courtney

							University of Pittsburgh
                                                                       415 Victoria Building
                                                                       3500 Victoria Street
S c h o o l OfNurSinQ                                                  Pittsburgh, PA 15261
         •'         °                                                  Phone:412-624-2469
                                                                       Fax:412-383-7293
Department ofHealth and Community Systems                              w>«w.nursing.pitt,edu

                                                                27 September 2008

Dan M. Cooper MD
Director, UC Irvine Institute for Clinical and Translational Science
Bldg 25, 2"" Floor
101 The City Drive
Orange, CA 92868

Dear Dan,

I am writing to confirm my willingness to serve on the External Advisory Board for
the Center of Biomedical Informatics (CBMI) at UC Irvine as described in your
proposal. I have been particularly excited to work with your group over the past
year in helping to configure a modern BMI infrastructure that can link clinical
translational science research with the deployment of the electronic medical
record that is occurring at your medical center and throughout the country. I am
very pleased that in the process, UC Irvine has embedded Nursing Informatics in
the foundations of your BMI enterprise.

Nurses are at the frontlines of patient care and community health. In this role,
they are, arguably, the key "humans" in the "human computer interface" which
manages the flow of the bulk of data and information that emanates from the
patient and makes its way to the electronic health record. Without involving
nursing in this process, the systems that develop are unlikely to be responsive to
the substantial insights and vision that the nursing profession has demonstrated
over the years in advancing patient care right at "the bedside."

Dr. Ellen Olshansky, the Director ofthe UC Irvine Program in Nursing, and I have
communicated with each other on the importance of nursing informatics. I will
work with Ellen and the CBMI to help ensure that BMI is an essential component
of nursing education and that the nursing perspective is a key component of
deliberations in the CBMI.

I look fonward to working with you as you build this exciting BMI program. I wish
you every success in this current round of CTSA funding.

Best Wishes,




Karen Courtney, RN,
Assistant Professor, MSN - Nursing Informatics Area Coordinator