The Impact of Electronic Health Records on Healthcare

Miryam C. Gerdine, SPH '07, MPH,  Public Health Analyst at the Health Resources and Services Administration

Miryam's career at Health and Human Services (HHS) began in 1996, with the support of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI). She was selected the Edward Roybal Public Health Fellow and her placement was the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP). Miryam has worked within HHS for more than sixteen years.  In September 2010, she was recruited to the Health Resources and Services Administration, to join the Office of Health IT and Quality as a Public Health Analyst.

Prior to joining HRSA, Miryam served a 120 day assignment to the newly created Office of Adolescent Health (OAH).  From April to July of 2010, she staffed the HHS Adolescent Health Working Group; assisted with the management and overseeing of the OAH contract on Communications and website; and assisted in the overseeing of the grants management for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention funding.

Prior to OAH, Miryam was at the Office of Minority Health (OMH). In her five  and half years in the office (February 2005 to August 2010), her responsibilities included staffing several HHS committees such as the HHS Health Information Technology and Underserved Populations workgroup, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Healthcare Reports Interagency workgroup, the National Center for Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) Subcommittee on Populations, the Women's Health Coordinating Committee and several of the Healthy People workgroups, including the Health Communications and HIT, Family Planning and the Adolescent Health workgroups. Miryam provided technical assistance on the NCVHS publication "Eliminating Health Disparities: Strengthening Data on Race, Ethnicity, and Primary Language in the United States". Miryam has also worked on the last six AHRQ National Healthcare Disparities Reports. Miryam also staffed the OMH leadership on the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities initiative.

Prior to OMH, Miryam worked in the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, (ODPHP) for over nine years, (September 1996 to February 2005), where she oversaw the management of the monthly Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH) Chaired Healthy People 2010 Progress Reviews and from 1998-2001 was the Healthy People Consortium Coordinator.  Miryam's first assignment at HHS was working on the Healthy People 2000 Progress Review on Hispanic Americans. 

From December 2002 to May 2003, Miryam was on detail to AHRQ and served as the Public Health Analyst on Minority Health in the Office of Priority Populations and in the Summer of 2000, via the CDC International Experience and Technical Assistance Program, IETA she was detailed to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC Global AIDS Program in Mozambique as a Public Health Advisor.

Prior to moving to DC, Miryam was a graduate student in Social Work at Boston University. She is a 1993 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University (PSU). While at PSU, she was the recipient of the PSU Hispanic for Academic Progress Scholarship and the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and has completed the Certificate in Health Disparities and Health Inequalities. In the Fall of 2003, Miryam was accepted into the Hopkins University Graduate Division of Business and Management Leadership Development Program for minority managers and in April 2006, Miryam was selected as a National Hispanic Science Network Fellow on Drug Abuse sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes on Health. In the Fall 2009, Miryam was asked to serve as an Advisor to the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions and was elected President of the American Public Health Association (APHA), Latino Caucus for Public Health. She has been an APHA member since 1996 and has had previous leadership roles within the Latino Caucus and APHA.  Miryam is currently on the APHA Awards Committee and the new co-chair of the APHA Health Informatics Information Technology Section Awards Committee. Miryam is a HIMSS member since 2011 and active in the NCA Chapter and on the Scholarship Committee.