The Association for Pathology Informatics presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to Ulysses J. Balis, MD at the 2018 Pathology Informatics Summit in Pittsburgh, PA. The presenter was Dr. David McClintock.
Dr. David McClintock received his medical degree and residency training from the University of Chicago before completing a two-year pathology informatics fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is currently the Associate Director of Pathology Informatics and Associate CMIO at Michigan Medicine. Dr. McClintock‘s primary clinical interests comprise operational pathology and clinical laboratory informatics including workflow analysis, Laboratory Information System (LIS) optimization, and improved integration of pathology and clinical laboratory data within the EHR and clinical research data warehouses. His research interests include understanding the role and effects of whole slide imaging and digital pathology within the clinical laboratories, the effects of computational pathology and machine learning on diagnostics testing and patient outcomes, and how to enable laboratory data analytics in order to provide both pathologists and clinicians opportunities to better optimize patient care and clinical decision-making.
Dr. Ulysses J. Balis graduated from the University of Florida College of Medicine and completed his residency at the University of Utah. After serving as Director of Pathology Informatics at Massachusetts General Hospital and Chief of Pathology and Laboratory Services at the Shriners Hospital for Children, he moved to the University of Michigan to assume his position as Division Director of Pathology Informatics.
Dr. Balis has over 100 articles published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and is an editor of the seminal textbook entitled Pathology Informatics: Theory and Practice (American Society for Clinical Pathology Press, 2012). Known for his creativity and inventiveness, Dr. Balis holds several patents. He has given over 200 invited presentations domestically and internationally.
As a founding API member, Dr. Balis has spent numerous years developing API programming and summit planning, as well as serving as President in 2007. He also represents the field of pathology informatics for the American Society for Clinical Pathology, the College of American Pathologists, and on the standards committee for HL7 and DICOM. Dr. Balis is a founding member of the Clinical Informatics Subspeciality Boards Exam Committee. He also maintains advisory roles on LivingMicrosystems/Verinata Health (Illumina), Aperio, and Inspirata.
Dr. Balis is a preeminent expert on whole slide imaging in image-based analytics and search algorithms, machine learning, Big Data and Federated Enterprise Data Architectures, as well as automation and real-time specimen tracking and patient safety. Dr. Balis has also been instrumental in building nationally recognized residency and fellowship training programs in pathology informatics. He is widely respected in the field of pathology informatics for his in-depth analytical understanding and large-scale appreciation of informatics as it applies to medicine, as a whole. We are grateful for his contributions and ongoing work and, thus, honor Dr. Ulysses J. Balis with API‘s 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award.
