Jiajie Zhang, PhD
Principal Investigator

Jiajie Zhang, PhD is the Principal Investigator for the Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center. Dr. Zhang is the Dr. Doris L. Ross Professor and has been the Associate Dean for Research since 2002 at the School of Biomedical Informatics. He is a researcher, teacher, and administrator. As a researcher, he has spent the past two decades doing research in biomedical informatics, cognitive science, human-centered computing, decision making, and information visualization. He has authored more than 120 journal articles, book chapters, and peer-reviewed proceedings papers. He has been the principal investigator or co-investigator on more than two dozen grants from ONC, NASA, Office of Naval Research, Army, NIH, James S. McDonnell Foundation, State of Texas, and other funding agencies. Most recently he is the Principal Investigator of a $15 million award for the National Center for Cognitive Informatics and Decision Making in Healthcare under ONC’s SHARP program for Patient-Centered Cognitive Support.

Kim Dunn, MD, PhD
GCREC Advisor

Kim Dunn, MD, PhD is the Advisor for the Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center. Dr. Dunn is a practicing general internist who serves on the adjunct faculty at the School of Biomedical Informatics (SBMI). She leads the HealthQuilt project and she founded Your Doctor Program, L.P. to support a medical home model for accountability in healthcare using a quality management program, telecommunications, and sustainable financial models. She also serves as Vice-President of the Schull Institute, a non-profit organization to mentor future leaders to improve healthcare for vulnerable populations, and is President-Elect of the UT Medical School Alumni Association. Prior to joining the SBMI faculty, she was Vice Chair of Internal Medicine at UTMB and played a leading role in developing the telemedicine program and outcomes management program for the Texas Prison System. She was recognized by UTMB for these efforts by receiving the first Mustard Seed Award for clinically based research at UTMB for her work in establishing outcomes management for the Texas Prison System.

Dean Sittig, PhD
Meaningful Use Director

Dean Sittig, PhD is the Meaningful Use Director for the Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center. Dr. Sittig's research interests center on the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of all aspects of clinical information systems. In addition to Dr. Sittig's work on measuring the impact of clinical information systems on a large scale, he is working to improve our understanding of both the factors that lead to success, as well as, the unintended consequences associated with computer-based clinical decision support and provider order entry systems. Towards this end, he is a co-founder of The IMPROVE-IT Institute (IMPROVE-IT = Indices measuring performance relating outcomes, value, and expenditures). The goal of IMPROVE-IT is to develop a world-wide consortium of organizations interested in learning about and improving the processes surrounding the implementation and use of all aspects of clinical information systems.

Sam Liong
Executive Director

Sam Liong is the Executive Director for the Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center. He holds a Master of Science in Management Information Systems and an MBA from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Sam’s consulting background includes both acute care and ambulatory systems. He has provided Health Information Technology leadership on full cycle healthcare systems implementation, large hospital network software and hardware system upgrades, research administration systems implementation, and CPOE implementation. Sam is also a Registered Nurse with 10 years of clinical operations, care delivery, and management experience in ICU and Medical-Surgical units. Mr. Liong brings a wealth of knowledge to the Regional Extension Center with his consulting and health care informatics background.

LaSonya Knowles
Clinical Informatics Consulting Manager

LaSonya Knowles is the Clinical Informatics Consulting Manager for the Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center. In this position she manages the outreach efforts and is the person in the community to get the Regional Extension Center continuous exposure. She holds a Master of Science in Health Informatics from the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston and a BBA in Information Systems from Prairie View A&M University. Prior to joining the Regional Extension Center, Ms. Knowles worked for M.D Anderson Cancer Center for 10 years. There she started out as a Database Developer/Administrator for the Center for Research on Minority Health, where she developed and administer database for research studies. She was promoted in 2009 to Informatics Analyst for the SECURE Gulf Coast Project. In this role she managed the design and implementation of a collective data repository for seven collaborating institutions. She consulted physicians, researchers, clinical staff and executives to ensure the data coordination and integration for trans-disciplinary research data was compatible and sustainable for education and research activities. She brings over 15 years of Information Technology skills and a wealth of healthcare industry experience to the Regional Extension Center.

Jonathan Ishee
Policy Planning Advisor

Jonathan Ishee, JD, MPH, MS, LLM is an Assistant Professor at UTHealth’s School of Biomedical Informatics. Jonathan is also a practicing attorney in the field of health law and policy and regularly advises physicians and health information exchanges on transactional, regulatory, and administrative health law and policy issues including EHR and HIE technology acquisition, fraud and abuse, and payment reform including Accountable Care Organizations. Before returning to Texas Jonathan served in the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. In this position he was the lead staff to the HITECH created HIT Policy Committee Information Exchange and Certification/Adoption Workgroups and was deeply involved in the Department’s efforts dealing with medical identity theft, electronic exchange of laboratory data, and development of regulations surrounding the EHR incentive program. Jonathan’s research interest include health IT policy, consumer centered informatics, patient safety, and the untended consequences of rapid health IT adoption.

Sharyn Smalls is the Program Manager for the Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center. Sharyn is a consultant providing technical and regulatory support to providers as well as critical access and rural hospitals to achieve meaningful use of electronic health records. She has project planning and management skills in technology assessment, implementation and training, as well as experience in client consultations, negotiations and budget management. Her background includes several years of designing and implementing health IT training solutions as well as technical writing. She holds a Master of Science Degree in Health Informatics from the University of Texas School of Biomedical Informatics which includes experience in the development and implementation of a Quality Health Record (QHR). She has also designed and conducted usability analysis of a telehealth application.

Yang Gong, MD, PhD is an associate professor at the School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He received his medical training in China and his Ph.D. of Health Informatics from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He has disciplinary background and core interest in human factors, human-centered computing, patient safety information system, clinical communication and clinical decision support. He has published or presented at national/international conferences, including AMIA, Medinfo, AHIMA, HIMSSasia, HIMSS, HCI International, and more.