Stephanie W. Haas

School of Information and Library Science
CB# 3360, 100 Manning Hall
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3360
(919) 962-8360
shaas at email dot unc dot edu

Curriculum Vitae

Recent Courses

Systems Analysis, INLS 582, Spring 2009
Database I: Introduction to Database, Spring 2009
Applications of Natural Language Processing, INLS 512, Spring 2008

Current Research

North Carolina Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center (NC PERRC) (2008 - present)

Edward Baker, Director of the NC Institute for Public Health, PI. The North Carolina Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center is one of seven centers at schools of public health funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to strengthen and improve public health preparedness capacity through systems and services research. NCPERRC focuses on North Carolina public health systems and capabilities to develop and maintain sustainable preparedness and response systems. I am working on the Surveillance project, Anna Waller and Pia MacDonald , co-PIs. The goal of the surveillance project is to systematically assess the performance of timely, electronic public health surveillance systems in North Carolina and, based on the assessments, develop, implement and analyze interventions for system performance improvement. My focus is on studying the workflows and lines of communications of public health surveillance personnel.

I have also received a pilot grant from NC PERRC, "Modeling Communication Links among Public Health Emergency Preparedness Officials in North Carolina using Social Network Analysis: A Pilot Study". The goal of the study is to examine the utility of social network analysis for modeling the communication patterns of public health epidemiologists. We will use the H1N1 outbreak as a case study.

Managing Disease Through Linking Data (2008 - 2010)
David Richardson, PI. Funded by the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health Gillings Innovation Labs. The goal of this project is to develop innovative computer systems that can link and analyze patient data collected by hospitals and ambulance services, and environmental data. This more complete picture will help us identify specific intervention points for improving prevention and treatment. My focus is on modeling the semantics of the various data sources to analyze how (if) they correspond. For example, the Carolinas Poison Center, the Pre-hospital Medical Information System (PreMIS), and the hospital emergency department record a patient's symptoms in different record structures, using different terms and concepts. How can this information be merged to form a unified representation of the patient's symptoms?

Medication Reconciliation (2008 - present)
Medication reconciliation is the process of reviewing a patient's complete medication regimen, especially at transitions in care such as hospital admission or discharge, and comparing it with the regimen being considered for the new setting of care. In the Emergency Department, it can be difficult to gather complete and accurate list of medications a patient is taking. Debbie Travers, UNC School of Nursing, Jane Brice, UNC Department of Emergency Medicine, and I are studying the effectiveness of using pharmacy technicians to gather this information. My focus is on the work processes and information sources used by the technicians.

Chief Complaint and Triage Notes in the Emergency Department Patient Record
When you go to the emergency room, the triage nurse asks why you are there. The chief complaint data element of your patient record briefly records the major problem. The triage note provides more detail, including symptoms, events (such as a fall or accident), and other potentially relevant information.

GovStat (2000 - 2005)
The GovStat Project, Gary Marchionini, UNC School of Information and Library Science, co-PI (formally known as Integration of Data and Interfaces to Enhance Human Understanding of Government Statistics: Toward the National Statistical Knowledge Network), "seeks to create an integrated model of user access to and use of US government statistical information that is rooted in realistic data models and innovative user interfaces." Our project motto is find what you need, understand what you find. My work on this project focused on the Statistical Interactive Glossary (SIG), metadata for statistical tasks, and envisioning new kinds of help for supporting users of statistics.
GovStat Papers and Presentations
Reports to the Bureau of Labor Statistics


This page was last modified on May 26, 2009, by Stephanie W. Haas. Address questions and comments about this page to Stephanie W. Haas at shaas at email dot unc dot edu
© 2005 Stephanie W. Haas