exchange adoption. The past 9 years I have had the great fortune to work for the extraordinary data technology company, InterSystems as clinical advisor for interoperability. A role better described as interoperability evangelist helping to bring awareness of InterSystems industry leading technology and unparalleled FHIR technology. InterSystems also supports my continued role as adjunct Assistant Professor of biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University, renowned for its leading role in informatics research, innovation, and informatics education.

Listed skills include Ehr, Informatics, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare, and 29 others.