About the Author: Michael Stearns, MD, CPC
Michael Stearns, MD is a board certified neurologist, clinical informaticist and coding professional. He has with 15 years of direct patient care experience in clinical and academic medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He has 16 years of experience with direct engagement in several high profile health information technology (HIT) initiatives. He is the principle and founder of Stearns Healthcare Consulting an organization that provides HIT and compliance consulting services to healthcare stakeholders; helping them meet their strategic objectives through the advanced use of health information technology.
Dr. Michael Stearns has provided leadership to informatics projects at the National Library of Medicine, the National Cancer Institute, and the College of American Pathologists. He also served as the international director of SNOMED International, where he played a central role in the development of SNOMED CT. He has provided direction and leadership to two leading EHR vendors, served as the founding board president for the Texas e-Health Alliance, and sits on numerous boards and committees including the National Patient Safety Board, the AHIMA Physician Practice Counsel, the University of Texas at Austin HIT Certification Program Curriculum Committee, and the University of Texas at Austin Health Information Exchange Laboratory. Dr. Stearns also played a central role in the formation of the University of Texas at Austin HIT certificate program, a nationally recognized model for HIT workforce development. He is also a certified professional coder and a leading expert on computer assisted coding in EHRs. He lectures on a variety of HIT topics including HIT policy, patient privacy, patient safety, interoperability, natural language processing, clinical decision support, genomic medicine, data integrity, ICD-10-CM, SNOMED CT, coding compliance, practice optimization and other topics. Over the past 2 years he has been invited to testify in Washington, D.C. before federal HIT organizations on 5 separate occasions.
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Healthcare Terminology and Coding
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About Michael Stearns, MD, CPC