News Releases

University of Maryland School of Nursing to Host 12th Annual Informatics Conference July 24-27

May 14, 2002

Informatics at the Crossroads: Transforming Healthcare

Baltimore, Md. – Transforming health care will be the focus of the University of Maryland School of Nursing's 12th Annual Summer Institute in Nursing Informatics July 24-27 at the School of Nursing, 655 W. Lombard Street, Baltimore. The lead sponsor for this year's conference -- Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services Corporation, Malvern, Penna. -- offers a broad range of clinical, financial and management applications, and outsourcing and professional services to support health providers across the continuum of care.

Nancy Lorenzi, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Clinical Professor in Nursing at Vanderbilt University will deliver the keynote address, "Mastering the Health care Maze: Informatics as a Transformation Strategy," which will focus on how mastering the organizational and process side informatics helps transform an organization.

Daniel Z. Sands, MD, MPH, Harvard Medical School, will be the Distinguished Lecturer. His discussion will center on the current trend of patients' use of the Web to communicate with health care providers and to learn about their health and illnesses.

According to Barbara R. Heller, EdD, RN, FAAN, Dean of the School of Nursing, the event will highlight nursing informatics practice and nursing informatics perspectives; error prevention and quality improvement via the use of information technology in health care, standards efforts, current information technologies; information system selection, evaluation and implementation; and nursing informatics processes.

The conference consists of peer-reviewed paper presentations, posters, exhibits and a series of invited national and international informatics speakers. Pre- and post-conferences will also be offered. The pre-conference program will feature a Project Management Seminar/Workshop, and the post-conference will be the "Weekend Immersion in Nursing Informatics," a Nursing Informatics certification review program. Approximately 16 sessions from the Institute will be offered over the Internet via Web cast. The program, registration materials and specification information about the conference can be obtained by visiting the Summer Institute Web page.