NEW YORK, April 07, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dr. Amit Acharya, Director of the Institute for Oral and Systemic Health at Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, has been selected to join the Industry Board at the American Health Council. He will be sharing his knowledge and expertise on Oral and Systemic Health, Research, Dentistry, Biomedical and Dental Informatics, and Health Information Technology.

With over a decade of experience in the field of Health Information Technology, Dr. Acharya offers valuable insight in his role as the Director of the Institute for Oral and Systemic Health at Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation. He subsequently serves as the Chief Dental Informatics Officer of the Family Health Center at Marshfield Clinic. Founded in 1916 by six physicians looking to provide healthcare for the community, Marshfield Clinic has expanded to be a leading healthcare system in Wisconsin.

As Director of the Institute for Oral and Systemic Health (IOSH) and a tenured research scientist at Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation (MCRF), Dr. Acharya’s day-to-day responsibilities include research, development, implementation and evaluation of clinical information systems by leveraging the field of dental and biomedical Informatics. His research focus has been on studying the inter-relationship between oral and systemic conditions, integration of medical and dental data, images and clinical systems, architecture of electronic health records (EHRs), developing clinical decision support (CDS) and expert systems, machine learning and natural language approaches, information modeling, developing ontologies and terminologies, and secondary analysis of EHR data for oral-systemic associational studies.

In 2010, Dr. Acharya earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Informatics from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. To further his professional development, he graduated with a Masters in Computer Science from the Western Kentucky University in 2004. In 1999, Dr. Acharya earned his Bachelor of Dental Surgery / Doctor of Dental Surgery from the Bangalore University.

Dr. Acharya’s desire to pursue the field of health information technology developed due to a desire to bridge the gap between medical and dental care.

Dr. Acharya maintains affiliations with the following organizations: American Dental Association, American Medical Informatics Association; IEEE Computer Society, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; International Medical Informatics Association; ADA SCDI Subcommittee 11 on Electronic Health Record, ADA SCDI on General Dental EHR Information; American Academy for Oral Systemic Health, National Network for Oral Health Access, and Health Level 7. He volunteers with the Children International Organization, which is dedicated to fighting poverty and supporting children in need in poor and developing countries.

Additionally, Dr. Acharya has been instrumental in the founding of the Institute for Oral and Systemic Health, the integration of Marshfield Clinic’s electronic dental record with its propriety electronic medical record and the establishment of one of the very few oral health informatics postdoctoral fellowship program in the world. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and received multiple grant funding dedicated to bridging the medical and dental divide throughout the course of his career.

Dr. Acharya’s commitment to the field of Health Information Technology has led to him being a recipient of Excellence for Outstanding Academic Performance in Biomedical Informatics. He has been recognized in the 2011 Edition of Marquis Who’s Who in America and the 2011-2012 Edition of Marquis Who’s Who in the field of Medicine and Healthcare.

In his free time, he enjoys cooking, traveling, and spending time with his family. Dr. Acharya takes pride in being a great father to his two young daughters.

Considering the future, Dr. Acharya hopes to create predictive algorithms for EHR Systems to predict different medical and dental conditions, work on the cost of containment of Healthcare, and improving of care.