The Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis named Philip R.O. Payne, MD, associate dean for health information and data science as well as chief data scientist.
Dr. Payne is the medical school's first chief data scientist and he will share oversight of the Washington University Physicians data analytics and digital health initiatives. He also holds responsibility for the data architecture, infrastructure and governance of the medical school. His role was designed to bring a comprehensive approach to data and data science for healthcare and biomedical research.
Dr. Payne will provide strategic oversight over the medical school's program portfolio and activities focused on creating and operating comprehensive data, information and knowledge that supports its research, education and clinical care in his new role. He is also responsible for the Institute for Informatics, which he launched in 2016, with the newly incorporated team from the biostatistics division.
In the past four years he has recruited more than a dozen core faculty members to the school and expanded its educational portfolio. He is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and previously served as chair of the department of biomedical informatics and director of the Institute for Translational Data Analytics at the Ohio State University.