MLA '12: Speakers

Plenary Session II

Sunday, May 20, 10:30 a.m.–noon

John P. McGovern Award Lecturer: Steven Johnson

Sponsored by EBSCO

Steven Johnson is the best-selling author of seven books on the intersection of science, technology, and personal experience. His writings have influenced everything from the way political campaigns use the Internet, to cutting-edge ideas in urban planning, to the battle against 21st century terrorism.

Johnson’s newest book is titled, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. From Darwin to YouTube, Johnson asks the questions:

His answers are never less than revelatory, convincing, and inspiring as Johnson identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of such ideas and traces them across time and disciplines.

His previous book, The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America, tells the story of Joseph Priestly, a scientist and theologian best known for discovering oxygen, and how innovative ideas emerge and spread in society and drive historical change. Like Johnson’s award-winning The Ghost Map, The Invention of Air uses a surprising historical and biographical narrative to discuss ideas that have profoundly shaped our modern world.

Both social critic and technologist, Johnson has a genius for mapping the future—for predicting and explaining the real-world impact of cutting-edge developments in science, technology, and media. He is a contributing editor to Wired magazine and lectures widely on technological, scientific, and cultural issues. Johnson has also written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Nation, and many other periodicals. He has appeared on many high-profile television programs, including Charlie Rose, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He recently won the fourth annual Newhouse School Mirror Award for his Time magazine cover article, “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live.”

Johnson’s blog is at www.stevenberlinjohnson.com.

 

Plenary Session III

Monday, May 21, 9:00 a.m.–10:00 a.m.

Janet Doe Lecturer: Mark E. Funk, AHIP, FMLA

“Our Words, Our Story: A Textual Analysis of Articles Published in the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association/Journal of the Medical Library Association from 1961 to 2010”

Mark E. Funk, AHIP, FMLA, associate director for resources and education, Samuel J. Wood Library, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, is known for his work in collection development and acquisitions. He has served on many library advisory boards for national and international publishers and is a much sought-after speaker.

Funk received his master’s degree from the University of Missouri–Columbia. He was a medical librarian at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the University of Nebraska Medical Center before joining the Weill Cornell Medical Library in 1987. He has served on the MLA Board of Directors and was treasurer (2001–2003) and president (2007/08). His other leadership positions in MLA have included serving on Section Council, as chair of both the Research and Collection Development Sections, and on many MLA committees and task forces. He was named an MLA Fellow in 2010.

As president, he led MLA to expand its use of Web 2.0 and social networking tools, as well as introduced virtual aspects of the annual meeting, allowing “attendance” from anywhere. He served a four-year term on the National Library of Medicine’s Literature Selection Technical Review Committee, which selects journals for indexing in Index Medicus.

He is not related to Carla J. Funk, CAE, Hon. FCLIP, MLA executive director.

 

Plenary Session IV

Wednesday, May 23, 9:00 a.m.–noon

Plenary Speaker: T. R. Reid

T. R. Reid is a reporter, documentary film correspondent, and frequent guest on National Public Radio. He has authored nine books in English and three in Japanese. As a reporter for the Washington Post, he covered Congress and four presidential campaigns and served as the paper’s bureau chief in Tokyo and in London. His career as an international reporter has spanned three dozen countries on five continents.

Reid has done documentary films for National Geographic, PBS, and the A&E Network. His 2008 Frontline documentary, Sick Around the World, looked at the comprehensive health care systems of five developed world economies. His next film, U.S. Health Care: The Good News, will be broadcast nationally on PBS on February 16, 2012, and focuses on US communities that have found ways to orchestrate their health care system locally without waiting for directions from Washington.

Reid’s investigations into health care resulted in his New York Times best-selling book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. In his book, Reid shows how all other industrialized democracies have achieved health care for everybody at a reasonable cost. In addition to studying these different health care models, he also studies countries that have carried out major health care reform.

Reid speaks often about health care and health care reform. He describes positives and negatives of industrialized nations’ health care systems and illustrates how the US system could benefit by learning from successful models in practice in other countries.

 

Wednesday, May 23, 10:30 a.m.

Comparative Effectiveness Research: Trends and Issues

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), “comparative effectiveness research is designed to inform health-care decisions by providing evidence on the effectiveness, benefits, and harms of different treatment options.” The panel will describe current activities in comparative effectiveness research (CER) and challenge attendees to consider how to grow their professional opportunities in this arena. The panel will be moderated by Barbara A. Epstein, AHIP. Epstein is joined by Joyce E. B. Backus, Kate Goodrich, and Michael L. Parchman.

 

Presenters and Panelists

Barbara A. Epstein is director of the Health Sciences Library System (HSLS), University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, and director of the Middle Atlantic Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. Prior to joining HSLS as associate director in 1995, she was director of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic Library in Pittsburgh for ten years. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh and her master of science degree in library science from Case Western Reserve University. Epstein is currently chair of MLA’s Ad Hoc Committee on Scholarly Communication and is a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals. She also chairs the Future Leadership Committee of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL). Her professional contributions include seventeen articles in peer-reviewed journals and numerous posters, papers, and presentations

Joyce E. B. Backus is the deputy associate director for library operations (LO) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), Bethesda, MD. Most recently, she served as deputy chief of the public services division, where she led the LO effort to develop and release MedlinePlus Connect, linking patient portals and electronic health records to authoritative health information. She has also served as the head of reference and web services, head of the web management team, systems librarian, and reference librarian. She has been with NLM since her 1985/86 associate fellowship. She currently advises the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on their effort to create an inventory of CER activity. During her career, Backus has received the Thomson Reuters/Frank Bradway Rogers Information Advancement Award and the Ida and George Eliot Prize from MLA, and, recently, the HHS secretary awarded the MedlinePlus Connect team with the HHS Innovates Award. Backus earned her master of science degree in library science from the Catholic University of America and her bachelor of arts degree in sociology and English from Duke University.

Kate Goodrich is senior technical advisor, Office of Clinical Standards and Quality, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service

Michael L. Parchman is Director of the MacColl Center for Healthcare Innovation within the Group Health Research Institute. Prior to joining GHRI and MacColl he led the Primary Care Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN) Initiative and was a Senior Advisor for Primary Care at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in Rockville, Maryland. From 1998 to 2011 he was a Professor at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio where he directed the PBRN Resource Center for the Institute for the Integration of Medicine and Science. He was also interim director of the VERDICT Health Services Research Program at the South Texas Veterans Health Care System and director of the South Texas Ambulatory Research Network(STARNet), a primary care PBRN. His work has focused on improving outcomes for patients with chronic illness in primary care settings. His areas of interest include dissemination and implementation research in primary care using complex adaptive systems theory, practice-based research network (PBRN) development and methodologies, and strategies for developing a sustainable infrastructure for on-going quality improvement in primary care.

 



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