Identifying Research-Active Specialists at an Academic Medical Center: A Case Study

Abstract

How might one identify, via publicly accessible web sites, research-active specialists at an academic medical center? As a case study, health informatics specialists were identified at two academic medical centers: University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus and University of Maryland, Baltimore. Four types of data about researchers were sought: frequency of publication, frequency of citations, money from grants, and patents. Based on frequency of published papers, one center favored bioinformatics and cardiology, whereas the other produced more results in nursing and radiology. Interestingly, different patterns were found across different datasets. This bibliometric method was contrasted with the method of searching for active researchers via a web portal showing board certified specialists at a particular institution. This alternative approach was tried for informatics and sleep medicine, and the bibliometric method seemed to produce better recall and precision.