Chris Hoekstra Data Informatics in Healthcare, what do we need to understand from the data we collect ?

Profiles in Leadership

Chris received his PhD in biomedical informatics from Oregon Health & Science University, School of Medicine, his Masters of Science and Doctor of Physical Therapy degrees from Pacific University and undergraduate degree in biology from Willamette University. He is board certified in orthopedics and fellowship trained in manual physical therapy. He has worked as a physical therapist, clinic director, and more recently Director of Knowledge Management for Therapeutic Associates Inc. In that role he has overseen the company’s strategy related to the use of organization data in business and clinical decision making, quality improvement efforts, and value-based care initiatives.

In 2014, Chris returned to school to study biomedical informatics, in hopes of applying the concepts that were focusing personalized medicine and evidence-based practice in the field of medicine, to the field of PT. He was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the National Library of Medicine and a PODS I scholarship from the Foundation for Physical Therapy for his research related to the facilitators and barriers to PT managers’ use of clinical information systems to oversee clinical quality.

Chris has applied his informatics training as a consultant to the APTA relative to health IT interoperability and a member of the PT Outcomes Registry Scientific Advisory Panel. He has also worked as a consultant to large health systems focused on data analytics strategy and improved organizational use of information for decision making. More recently he received an Assistant Professor appointment with Oregon Health and Science University, School of Medicine, Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology where he teaches courses in qualitative research methods and organizational behavior. He also continues his research now focusing on usability of patient reported quality of life measures and is a member of a multi-disciplinary team on and AHRQ-funded study to establish safe training and use of medical scribes. This has allowed him to develop a model of and training process for the use of scribes in PT. He is also a member of a research team exploring the use of PROMIS measures to support clinicians’ use of a bio-psycho-social approach to PT intervention.

Chris has dedicated his career to improving clinicians’ and business leaders’ use of information in their daily decision making. His goal is to refine a sociotechnical framework that integrates information systems with organizational strategy, workflow design, and information presentation to allow practices and providers to thrive in the coming value-based healthcare landscape.