New AMIA Chief Focuses on Real-World Medicine

AMIA, formerly known as the American Medical Informatics Association, has gone outside its traditional realm of academia in choosing a new president and CEO. The Bethesda, Md.-based organization representing healthcare informatics professionals has hired Dr. Kevin M. Fickenscher from the consulting world to be its new chief executive.

Fickenscher hopes to accelerate the application of informatics from theoretical concepts of academia to real-world medical practice and bridge gaps between the two realms. "There's going to be very significant growth on the applied side," Fickenscher told InformationWeek Healthcare.