Bryant Thomas Karras
Clinical Instructor, Health Systems and Population Health
Chief Informatics Officer, Washington State Department of Health
Fellow, American College of Medical Informatics
206-221-6676 | bkarras@uw.edu
Box 354800
University of Washington, 1107 NE 45th., Seattle, WA 98195
Research Interests
- Informatics methods to improve public health
- PH preparedness, prevention, health promotion, disease surveillance and non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. WA notify)
- Syndromic surveillance for bioterrorism and epidemic detection
- PH linkage to clinical information systems via Health Information Exchange for use in monitoring hospital capacity and chronic disease population analysis
- Using portable computers and the web for health survey data collection and health guideline implementation
- Person empowerment to portably carry their personal and family medical records on smart phones and QR-codes (e.g. WA verify)
Bio
Dr. Bryant Thomas Karras, a Physician, an Engineer, Sr./Med. Epidemiologist and Public Health Informatician, moved to the Pacific NW in 2000 and joined Washington State’s Department of Health full-time from the University of Washington (UW) in 2008. He leads the strategic efforts to prepare public health for data modernization and meaningful use that Electronic Medical Record systems, Health Information Exchange and HealthIT standards bring.
As Chief Medical Informatics Officer in the Office of Innovations and Technology he leads the informatics and interoperability roadmap for the enterprise-wide agency effort. He has a technical and problem-solving approach to public health informatics research with degrees in Biomedical Engineering (UC San Diego), Medical School and Internal Medicine/Chief Resident (University of Wisconsin or the UW) and Medical Informatics (Yale).
Dr. Karras teaches and mentors Masters and PhD students and has developed competencies, curricula and continuing education courses. He specializes in informatics methods to improve public health via preparedness, prevention, health promotion, disease surveillance and innovative non-pharmaceutical interventions. Previous research with funding from CDC, ONC, CMS, NIH, NCI, NLM and RWJF includes bioterrorism and epidemic detection and tracking using syndromic surveillance of clinical information systems and using portable computers and the web for health survey data collection and health guideline implementation.
Dr. Karras was a founding faculty member of the University of Washington’s Biomedical & Health Informatics program, and the Center for Public Health Informatics. He was a practicing internal medicine physician at several hospitals in Connecticut, Oregon, and Wisconsin. He is active in public health practice in Washington State, nationally and internationally supporting many other states and local health jurisdictions including the PHII.org Common Ground Program.
Bryant is passionate about improving public health’s use of health information technology in helping state and local public health agencies with informatics issues, serving the United States on national Federal Advisory Committees, being the voice for PH Informatics. Recently he has been successful in bringing new innovations such as Bluetooth (Google|Apple) Exposure Notification (WA-Notify) and SMART Health Cards (WAverify.org) into practice as part of the COVID-19 response. For these latest efforts Dr. Karras was awarded a Public Service Extra-Mile recognition by Governor Jay Inslee.
Education
MD Internal Medicine, University of Wisconsin, 1995
BA Biomedical Engineering, University of California (San Diego), 1990
BPharm Medical Informatics Fellowship, Yale University, 2000
Chief Resident Internal Medicine, University of Wisconsin, 1998
Intern Internal Medicine, Legacy Health Systems Hospitals, 1996