Leading the Advancement of Health Informatics, Our Faculty Provides an Unparalleled Education Experience.
FACULTY
Karen Patena, MBA, RHIA,
Program Director, Health Information Management undergraduate program,
Clinical Assistant Professor
Karen Patena has worked in hospital medical record management, as well as systems planning and implementation, for nearly 20 years. Recently, she served as a vital member of the team to implement a Cerner patient-care information system at the University of Illinois Medical Center. She is a frequent contributor to the Journal of AHIMA* and a regular presenter at the meetings of local, state and national health information management professional associations. Karen now serves on the Panel of Surveyors of CAHIIM (the Council on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management), for which she travels around the country to evaluate new and continuing HIM academic programs for accreditation. She is also past-chair of the AHIMA Educational Strategy Committee. Karen has received numerous awards for teaching excellence, including the AHIMA Triumph Educator Award; the UIC Silver Circle Award; the Teaching Recognition Award from the UIC Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning; and the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences Excalibur Award, decided by student votes.
After receiving her bachelor's degree in health information management from UIC, Karen went on to earn a master's degree in business administration, concentrating in management information systems, awarded with distinction in 1986 from DePaul University. She is finishing a doctorate in public health at UIC.
* American Health Information Management Association
Areas of interest
- Design of the Electronic Health Record
- Mapping and vocabulary as applied to the EHR
- Translating the personal connections in classroom education to online formats
