Stephen Kay, PhD, FACMI

Professor Stephen Kay was awarded his BSc at the University of Staffordshire in 1976 and then moved to the University of Wales to work at their School of Medicine as an analyst programmer and systems manager while formally studying computer science, earning a master’s degree in 1981. Although he moved to assume a position as lecturer in information systems at the University of Manchester’s Department of Computer Science from 1987 to 1995, he continued to work on his doctoral degree at the University of Wales and received his PhD in 1995. He was then promoted to Senior Lecturer at Manchester and, in 2000, moved to the University of Salford where he is a professor of health informatics, Director of SHIRE (Salford Health Informatics Research Environment), and Associate Head for Research of the School of Health Care Professions.

Dr. Kay is a co-inventor (with Alan Rector) of the PEN&PAD clinical workstation effort. He also led the extended architecture component of the Electronic Health Record project that became CEN ENV13606 in 2000, which is well known and influential in our field. The current activities of the SHIRE group are important for their impact on standardization activities, nursing informatics, and studies in acupuncture.

His research group is currently focused on clinical communication, and their research is themed with respect to clinical narrative, ontologies, standards, and learning. His collaborative work with Ian Purvis, summarized in an important paper entitled ‘‘Medical Records and Other Stories: A Narratological Framework,’’ appeared in 1996. Since then, Dr. Kay has continued to investigate the value of narrative theories applied to clinical records, practice, and organizational norms. Dr. Kay is also known for his role as director and designer of the first UK undergraduate BSc program in medical informatics at the University of Manchester during the 1990s.