Robert Hayward

Area of Study / Keywords

Electronic Medical Record Evidence-Based Medicine Clinical Decision Support eHealth Informatics Evidence-Based Policy Health Policy Clinical Informatics Knowledge Transfer Professional Development Evidence-based Medicine Health Informatics Clinical Decision Support Health Policy and Management Virtual Learning Community

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About

Robert Hayward is an internist, health informatician, and Professor of Medicine in the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. His work emphasizes strategies for bringing best evidence to the bedside for improved decision-making. Dr. Hayward established the Centre for Health Evidence, which facilitated the teaching and practice of evidence-based healthcare through virtual learning communities. He has served as electronic editor of the JAMAevidence Users Guides to the Health Care Literature and has authored Health Evidence Literacy and Health Information Literacy online curricula. By developing, implementing and evaluating a wide range of front-line information systems, Dr. Hayward has accrued considerable expertise in the area of systems design, standards and integration. He has brought health organizations into managed information environments and has led digital health record implementations. Dr. Hayward created and served as the Chief Scientific Officer for Qwogo, a university-affiliated social enterprise helping organizations support knowledge-based professions.

Dr. Hayward trained in international studies at Atlantic College, then History, the Arts and Letters at Yale University. He received his MD degree from Queen's University, then trained at the Universities of Toronto and Alberta to obtain a general practice certification and fellowship in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the American College of Physicians in the specialty of general internal medicine. At Johns Hopkins University, he studied health informatics and health services research methods, receiving a Masters Degree. At the McMaster University Health Information Research Unit, he developed a research program in clinical decision support while an Ontario Career Scientist. He has served the University of Alberta since 1997 in a variety of roles, including associate dean clinical informatics and clinical informatics lead for medicine. When Chief Medical Information Officer for Alberta Health Services, he led physician participation in the design and implementation of a provincial clinical information system.

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Research

Believing that better information is a necessary but not sufficient condition for better health, Dr. Hayward's scholarship focuses on how information about the effects of health care can be managed, presented, and applied so that health practices change and health outcomes improve.

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Teaching

As an educator, Dr. Hayward nurtures clinical reasoning, just-in-time appraisal skills, and informational attitudes that can help learners prepare to function effectively in a digital healthcare workplace.