Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health Health Informatics

A Q&A with François Modave, PhD

François Modave, PhD, Director, Center for Health Outcomes and Informatics Research (CHOIR), Chair, Department of Health Informatics and Data Science and Associate Provost, Health Sciences Campus discusses the importance of data and its contributions to health care.

Why is Health Informatics important?

How much time do I have to talk about the importance of data in health care? Despite multiple initiatives from the National Institutes of Health (personalized medicine, precision medicine, cancer moonshot, etc.), we are still falling short in many areas. Costs are ever- increasing, some people do not have access to care, medicine remains dogmatic in some aspects and is not always evidence-based. Yet we are sitting on mountains of data that can tell us stories, and answer many questions. Health informatics and data science can provide tools to revolutionize how care is delivered, improve health outcomes, and reduce health inequities among disenfranchised populations.


Why is health informatics one of the fastest growing fields in health care?

Many factors are fueling the growth in health informatics: the ubiquitous nature of computing platforms, along with an unparalleled ability to collect and store a variety of data: from heterogeneous sources, including electronic health record (EHR) data, data from online databases, and even social media posts, or data generated by patients via smartphones and wearables devices. To give you a sense of the sheer amount of data: we are 11 years past the inception of the Apple store, and we have grown from a total of approximately 500 apps, to 260,000 – and that is just for health and fitness apps. Also, data accumulate online at the rate of roughly 70 terabytes (1000 gigabytes) -- per second!

As you can imagine, there is a critical need to train people to facilitate data integration (collating data from various sources), to analyze data, which will generate new knowledge, improve health outcomes, and reduce health inequities.


Why is Loyola University Chicago introducing a Master in Health Informatics?

Health informatics is in such high demand at this stage that there are (a lot!) more jobs to fill than there are people with adequate training. Our region only has a couple of programs and they cannot compensate the needs so it was critical to start a MS in Health Informatics at Loyola as well.


What differentiates Loyola’s Health Informatics capabilities from other schools and/or where does Loyola excel in Health Informatics?

While our program is housed within the Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health, its research connection with the Center for Health Outcomes and Informatics (CHOIR) makes it unique. First, because CHOIR sits across all three schools (Stritch School of Medicine, Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing, and Parkinson) on Loyola’s Health Sciences Campus, our students have opportunities to train and work with experts from the key fields of health care. We also have strong connections with programs on Loyola’s two other campuses, in particular with Computer Science, but also Social Work. Our informatics team, led by Ron Price, PhD, provides us with unique tools to access data for real world problems. We have a unique ability to access and analyze clinical notes from nurses and physicians, and this remains a largely untapped, information-rich data source, which represents roughly 80% of all data in an EHR. Also, we are involved in this region’s key big data initiatives such as The Institute for Translational Medicine (led by UChicago and Rush University) and the CAPriCORN Clinical Data Research Network, led by Northwestern University.


In which cross-disciplinary opportunities will students enrolled in the MS in Health Informatics participate?

The cross-disciplinary opportunities for students are virtually endless. For example, they can work directly with nurses to analyze data and identify the true impact nurses make on care delivery, something that remains largely under-estimated. They also can work with physicians to analyze the impact of using mobile apps on the health of patients with chronic conditions, such as diabetes. Or they can work with data science experts and computer scientists to build those apps, or to build predictive models of atrial fibrillation (we just recruited a new faculty member who does amazing work in this area).


When you look at all of the tools in the health care space, where would you rank “informatics” in terms of its ability to help improve patient or population health outcomes?

I don’t think I want to give a ranking because there are many fields that are critical for health care, and we can’t work separately. But with the amount of data generated, it’s definitely a key player in health care, across all fields, and across the continuum of care, to both improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities. Some of the most exciting questions relate to how we can aggregate data sources and share data across partners without compromising patient privacy. I am also very excited about the prospect of mobile health (mHealth) and its impact on health outcomes for chronic condition management, and cancer screening, as well as how mHealth can be integrated into clinical practice. It triggers a variety of questions such as designing tools for patients and providers, integrating with EHR systems, and how to use social networks to improve adherence.


Talk about some research you have conducted that includes health informatics.

The first really important project I worked on was the development of a web-based decision aid tool to help patients with low health literacy decide which screening method to use for colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer screening should occur every year if using a simple stool test, every five years for a more complex outpatient procedure called flexible sigmoidoscopy, or every 10 years for colonoscopy, from age 50 (this may change soon) to age 75. So, we built an AI-based decision aid tool that helps patients make the best decision for their own preferences. We are still analyzing the results to see if we have increased rates of screening, but intent to screen has increased significantly. This work was an incredible collaboration among physicians, public health professionals, software engineers, and health informaticists. This joint project was funded by the National Cancer Institute, working Dr. Shokar, while I was at the University of Florida.


How did you get into the health informatics field?

I did my PhD in computer science/mathematics, focusing on artificial intelligence methods and decision theory ENSEEIHT, The École nationale supérieure d'électrotechnique, d'électronique, d'informatique, d'hydraulique et des télécommunications in Toulouse, France). I started my career expanding on this work, but always had wanted to see how these areas could be applied to health care. Thankfully, I met two amazing colleagues at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso. Dr. Kiran Shokar (a Family Medicine physician) and Dr. Charles Miller (PhD, epidemiologist by training) who were curious to see how my work applied to health, in particular for informed and shared decision-making at the point-of-care. From then on, I left the comfort of a field I had worked in for a long time, to retrain myself, under Dr. Shokar’s mentoring. And I got hooked.

Interested in Health Informatics?

With a MS in Health Informatics from Loyola, you will be part of the new health care workforce, trained in informatics and data science to improve outcomes and delivery, minimize health inequities, and achieve better care. Learn more about a degree in health informatics.