Regenstrief Institute president receives 2011 Distinguished Investigator Award

William M. Tierney, M.D., president and CEO of the Regenstrief Institute and associate dean for clinical effectiveness research at the Indiana University School of Medicine, received a 2011 Distinguished Investigator Award presented at the Clinical and Translational Research and Education Meeting on April 28 in Washington, DC.

Dr. Tierney received the National Award for Career Achievement and Contribution to Clinical and Translational Science. He is being honored for his "contributions to the field from clinical use into public benefit and policy." The award is presented to a senior investigator who has had "national impact by virtue of contributions to clinical and translational science."

Dr. Tierney, an international leader in medical informatics and health services research, studies the effects of computer-based interventions to improve healthcare quality and lower costs of health care delivery. He has received more than $40 million as principal investigator in grants and contracts from federal agencies and research foundations and has published more than 270 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

A graduate of Indiana University and the IU School of Medicine and one of the Regenstrief Institute's first post-graduate trainees, Dr. Tierney has spent his 30-year career as a physician-investigator at Regenstrief and the IU School of Medicine, where he is a Chancellor's Professor and Sam Regenstrief Professor of Health Services Research. He is an associate director of the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute.

Dr. Tierney is also chief of medicine at Wishard Health Service where he practices as a hospital-based general internist. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science, a master of the American College of Physicians, a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and a former president of the Society of General Internal Medicine.

He has implemented and studied hospital and outpatient health informatics tools in Indiana and in Africa. He was the founding director of ResNet, one of the oldest and most productive primary care practice-based research networks in the United States. He established and implemented sub-Saharan African's first ambulatory electronic medical record system.