Tachinardi named chief health digital officer at the UC College of Medicine and UC Health

Umberto Tachinardi, MD, has been appointed chief health digital officer for the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and UC Health, effective June 1, 2022. He also will serve as associate dean for health informatics at the College of Medicine and vice president at UC Health. Tachinardi currently serves as interim president and chief executive officer of the Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis where he also is assistant dean for clinical informatics and professor of biostatistics at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

“Dr. Tachinardi’s addition is incredibly important to the college and UC Health,” says Brett Kissela, MD, executive vice dean for the College of Medicine, Albert Barnes Voorheis Endowed Chair and Professor, Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine, and chief of research services at UC Health. “The new position involves leadership responsibility at both institutions and is therefore truly at the intersection of our organizations. It is critical for both the college and UC Health to maximize the use of our digital information and build our digital strategy. His leadership will advance our research, benefit patients and improve how we train our students at every level.”

Tachinardi, who also will be a professor in the College of Medicine’s Department of Biomedical Informatics, joined the Regenstrief Institute in 2019 as chief information officer and director of clinical research informatics. He began leading the institute on an interim basis in December 2021. Founded in 1969, the Regenstrief Institute is an independent research center and a research partner to Indiana University with three research centers, the Center for Health Services Research, the Center for Biomedical Informatics and the IU Center for Aging Research.

“We are getting a world-class expert in the field of biomedical informatics. Dr. Tachinardi will be very important to our future success,” Kissela adds.

Tachinardi has been a leader in the biomedical informatics field for nearly 40 years. He spent 20 of those years building electronic health record systems for health care systems in his native Brazil.

“It is clear that both the College of Medicine and UC Health are entering the phase of defining new digital futures and a new kind of thinking is required,” Tachinardi says. “There is the complexity of making all these pieces make sense in this new era of things being virtualized and digitized and cyber-transformed. The question is: how do we do it the right way, in a sustainable way to really improve health, research and education?”

A specific challenge that needs to be addressed is the growing inequities in technology, he says.

“The digital world is a solution for a number of things, but it’s also challenging for a number of populations at risk, for example, the elderly and the poor who don’t have the resources. That’s the challenge when we think about this new world; how do we connect the realities and challenges in the real world where people live.”

At the College of Medicine, Tachinardi will lead the advancement of biomedical informatics, computer and data sciences and biostatistics; provide organizational support for data architecture, warehousing and informatics; build core digital, data analytics and medical informatics; develop and improve database and application development and structure; and integrate analytic and technology expertise and resources throughout the college.

At UC Health, Tachinardi will help lead and transform the system’s commitment to driving innovation, leading the way the health system collects, interprets and uses data and analytics to enhance the delivery of care and achieve operational excellence. He will collaborate with the system’s chief health information officer, Frank Fernandez, MD, and Jay Brown, senior vice president and chief information officer, as well as many clinical and operational leaders to enhance a data-driven culture by driving digital and biomedical informatics strategy for the system and accelerating clinical research and virtual health care delivery. Additionally, he will develop innovations for chronic disease management, telehealth, remote monitoring and other digital care pathways; build a deeper culture of data-driven decision making and support a formal process of gathering, interpreting and sharing data; provide digital enhancements for patient care, experience and safety through the areas of digital scheduling and communication opportunities for care teams and treatments; and advance strategic insights and predictive analytics to improve health outcomes and value-based care.

“Dr. Tachinardi’s proven success as a tenured senior informatics leader who is an expert at building sustainable and innovative solutions for digital health data systems will be invaluable to UC Health and the UC College of Medicine. His vast experience as an international biomedical informatics expert and research scientist will complement our tripartite mission of research, teaching and clinical care,” says Stewart Wright, MD, interim chief medical officer at UC Health and professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the College of Medicine. “We are incredibly excited to have Dr. Tachinardi joining us. His extensive expertise and collaborative spirit will, without a doubt, enhance our data-driven culture.”

Tachinardi received his medical degree in 1983 from Itajuba School of Medicine in Brazil. He also holds a master’s degree in physiology from the State University of São Paulo. Prior to joining the Regenstrief Institute, Tachinardi was the associate dean for biomedical informatics and chief research information officer at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and director of informatics at the University of Chicago Biological Sciences Division.

Tachinardi is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and a member of the American Medical Informatics Association, and has served in several leadership roles for both organizations. In 2020 he was appointed a fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics.

Joining Tachinardi in Cincinnati later this year will be his spouse, Eneida Mendonca, MD, PhD, who has been appointed a professor in the College of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and director of the Division of Biomedical Informatics and Rieveschl Chair of Biomedical Informatics at Cincinnati Children’s. She currently is vice president for research development and director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics at the Regenstrief Institute and professor of pediatrics and biostatics at the Indiana University School of Medicine.