Wolters Kluwer Health Physician Executives among Inaugural Group of Board Certified Clinical Informaticists

Minneapolis, Minn. — December 18, 2013 — Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information for healthcare professionals and students, announced today that two of its executives are part of the first physician cohort group to be designated as Board Certified Clinical Informaticists. Linda Peitzman, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, and Howard Strasberg, M.D., Vice President of Medical Informatics, along with approximately 400 physicians nationwide, have passed the first-ever board certification exam for the new sub-specialty, administered by the American Board of Preventive Medicine in October 2013.

The Clinical Informaticist designation is the first new medical specialty in more than 20 years. Physicians with this board certification fill a critical role in healthcare, collaboratively bringing together technology and clinical processes for enhanced care delivery. These professionals may serve as Chief Medical Information Officers (CMIOs) in hospitals and other healthcare organizations, work under the direction of CMIOs, or hold positions with vendors of health IT solutions such as electronic health records and clinical decision support. They may also serve as subject matter experts in government agencies or as academic faculty.

To be designated as a Board Certified Clinical Informaticist, a physician must be board certified in a clinical specialty, hold a valid state license to practice medicine, have significant work in the health IT sector and pass a certification exam. The specialty includes expertise in areas of healthcare systems and modeling, software development, quality improvement, change management in healthcare, codified terminologies, integration and system implementation, legal, regulatory, and security issues in healthcare, and data structure and analysis.

Dr. Peitzman, Dr. Strasberg and their fellow pioneering physicians will receive their certification in January 2014. The designation represents the culmination of decades of work in the health IT field for both physicians.

With more than 26 years of experience in health content development and healthcare delivery, management and leadership, Dr. Peitzman currently leads a multi-disciplinary team of physicians, content specialists, coding experts in clinical development and informatics at Wolters Kluwer Health. She has served as Medical Director and Department Chair for HealthSystem Minnesota/Park Nicollet Clinic, as a faculty member with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and as a practicing family physician.

Dr. Strasberg’s healthcare career spans more than 12 years with a particular focus on building products that provide clinical decision support and integrate knowledge with EMR and computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems. He is board-certified in family medicine by the American Board of Family Medicine and the College of Family Physicians of Canada.

“The role of the Clinical Informaticist has been elevated to a new level of importance in recent years. It is a field with significant opportunity to transform healthcare delivery to promote safer and more efficient care that is patient-centered and equitable,” said Arvind Subramanian, President and CEO, Wolters Kluwer Health, Clinical Solutions. “Achieving this designation demonstrates the commitment Dr. Peitzman and Dr. Strasberg have made to advancing technology and clinical processes for better patient care. Their unique expertise also plays an important role in keeping Wolters Kluwer Health on the cutting edge of healthcare.”

About Wolters Kluwer Health

Wolters Kluwer Health is a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry. Serving more than 150 countries and territories worldwide, Wolters Kluwer Health’s customers include professionals, institutions and students in medicine, nursing, allied health and pharmacy. Major brands include Health Language^®, Lexicomp^®, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Medicom^®, Medknow, Ovid^®, Pharmacy OneSource^®, ProVation^® Medical and UpToDate^®.

Wolters Kluwer Health is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company. Wolters Kluwer had 2012 annual revenues of €3.6 billion ($4.6 billion), employs approximately 19,000 people worldwide, and maintains operations in over 40 countries across Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. Follow our official Twitter handle: @WKHealth.