Suzanne Bakken Photo

Columbia Nursing’s Suzanne Bakken Named New Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association

Suzanne Bakken, PhD, has been named the new Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed informatics journal, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), published by the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). Dr. Bakken, the first nurse in this role at JAMIA, is the Alumni Professor of Nursing and Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University School of Nursing.

She has published more than 300 scientific papers in more than 50 journals and has served as principal investigator for more than $29 million in research grants over the past 25 years. Dr. Bakken is a noted expert in applying informatics and data science methods to address health disparities affecting underserved and Latino communities.

According to a press release issued by AMIA, the appointment, effective Jan. 1, 2019, brings Dr. Bakken full circle with the journal. She authored a paper published in the very first edition of JAMIA, Volume 1, Issue 1, January 1994: “Terms Used by Nurses to Describe Patient Problems: Can SNOMED III represent nursing concepts in the patient record?”

“When I came to Columbia University in 2000, my goals were to create the premier training program for nurse scientists to conduct interdisciplinary informatics research and to expand my program of informatics research focused on health disparities. In the ensuing years, Columbia Nursing has gained preeminence in nursing informatics as reflected by the grants and scholarly contributions of our outstanding faculty, trainees, and alumni,” said Dr. Bakken.  “As I take on the role of Editor-in-Chief of JAMIA, I’m thrilled that the platform for my vision of consequentialist informatics that addresses the major public health issues of our times will be expanded.”

“Suzanne Bakken’s appointment as editor-in-chief, the first nurse to serve in this capacity for JAMIA, brings to the forefront not only her expertise in informatics and data science but also her perspective in evidence-based nursing practice,” said Dean of Columbia University School of Nursing, Bobbie Berkowitz, PhD.

“We are privileged to have someone of Dr. Bakken’s caliber taking the helm of JAMIA, particularly at this critical time for our field and for health care in general. Sue will bring not only her deep expertise as a researcher, author, editor, and mentor in the field with more than 30 years of published work, but also her broad perspective at the intersection of informatics, biomedicine and health care that will be so critical to the important work of the journal,” said Peter J. Embi, MD, AMIA Board Chair, in the press release.

At Columbia Nursing, she currently directs the Precision in Symptom Self-Management (PriSSM) Center and the Reducing Health Disparities Through Informatics Training Program, and co-chairs the Health Analytics Center of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University. Following doctoral study in nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, she completed a National Library of Medicine (NLM) post-doctoral fellowship in Medical Informatics at Stanford University.

Dr. Bakken’s research activities have support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Nursing Research and the NLM. In 2010, she received the Pathfinder Award from the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research and she will be inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame in July 2018. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Bakken has been a member of AMIA since 1991 and has held various positions within the organization, including membership on its Board of Directors and chair of the AMIA 2000 Annual Symposium Scientific Program Committee. She is also a fellow and current immediate past-president of the American College of Medical Informatics and is a recipient of the Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award (2006).