Mitchell F. Berman, MD
Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology

Dr. Berman's primary research interest is in outcome studies involving large computerized clinical and administrative databases.  He is the administrator and designer of the anesthesia intraoperative data collection network and database at Columbia, a data source used for clinical research projects by researchers in the anesthesiology department and by other researchers at the University and Hospital.

The Department of Anesthesiology at Columbia University is one of the main participants in the national MPOG research database housed at  the University of Michigan (Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group).  Dr. Berman is one of the primary collaborators in the MPOG research consortium.

Dr. Berman also maintains a strong interest in the ergonomics and design of anesthesia monitoring equipment, and the integration of electronic medical recordkeeping.  He collaborates with the biomedical engineering department at the Hospital to select monitoring equipment and to design the mounting of patient monitors and computerized recordkeeping equipment onto the anesthesia workstation.

Desmond A. Jordan, MD
Associate Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology (in Biomedical Informatics)

Dr. Jordan’s main area of research consists of the summarization of large amounts of patient specific, clinical data using artificial intelligence and the distribution of this electronic information using multimedia formats. He believes that caregivers are tremendous consumers of information, requiring updates on patient clinical status, care plans, an test results. However, it is often difficult for them to obtain real-time information that they need in a concise form. He has helped developed a web-based application which permits anesthesiologists to review their operating room assignments and schedules online. Dr. Jordan uses the most up-to-date tools for automatically extracting and summarizing patient demographic information, vital signs, procedures and medications during the peri-operative period to provide a better information to caregivers. These briefings are coordinated together by reasoning with dynamically generated temporal and spatial constraints.