DBHi Welcomes 2023 Clinical Informatics Fellows

On Dec. 14, Match Day, the Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics happily welcomed three candidates into the 2023 Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program! Learn more about our new fellows below.

Lauren Coogle, MD
Lauren is a primary care pediatrician currently on active duty in the U.S. Air Force at the Joint Base (McGuire, Dix, Lakehurst, N.J.). She also has the role of CMIO at her base and comes with a very strong and ongoing portfolio of accomplishments in clinical informatics starting as a Epic TS prior to medical school at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and more recently during her pediatric residency at Wright State-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. Her main accomplishments have been in the quality improvement/operations space and she is looking forward to broadening her informatics and research/data interests during fellowship. Lauren will be honorably discharged in June but will collaborate with us in the coming months (hopefully as an NTP) and eager to get to know everyone!

Alex Ruan, MD
Alex has worked extensively with DBHi and clinical informatics during his residency in pediatrics at CHOP. He officially matched as a Neonatology fellow and will be pursuing a dual fellowship with Clinical Informatics (to begin his CI focus in July 2024). He also has already accomplished much in collaboration with Leah Carr and others –specifically working on quality improvement efforts focusing on resident EHR optimization and disparities of care (language preference) in the NICU—culminating in a poster presentation at AMIA in November. His interests also include decision support and machine learning to improve care. Because of the integrated nature of the dual fellowship, we will continue to see much of Alex in the coming year with ongoing project work and didactics.

Ozzie Mercado, MD
Osvaldo “Ozzie” Mercado will be joining as a dual fellow in Clinical Informatics and Neonatal-Perinatal medicine. A Los Angeles native, he grew up with Spanish as his first language and was fortunate to be the first in his family to attend and graduate from college. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of California, Los Angeles, medical school at Howard University College of Medicine in D.C., his pediatric residency at CHOP, and is excited to continue his training at CHOP as a dual fellow. Due to his upbringing, his interests center along equitable care and specifically bridging gaps for limited English proficiency families. Ozzie is excited to continue working and expanding on prior informatics related work he began as a resident.