Homer L. Chin, MD, MS, FACMI

Homer Chin is the Medical Director for Clinical Information Systems at Kaiser Permanente Northwest and Assistant Professor in Medical Informatics and Outcomes Research at the Oregon Health and Sciences University. Dr. Chin received his BS degree with highest honors in bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MD from Dartmouth Medical School. He completed residency training in internal medicine at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, California, and a postdoctoral fellowship in medical informatics at Stanford University.

In 1988, he joined Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, where he worked on strategic planning for information systems and was the clinician leader in the development of a centralized clinical data repository for the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Region. In 1992, he was recruited to his present position to lead the clinical information systems effort in Kaiser Permanente Northwest. He is board-certified in internal medicine and continues to maintain an active part-time medical practice.

His areas of interests include the development, implementation, and evaluation of clinical information systems, confidentiality of electronic patient information, optimization of the computer–clinician user interface, and the development and use of data repositories in health care. His fundamental interest is in the development and implementation of information systems that, by improving the efficiency and quality of health care delivery, support the overall clinical and business needs of a health care organization.

Kaiser Permanente Northwest embarked on the implementation of a comprehensive outpatient computer-based patient record in 1993 and completed their implementation in 1997. Kaiser Permanente won the 1998 Nicholas E. Davies CPR Recognition Award of Excellence, the 1999 Voh's Award for Quality Innovation, and the 2000 American Medical Group Association Acclaim Award, for work done in implementing the computer-based patient record.

Dr. Chin was a board member of Intel's Internet Initiative, a board member of the Oregon HIMSS Chapter, and the Program Chair for the CPRI Davies Recognition Award in 2001.