Westra receives AMIA signature award
October 16, 2018
Associate Professor Emerita Bonnie Westra, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI, has been named the 2018 recipient of the Virginia K. Saba Informatics Award from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA).
This signature award from the AMIA recognizes the recipient’s distinguished career and significant impact on the care of patients and the discipline of nursing. It honors a professional with exemplary principles and practices and a substantial record of contribution to the field of nursing informatics.
Westra’s impact on informatics research has included terminology development, application and evaluation; knowledge discovery in databases; predictive analytics for outcomes; and evaluating and deriving new evidence-based guidelines from electronic health record (EHR) data. At the University, she led an interprofessional team to develop information models from flowsheets to extend common data models for comparative effectiveness research and she co-chairs the Nursing Knowledge: Big Data Science Initiative.
“This is a most prestigious award to a most deserving colleague," said Connie White Delaney, dean of the School of Nursing. "Dr. Westra’s has had a bold and vibrant impact on nursing and health informatics."
She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American College of Medical Informatics and received AMIA’s Leadership Award in 2014. She is active in the leadership at AMIA, including leading the videotaping of 33 pioneers in nursing informatics through the Nursing Informatics History Committee initiated by Dr. Virginia Saba.
Westra will be presented the award at the AMIA 2018 Annual Symposium in San Francisco on Nov. 4.