David Zitner

Biography

Dr. Zitner, founding Director, Medical Informatics, is a retired family physician whose interest in informatics led him to collaborate with the Faculties of Computer Science and Management to implement a graduate program in Health Informatics. He is an active research collaborator and continues consulting in issues of health policy. He was Director of Medical Informatics, Dalhousie University from its founding in 1995 until 2009. He served for 11 years as Medical Quality Management Consultant to the Capital District in Halifax and predecessor organizations. He chaired the full range of committees in the CDHA including Audit and Utilization, Medical Quality Committee, and Health Records Committee and participated as a member in several others. As Chair of the Health Records and Quality Committees he implemented several projects designed to provide information about the outcomes of health care. He is a co-author of “When Less is Better: Using Canada’s Hospitals Efficiently”, a paper prepared for the Conference of Deputy Ministers of Health. As the Health Policy Fellow with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), he co-authored numerous articles including the AIMS Fisher Prize winning papers "Definitely NOT the Romanow Report" (April 2003) and "Operating in the Dark: The Gathering Crisis in Canada's Publicly Funded Health Care System" (April 2000). Dr. Zitner led the creation of the first Canadian graduate programs in health informatics. The Master of Health Informatics program aims to create a group of experts with the knowledge and skills required to capture, use and distribute information to support health services analysis and delivery. He has taught several courses in this program (HINF 6100 with Dr. Grace Paterson; HINF 6101 Health Information flow and Use and HINF 6120 Clinical Care Fundamentals). He continues to teach in this program. Dr. Zitner has served on the board of several organizations including the Canadian Council for Health Services Accreditation, DoctorsNS and the Canadian College of Family Physicians. He is currently Health Policy Fellow-Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and a member of DoctorsNS and the Canadian Medical Association.

Research Interest

Medical Informatics