Patient Safety and Health Information Technology

Course Director

The course is led by Karen Dunn Lopez, PhD, MPH, RN, a UIC faculty member in the Department of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences. Dr. Dunn Lopez is an internationally known informatics expert in the areas of usability, usefulness and safety of health information technologies. Her program of research focuses on improving decision making across the healthcare continuum by addressing two major barriers of health information technologies: 1) the difficulty leveraging complex health record data to improve decision making care and 2) poor usability. Her research uses a team science approach and applies a wide variety of methods including: human factors, user-center design, data science, clinical trials, simulation and systematic reviews.

Dr. Dunn Lopez has authored and co-authored over 35 peer-reviewed articles, 5 book chapters and has been cited over 600 times.  She is a Governing Director to the Alliance for Nursing Informatics and on the Board of Directors of Xcertia whose mission it is to accelerate the development, adoption and use of safe and effective mHealth apps. 

Additional AMIA 10x10 Faculty

Ashley M. Hughes, PhD, MS

Dr. Hughes serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences. She leverages her background in human factors psychology and modeling and simulation to investigate and improve interdisciplinary team function through health information technologies. She leads the SAFE-T Lab at UIC whose mission is to improve patient care quality and safety in outpatient, surgical and related settings. The lab focuses specifically on how healthcare teams coordinate to provide care through the use of health information technologies.

Her authored and co-authored project work has culminated in 25 peer reviewed publications, 20 invited presentations, and received recognition for methodological rigor and impact (Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Patient Safety Net). She currently chairs the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Healthcare Technical Group and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Women’s Organization for Mentoring And Networking (HFE WOMAN).

Eric Swirsky, JD, MA

Eric S. Swirsky, JD, MA is a clinical associate professor and the director of graduate studies in the Department of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences, holding appointments in the College of Medicine and Honors College.  With a background in religious and cultural studies, law, and clinical medical ethics, Eric has created and taught applied ethics and professionalism curricula from the undergraduate through post-doctoral levels in both online and face-to-face environments and has received numerous awards and distinctions related to teaching excellence. 
Eric’s scholarly interests have recently focused upon ethical conundrums attendant to the use of digital and information technologies in healthcare. In particular, he is interested in impacts upon clinical relationships, the delivery of health services, economics, and end of life decision-making.  His areas of expertise reside in areas related to ethical use of data, medical technologies, clinical interventions, and the sociotechnical milieu in which they converge. 

Eric’s work in health education research involves the crafting and assessment of competencies in clinical and health informatics. Eric also serves on the Board of Directors of The Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education (CAHIIM), where he is involved with the development of frameworks used in the evaluation competency-based informatics curricula.