Nicholas Riley, MD, PhD, FAMIA*

Undergraduate – Brandeis University (Biology and Computer Science)

Graduate School – PhD in Computer Science (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Medical School – University of Illinois College of Medicine

Residency – Family Medicine (University of Vermont)

Fellowship – Clinical Informatics
Case Western Reserve University [MetroHealth]

Faculty Appointment – Assistant Professor of Family Medicine

Informatics Role – Director of Clinical Informatics – Ambulatory Care

Role in Fellowship Program – Assistant Program Director and Introduction to Clinical Informatics and Advanced Core Rotations Co-Director

Brief Description – During medical school, Dr. Riley spent a year commercializing a primary care-focused electronic medical record developed at the Massachusetts General Hospital Laboratory for Computer Science. In residency, he pursued elective rotations in clinical research informatics and clinical decision support.  At MetroHealth, he has built systems and processes for radiology clinical decision support, health information exchange, telehealth, and chronic disease management. He has been involved in research projects to improve lung cancer screening, reduce cardiovascular risk in HIV, reduce tobacco smoke exposure in children and build a biorepository for HIV and substance use.

Selected Recent Projects

Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Ordering: In partnership with a DME vendor and stakeholders who frequently interact with DME (physical and occupational therapy, respiratory therapy, and nutrition), we have systematically reviewed, consolidated, and updated common DME orders to improve documentation completeness and reduce insurance denials while streamlining the ordering process.

Lung Cancer Screening: We have studied and refined the design of our lung cancer screening orders and workflow to better integrate this complex preventive care service into our health system. Recent improvements (2023) include an In Basket-based workflow for pended follow-up orders including remediation of inadequate smoking history and persisting exposure information between annual screenings, reducing unnecessary duplicate data entry.

Eliminating Duplicate Referrals: I built an alert that appears when a duplicate referral is being placed. It exposes existing unscheduled referrals and allows an ordering provider to easily provide the patient with scheduling information for their existing referral, helping reduce clutter in referral work queues, or document why the referral is not a duplicate (e.g., multiple referrals to the same specialty for different reasons). It has been highly effective, eliminating approximately 50% of potentially duplicate referrals.

* - Board Certified in Clinical Informatics
** - Board Eligible in Clinical Informatics