Joanna Abraham, PhD

Dr. Abraham is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Institute for Informatics at WashU Medicine. She received her PhD from Pennsylvania State University in Information Sciences and Technology and has an interdisciplinary background in human factors and biomedical informatics. She is the Principal Investigator of the SAFE-T (Supporting Advancements for Frontline Excellence in patient safeTy) Lab, which focuses on five core areas: (1) handoffs and care transitions; (2) medication ordering and reconciliation; (3) artificial intelligence in perioperative care; (4) telemedicine surveillance; and (5) perioperative mental health and pain.

Dr. Abraham’s research program targets the development and implementation of health information technologies and tools to deliver effective patient-centered care and enhance patient safety. Centered on techniques of working “in the clinical wild,” Dr. Abraham’s research translates these findings into applied products that are meaningful for healthcare practice and into novel theoretical and methodological frameworks that drives the direction for applied clinical informatics research.

Dr. Abraham’s research has led to the implementation of several evidence-based tools (e.g., handoff and rounding tools, ML-augmented risk prediction reports, perioperative mental health interventions), telemedicine programs (e.g., within the operating room, intensive care unit, post-anesthesia care unit, critical care unit, and medical floor units), and handoff training programs at multiple hospitals; this work has been disseminated in over 90 peer-reviewed publications in leading informatics, safety and clinical journals.  

Given her extensive research expertise, Dr. Abraham is recognized as a national and international expert in biomedical informatics by many, including the US Department of Health & Human Services, the Leapfrog Institute, and Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation’s National Multi-Center Handoff Collaborative (MHC) – a national group aiming to create pragmatic, scalable, and sustainable practices to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of handoffs and care transitions. Her work has also received recognition from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the primary informatics professional society, which recognized her research through a Distinguished Paper Award in 2012, the Diana Forsythe Award in 2010, 2021, and 2023 (as well as finalist for 2022), and the New Investigator Award in 2019. Her work has been featured in AMIA Year in Review in 2019, 2022, and 2023. In 2022, In 2022, she was elected as a Fellow of AMIA (FAMIA) and a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (FACMI) for over 10 years of documented, significant, and sustained contributions in biomedical and health informatics.