By G. Daniel Martich, M.D., Chief
Medical Information Officer, UPMC
|
James Levin, M.D., Ph.D. |
James Edward (Jim) Levin, M.D., Ph.D., chief medical information officer of Children’s Hospital of
Pittsburgh of UPMC, died unexpectedly on Sunday, Feb. 10. As the song goes, “Only the good die young.” Jim was more than good - he was a great person! And, at 54, he was entirely too young to leave
this world. Despite his relative youth,
Jim was a pioneer in pediatric informatics during his six-year tenure at
Children’s. His accomplishments in medical informatics were well-known
throughout the health care industry: computerized physician order entry (CPOE)
adoption, the first HIMSS Level 7 designation for a pediatric hospital, best-in-class
physician documentation, impressive utilization of clinical decision support,
collaboration in research, and excellence in teaching.
The “other” part of the story as it pertains
to Jim Levin is what made him the lovable, friendly colleague of so many of us
in the medical informatics community.
Jim had a passion for outstanding patient care, especially for
children. This passion was never
expressed with fists pounding on a table to make a point about the most
appropriate way to manage clinical workflow or embedding decision support
alerts. Jim used his high intellect, together
with his equally high emotional intelligence, to smile, gently make his point, and wait for the
rest of us to catch up to his novel insights. He demonstrated compassion and
caring in everything he did.
That attitude extended beyond the
workplace. Jim largely succeeded in the struggle many busy individuals face
with work-life balance. Jim loved his
wife and children and lived for them and their happiness, by all accounts. He even found a way to include his family in
his work activities by engaging daughter Hannah, a junior psychology major at
the College of Wooster, to be a co-investigator on a CPOE paper. Their efforts led to Hannah’s presenting at
the annual American Medical Informatics Association meeting in November. Jim also found time to enjoy the company of
his work colleagues occasionally outside of the hospital. In fact, it was less than a week ago that a
group of us from medical informatics got together at the Penguins hockey game to
relish a Pens victory. For those of us
who saw Jim for the last time on that Thursday, we remember him as he always
seemed to be…smiling.