James Cimino, M.D., director of the Informatics Institute at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, will be presented the 2019 Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence at the upcoming AMIA Symposium in Washington, D.C., in November.
The award was created in honor of Morris F. Collen, a pioneer in the field of medical informatics. It is presented each year to an individual whose personal commitment and dedication to medical informatics has made a lasting impression on the field.
Dr. Cimino is a board-certified internist. He is widely recognized for his research at Columbia University including desiderata for controlled terminologies, mobile and Web-based clinical information systems for clinicians and patients, and a context-aware form of clinical decision support called “infobuttons.” He and his colleagues were instrumental in building one of the first systems that used the Web to deliver a clinical information system to health professionals.
His expertise led to his being a major contributor to work on the creation of the National Library of Medicine’s Unified Medical Language System. During his tenure at NIH, he created the Biomedical Translational Research Information System (BTRIS).
Dr. Cimino is also a co-editor of the Springer volume Biomedical Informatics: Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine.
He is currently the director of the Informatics Institute at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has been elected to fellowship in the American College of Medical Informatics, the American College of Physicians and the American Medical Informatics Association. He has previously been honored by AMIA with its President’s Award as well as the AMIA Donald A.B. Lindberg Award for Innovation in Informatics.
“The Morris F. Collen Award is only awarded to the most distinguished informaticians. ACMI is honored to recognize Dr. Cimino for his substantial accomplishments to the field of biomedical informatics,” said ACMI President William M. Tierney, M.D., in a prepared statement. Tierney, who is professor and chair in the Department of Population Health, Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, added, “Dr. Cimino has created incredibly useful and impactful tools for health care providers like me to use every day in providing high-quality care. His dedication and passion for improving patient care is truly inspiring. “
