Univ.-Prof. Dr.sc.hum. Elske Ammenwerth, Dipl.-Inform. Med., M.Sc., MET
Professor for Medical Informatics, Institute of Medical Informatics, UMIT TIROL - Private University for Health Sciences and Technology, Eduard Wallnöfer Zentrum 1, 6060 Hall in Tirol, Austria, http://iig.umit-tirol.at
Curriculum Vitae:
Prof. Dr. Elske Ammenwerth studied Medical Informatics (Dipl.-Inform. Med.) at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Applied Sciences Heilbronn. She earned her doctorate (Dr.sc.hum.) from the University of Heidelberg in 2001. In 2002, she joined UMIT TIROL – Private University for Health Sciences and Health Informatics as an assistant professor and head of the Research Group on Assessment of Health Information Systems. She was appointed full professor of health informatics and head of the Institute of Medical Informatics in 2005. She also holds a Master’s degree in Educational Technology (MET) from the University of British Columbia and a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences from the FernUniversität Hagen.
Her research focuses on medication safety, electronic health records, patient portals, hospital information system management, IT evaluation in healthcare, evidence-based health informatics, and learning analytics. Dr. Ammenwerth founded the Working Group on Assessment of Health Information Systems within EFMI (European Federation for Health Informatics) and serves as co-chair of the Austrian Health Informatics Working Group (AK-MI). Between 2008 and 2016, she co-organized the annual Austrian eHealth Conference in Vienna and the European Nursing Informatics (ENI) conference, focusing on IT in nursing and social care.
Dr. Ammenwerth represents Austria at IMIA and EFMI. For her contributions to evidence-based health informatics, she received the David Sackett Prize from the German Network for Evidence-based Medicine. In 2011, she was named an International Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI), and in 2017, she became a founding member of the International Academy of Health Science Informatics (IAHSI). She has delivered keynote speeches at major conferences, including Medical Informatics Europe, Ascendio, and the eHealth Summit Swiss.
She has authored over 170 papers in peer-reviewed journals and published or edited more than 25 books and proceedings on health informatics. She has served on the program committees of over 100 scientific workshops and conferences in health informatics. Dr. Ammenwerth is a member of the editorial boards of Methods of Information in Medicine, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Applied Clinical Informatics, and Journal of Biomedical Informatics. She also reviews for journals such as Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Journal of Medical Internet Research, and Educational Technology Research and Development.
Dr. Ammenwerth initiated and manages two master’s programs: the fully online Health Information Management master program at UMIT, launched in 2017, and the EFMI-accredited blended-learning Medical Informatics master program, started in 2020. In 2018, her team received the John Mantas’ Prize for the Best Paper on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics for their work on innovative online instructional designs.
Positions and memberships:
- Member of the Working Group on Assessment of Health Information Systems of the European Federation for Health Informatics (EFMI)
- Co-Chair of the Working Group on Health Informatics (AK-MI) of the Austrian Computer Society - Österreichische Computergesellschaft (OCG)
- Austrian representative to the European Federation for Health Informatics(EFMI)
- Austrian representative to the International Medical Informatics Association(IMIA)
- Member of the German Society for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Med. Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie (GMDS)
- Member of the German Association of Medical Informatics Professionals - Berufsverband Medizinischer Informatiker (BVMI)
- International Fellow of theAmerican College of Medical Informatics (ACMI)
- Member of the International Academy of Health Science Informatics (IAHSI)
Publication list:
For a list of recent publications, see my selected publication list.