New NIH Biosketch Allows Better Documentation of Contributions to Science

One of the most important documents for a US-based biomedical researcher is the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Biosketch. This short document summarizes the accomplishments of a scientist apply for an NIH grant, listing his or her job positions, educational history, a summary of key publications, and a listing of current grant funding. The NIH Biosketch is also often used as a summary of one’s larger curriculum vitae (CV).

NIH has tweaked the Biosketch over the years, and the most recent update provides an excellent approach that allows researchers to not just summarize their most prominent publications, but also to give a statement about them in the context of the individual's contributions to science. For each contribution, he or she can provide up to four key publications for each. I enjoyed the exercise of updating my Biosketch to the new form, and thought it would be worthwhile to reproduce the scientific contributions and key publications here.

1. My initial research focused on the development and implementation of information retrieval (IR, also called search) systems in biomedicine and health. I experimented with concept-based approaches to indexing and retrieval of knowledge-based information. Subsequently, I found that methods for evaluation systems were inadequate, and developed an interest in new approaches to evaluation. My interests in search have also evolved with the emergence of new content for retrieval, such as medical images and electronic health record data, especially textual notes in the latter.

• Hersh WR, Greenes RA, SAPHIRE: an information retrieval system featuring concept matching, automatic indexing, probabilistic retrieval, and hierarchical relationships, Computers and Biomedical Research, 1990, 23: 410-425.
• Hersh WR, Crabtree MK, Hickam DH, Sacherek L, Friedman CP, Tidmarsh P, Moesbaek C, Kraemer D, Factors associated with success for searching MEDLINE and applying evidence to answer clinical questions, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 2002, 9: 283-293. PMC344588.
• Hersh W, Kalpathy-Cramer J, Müller H, The ImageCLEFmed medical image retrieval task test collection, Journal of Digital Imaging, 2009, 22: 648-655.
• Hersh W, Voorhees E, TREC Genomics special issue overview, Information Retrieval, 2009, 12: 1-15.

2. My interest work in IR has converged with another interest in the secondary use of clinical (especially electronic health record) data. I have made contributions not only in attempting to leverage such data, but also addressing caveats and recommendations for its use.

• Voorhees E, Hersh W, Overview of the TREC 2012 Medical Records Track, The 21st Text Retrieval Conference - TREC 2012.
• Edinger T, Cohen AM, Bedrick S, Ambert K, Hersh W, Barriers to retrieving patient information from electronic health record data: failure analysis from the TREC Medical Records Track, Proceedings of the AMIA 2012 Annual Symposium, 2012, 180-188, PMC3540501.
• Hersh WR, Weiner MG, Embi PJ, Logan JR, Payne PR, Bernstam EV, Lehmann HP, Hripcsak G, Hartzog TH, Cimino JJ, Saltz JH, Caveats for the use of operational electronic health record data in comparative effectiveness research, Medical Care, 2013, 51(Suppl 3): S30-S37. PMC3748381.
• Hersh WR, Cimino JJ, Payne PR, Embi PJ, Logan JR, Weiner MG, Bernstam EV, Lehmann HP, Hripcsak G, Hartzog TH, Saltz JH, Recommendations for the use of operational electronic health record data in comparative effectiveness research, eGEMs (Generating Evidence & Methods to improve patient outcomes), 2013, 1:14.

3. I have also made contributions in conducting systematic reviews of evaluative research of informatics technologies. These reviews can be challenging because many evaluations use weak evaluation methodologies, in part because these technologies are tools rather than typical medical tests or treatments.

• Hersh WR, Hickam DH, How well do physicians use electronic information retrieval systems? A framework for investigation and systematic review, Journal of the American Medical Association, 1998, 280: 1347-1352.
• Hersh WR, Hickam DH, Severance SM, Dana TL, Krages KP, Helfand M, Diagnosis, access, and outcomes: update of a systematic review on telemedicine services, Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, 2006, 12(Supp 2): 3-31.
• Stanfill MH, Williams M, Fenton SH, Jenders R, Hersh W, A systematic review of automated clinical coding and classification systems, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 2010, 17: 646-651. PMC3000748.
• Hersh W, Totten A, Eden K, Devine B, Gorman P, Kassakian S, Woods SS, Daeges M, Pappas M, McDonagh MS, Outcomes from health information exchange: systematic review and future research needs, JMIR Medical Informatics, 2015, 3(4): e39.

4. Being the leader of a major biomedical informatics educational program, I have also carried out research characterizing the informatics professional workforce. My study on the need for health IT professionals played a role in workforce development being a component of the Health Information Technology for Clinical and Economic Health (HITECH) Act of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

• Hersh W, Who are the informaticians? What we know and should know, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 2006, 13: 166-170. PMC1447543.
• Hersh W, Wright A, What workforce is needed to implement the health information technology agenda? Analysis from the HIMSS Analytics™ Database, Proceedings of the AMIA 2008 Annual Symposium, 2008, 303-307. PMC2656033.
• Hersh W, The health information technology workforce: estimations of demands and a framework for requirements, Applied Clinical Informatics, 2010, 1: 197-212. PMC3632279.
• Hersh WR, Margolis A, Quirós F, Otero P, Building a health informatics workforce in developing countries, Health Affairs, 2010, 29: 274-277.

5. Also as a result of being an educational leader, I have carried out evaluation of educational programs in informatics, including those using distance learning technologies.

• Hersh W, Williamson J, Educating 10,000 informaticians by 2010: the AMIA 10x10 program, International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2007, 76: 377-382.
• Hersh WR, A stimulus to define informatics and health information technology, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 2009, 9: 24.
• Otero P, Hersh W, Luna D, Quirós F, Translation, implementation and evaluation of a medical informatics distance-learning course for Latin America, Methods of Information in Medicine, 2010, 49: 310-315.
• Mohan V, Abbott P, Acteson S, Berner ES, Devlin C, Hammond WE, Kukafka R, Hersh W, Design and evaluation of the ONC health information technology curriculum, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 2014, 21: 509-516.

NIH now also allows scientists to create a complete list of published work in the MyBibliography section of the NCBI Web site.