Joachim W. Dudeck, MD, FACMI

Joachim W. Dudeck is Professor and Head of the Department of Medical Statistics, University Hospital Giessen, Germany. He received his MD from University of Heidelberg. He received additional training in physiology, internal medicine, medical statistics, and informatics at the Universities of Erlangen and Mainz and a habilitation in medical statistics and documentation at the University of Mainz.

Dr. Dudeck's early work involved recognition process of positions of sounds and noises by the ear. He applied statistical methods in medicine, in particular to the multivariate analysis of variance in classification. In the late 1970s, he developed an automatic ECG program based on the Pipberger Program, a spelling checker as powerful as the system now used in Word, and a fault-tolerant network of minicomputers at Giessen University hospital.

Dr. Dudeck's research on the application of knowledge-based functions in hospital systems included implementation and adaptation of the HELP system to the environment of German hospitals; development of the comprehensive, knowledge-based hospital information system WING (knowledge-based information network at Giessen); development of a clinical workstation for oncology and cancer registries (Giessener Tumor Dokumentationssystem, CTDS), which is now in use in nearly 40 cancer registries and comprehensive cancer centers in Germany; and structuring of clinical guidelines using XML. He served as member of the Commission on Computer Systems of the German Research Council between 1989 and 1995; as Chairman of the Section of Medical Informatics of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology 1995 to 1998; Founder and Chairman of the HL7 User Group in Germany since 1993; Member of the Board of Directors of HL7 USA as representative of the international affiliates, 1997 to 1999; and Chairman of the CEN TC 251 Task Force on XML Application in Healthcare.