The new division is helping shape how emerging technologies are developed and used safely and responsibly in emergency care.
This July, the BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine announced a new Division of Informatics to bring together expertise in clinical informatics, artificial intelligence, data analytics and digital tools to improve emergency care.
Led by Brian Patterson, MD, MPH, division chief and associate professor of emergency medicine, the division gives that work a dedicated home across patient care, operations, research and education.
“Emergency medicine clinicians need to make complex decisions quickly and have the right information available at the right time,” Patterson said. “Our goal is to design, evaluate and responsibly implement tools that make this work easier and ultimately help us provide better care for patients.”
Turning data into better clinical decisions
Health systems generate vast amounts of data, creating opportunities to derive greater clinical value from information already collected across care settings. A key focus for the new division is identifying which data are most useful for a given clinical decision, using them in operational workflows to improve patient care and manage risk without adding burden for frontline care teams.
That work spans clinical decision support, AI and other health technologies, electronic health record integration, EMS and prehospital informatics, systems design and operational analytics.
Faculty also study how new technologies perform in practice. For large language models and other AI tools, they use validated measures to assess usability, workflow and overall performance before deployment and as models and documentation practices evolve.
They also contribute to systemwide clinical AI governance at UW Health, the integrated health system affiliated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Patterson helps lead that work as senior director of health AI.
Projects include developing and testing a machine-learning model to predict fall risk among older adults after emergency department visits and building a health information exchange that links EMS and hospital records for predictive modeling and outcomes research.
Bringing broad expertise to big challenges
The Division of Informatics connects expertise in medicine, engineering, data science and health systems. Jillian Gorski, MD, MS, is a pediatric emergency medicine physician and informaticist; Michael Spigner, MD, NRP, leads work in EMS and prehospital informatics; Daniel Buckland, MD, PhD, works at the intersection of AI, automation and human systems risk; Jesús Treviño, MD, MBA, contributes expertise in clinical decision support; and Hanna Barton, PhD, brings a human factors perspective.
Together with advanced practice providers, data specialists and research staff, the team can study how technology and systems are designed, how they fit into clinical workflows and how they impact patient care at the bedside or in the field.
Through its partnership with the Emergency Care Systems Lab (ECSL), a research and innovation collaborative led by the BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine, the division looks beyond individual technologies to how data, workflows and people interact within complex emergency care systems.
By convening a wide range of experts — from clinical operations, engineering, computing and AI to population health, biostatistics and translational research — the team designs and tests approaches that make care safer, more efficient and easier to navigate for patients and clinicians.
Extending UW’s investment in AI for emergency care
The new division comes as UW–Madison is making a broader investment in artificial intelligence and computing. In July, the university launched its College of Computing & AI – its first new college in more than 40 years – with a mission to advance AI research and education while addressing questions of trust, governance and responsible use.
The investment is substantial. UW–Madison has committed to expanding AI research capacity, computing infrastructure and interdisciplinary collaboration, including 50 new faculty positions in the college. Together with earlier RISE-AI hiring, the university expects to add more than 100 AI-related faculty positions.
That same focus is extending into health care, where the stakes for adopting new technologies can be especially high. The Division of Informatics gives emergency medicine a dedicated structure for evaluating how AI and other technologies perform in clinical settings, how they fit into operational workflows and how they can be used safely as tools and models evolve.
Patterson takes on broader health AI leadership
In August, Patterson was named the inaugural director of health AI for the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and senior director of health AI for UW Health. In these joint roles, he helps guide AI strategy, research, governance and implementation for the school and health system.
The appointments give the Department of Emergency Medicine a direct connection to broader decisions about how AI is studied, evaluated and brought into clinical care. They also create opportunities to connect health care researchers with expertise in computing, engineering, data science and other disciplines across UW–Madison.
For the new division, those connections create wider opportunities for collaboration, research and training. Residents, fellows, faculty and staff will be able to build skills in informatics and AI and help integrate technologies that support clinical decision-making and move health care toward more proactive, personalized care.
To discuss opportunities for collaboration with the Division of Informatics, please contact Dr. Patterson or email ECSL@g-groups.wisc.edu.