Conference on Health IT and Analytics (CHITA 2022) Set for March 4-5 in D.C.

COLLEGE PARK, Md., Feb. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Experts in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in health care, health equity, and related emerging innovation areas will gather Friday and Saturday, March 4-5, 2022, for the 12th Annual Conference on Health IT and Analytics (CHITA) at the Darcy Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Prominent scholars from than 40 research institutes, along with leading practitioners and policy experts, will discuss current findings and practices connected to information technology and data science to make healthcare more patient-centered, equitable, effective and cost-efficient in the hybrid event hosted by the Center for Health Information and Decision Systems (CHIDS) at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business.

The conference is designed to "deepen our understanding of strategy, policy and systems fostering health IT and analytics' effective use, and to stimulate new ideas with both policy and business implications," says CHITA chair and CHIDS co-director Ritu Agarwal, Distinguished University Professor and Robert H. Smith Dean's Chair of Information Systems for Maryland Smith. "This forum provides a vibrant venue to facilitate collaboration among academia, government and industry."

This year's conference has a particular goal of engaging scholars and practitioners with diverse backgrounds to enhance participation and representation in AI and machine learning (ML) applications in health, notes Guodong (Gordon) Gao, professor and CHIDS co-director. "With the generous support from the NIH's AIM-AHEAD (AI/ML Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity) program, we are able to provide travel grants to qualified applicants. As a result, CHITA is helping boost the diversity of researchers in AI/ML".

Attendees – both online and in-person – will hear from leading keynote speakers:

Julia Adler-Milstein, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Clinical Informatics and Improvement Research University of California, San Francisco, is a leading researcher in health IT policy, with a focus on electronic health records and interoperability.

Sam Hanna, associate dean of graduate and professional studies, an executive in residence and the program director of the master's in healthcare management at American University, previously worked as a consulting practice leader, a chief strategy and innovations officer, and digital strategist at global consulting firms including PwC and Deloitte.

Lily Peng, group product manager for Google Health, leads a team that works on applications of AI to enable better and more equitable care, which includes building and translating models to detect diabetic eye disease, skin diseases, cancer and cardiovascular health.

Griffin Weber, associate professor of medicine for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston and associate professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School, directs the Biomedical Research Informatics Core at BIDMC and has invented an open-source social networking website for scientists called Profiles RNS, now used at dozens of universities across the country. He also created the original prototype software for the Shared Health Research Information Network, a federated query tool that connects Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside (i2b2) databases across multiple institutions worldwide.

The conference will run 8 a.m.-5 p.m. both Friday and Saturday. Register in advance via the CHITA 2022 registration site.

Saturday will include awards presentations for most impactful case study of Health IT and Analytics in Action, along with awards for Best Paper, Best Student Paper (authored by a student) and Young Researcher. Ahead of the main gathering, a doctoral student consortium, by invitation, will take place on Thursday.

CHITA is produced in partnership with the University of Michigan School of Public Health, University of Maryland School of Public Health, and is supported in part by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. CHITA 2022 also receives support from a Title VI CIBE grant administered by the U.S. Department of Education.

About The Center for Health Information & Decision Systems
The Center for Health Information & Decision Systems (CHIDS) is an academic research center based in the Decision, Operations & Information Technologies (DOIT) department at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, which collaborates closely with industry, government, and other key health system stakeholders. The research at CHIDS seeks to understand how digital technologies can be more effectively deployed to address outcomes such as quality, efficiency in healthcare delivery, patient safety, and a reduction in health disparities. CHIDS offers the benefit of world-class research staff and renowned scholars in healthcare analytics, machine intelligence, and health information technology design, adoption, and evaluation. CHIDS is a pioneer in the study of digitally enabled health system transformation, widely known for its thought leadership and research collaborations.

About the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business
The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader in management education and research. One of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Smith School offers undergraduate, full-time and part-time MBA, executive MBA, online MBA, specialty master's, PhD and executive education programs, as well as outreach services to the corporate community. The school offers its degree, custom and certification programs in learning locations in North America and Asia.

For more information, write to CHIDS at [email protected].

SOURCE University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business