Charles Friedman, a top federal scientific officer in the Department of Health and Human Services, will head the new joint master’s program in health informatics at the School of Public Health and School of Information.

U-M is the first public university in Michigan to offer a graduate program in health informatics and one of the first schools in the nation to focus specifically on consumer health informatics.

Friedman, who has more than 30 years experience in higher education, will leave a senior position as chief scientific officer of the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. He’s held professorships in medicine, information science and biomedical engineering at The University of Pittsburgh and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and led the creation of informatics programs at both universities. He is the author of a well-known textbook in the field and is an associate editor of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

“We are extremely fortunate to have attracted a candidate of Chuck Friedman’s stature and experience to head this cutting-edge program,” says SI Dean Jeff MacKie-Mason. “Our goal is to have the leading graduate program in health informatics in the nation, and we can’t imagine anyone better qualified to help us achieve it.”

“Under Dr. Friedman’s direction we will educate the next generation of leaders who are equipped to meet the technical, ethical, legal and societal challenges posed by the inevitable transition toward the use of electronic records in the management of health and healthcare,” SPH Dean Martin Philbert says.

The program reflects major national movement toward using new information tools in health care. It encompasses computer science, information, social and behavioral sciences and health application domains, in order to increase the quality of care and reduce costs.

“I was profoundly attracted by the University of Michigan’s distinctive emphasis on game-changing information technologies that will be used by health care consumers, which means all members of society, to promote health and wellness in entirely new ways,” Friedman says.

Friedman has held his current position since 2009, and served previously as the nation’s deputy national coordinator for health IT. He has also held federal positions as associate director for research informatics and information technology at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health, and senior scholar at the National Library of Medicine. He starts September 1.

The program will appeal to students wishing to focus on human and organizational aspects of health information systems. Students also can engage a range of subspecialties, including consumer, public health and clinical informatics.

The program combines the expertise of SPH in health management and policy, health behavior and epidemiology, with SI faculty’s expertise in human-centered design and the implementation and evaluation of effective information systems.

The master’s program begins in fall 2012, and the Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics begins in fall 2011 for students already enrolled in other graduate programs at U-M.

For more information go to www.healthinformatics.umich.edu.