In this episode, the first of a special collaboration between ACM ByteCast and the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)’s For Your Informatics podcast, hosts Karmen Williams and Sabrina Hsueh welcome Wendy Chapman, Associate Dean of Digital Health and Informatics at the University of Melbourne and Director of the Centre for Digital Transformation of Health. Her research focuses on developing computer algorithms to understand information typed into electronic medical records and natural language processing of clinical texts. She is an elected fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and the US National Academy of Medicine.
Wendy discusses her journey from an undergraduate background in linguistics and Chinese literature to completing a PhD in Medical Informatics at the University of Utah and learning to program from scratch. She also describes moving to Australia when saw an opportunity to grow the field of digital health in Melbourne. She identifies the most pressing issues she is faced with in her new role and provides valuable advice based on her most impactful career moves. Wendy also shares with Karmen and Sabrina the development of the Digital Health Validitron at the University of Melbourne, which will guide innovators through questions in order to obtain funding and reimbursement. Finally, she identifies the areas in which ACM and AMIA can partner together in order to create a real impact in the field.