Rebecca Meehan, Ph.D.

Rebecca Meehan, Ph.D., came to the iSchool in 2012, bringing an extensive background in research related to health care and health informatics, particularly focused on information technology and user experience. Her interests center on improving patient safety outcomes by improving the user experience of health information technology, and sociotechnical approaches to improving health outcomes for a diverse cultural population. Dr. Meehan bridges academic research to industry applications and standards.  Her previous experience includes senior research roles with Intuit, Inc., a fortune 500 company, as well as Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Department of Sociology.  She also has served as senior research scientist at Myers Research Institute of Menorah Park Center for Senior Living, and senior research associate at Innovative Designs in Environments for an Aging Society (I.D.E.A.S., Inc.). Meehan holds a B.S. in biology from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Ind.; a master’s and a Ph.D. in sociology from Case Western Reserve University, with concentrations in medical sociology and gerontology.

*The School of Information faculty are superstars in the field. Therefore, it is impossible to list all of the great work they do on one page. Listed below is a small selection of recent work. Further information can be viewed in Dr. Meehan’s CV (found below), on her Google Scholar page or on ResearchGate.

Teaching/Advising

Academic Programs
Health Informatics
Medical Librarianship
User Experience Design

Courses

• EMAT 41510/51510 - Project Management and Team Dynamics
• HI 60403 - Health Information Systems
• HI 60414 - Human Factors and Usability in Health Informatics
• HI 60415 - Inquiry And Assessment in Health Informatics
• HI 60419 - Consumer Health Informatics
• UXD 60001 - User Experience Design: Principles and Concepts
• UX 60541 - Evaluation Fundamentals in UX
• CCI 80001 - Foundations of Research in Communication & Information

Research Specialties

Healthcare Information Technologies & SystemsHealthcare EcosystemInformation System DesignUsabilityUser Experience

Selected Publications

Book:

Meehan, R., & Sharp, J. (2023). Making a Difference: Careers in Health Informatics (1st ed.). Productivity Press/ Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003185727. *Available in 153 libraries worldwide, 19 countries (as of February 2025).

Peer Reviewed Articles:

Meehan, R. (2024).  Health informatics workforce in the digital health ecosystem. In: MEDINFO 2023—The Future Is Accessible. Netherlands: IOS Press Netherlands; 2024:12261230. doi:10.3233/SHTI231160.

Azarm, M., Meehan, R. and C. Kuziemsky. (2023). Towards A Universal Patient-Centric Health Record Sharing Platform. Health Policy and Technology. 12 (4), 100821. ISSN 2211-8837. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hlpt.2023.100819.

Ming, Y. and Meehan, R. (2023). Patient Safety Perception within Hospitals: An examination of job type, handoffs and information exchange, and hospital management support. Journal of Patient Safety. (2023; 19(6): 369-374).

Katila, S., Meehan R., Egbert, N., Guan, Q., Kumari, M. and Davidson, J. (2023). Going the Shortest Distance: Designing research frameworks for a digital multicultural language identification tool. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual UCDA Design Education Summit, May 2023

Meehan, R., Kumari, M., Guan, Q., Katila, S., Davidson, J. and Egbert, N.  (2022). STREAM: Prototype Development of a Digital Language Identifier. In Proceedings of the 15th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2022) - Volume 5: HEALTHINF, pages 664-670 ISBN: 978-989-758-552-4; ISSN: 2184-4305, SCITEPRESS.   

Meehan, R. (2020). Health Information Technology Use Among Nursing Assistants in Long Term Care: A User Study of a Touch Screen Point of Care System. The Journal of Nursing Home Research Science (JNHRS).

Meehan, R. (2020). The Need to Optimize the Electronic Health Record: Usability Issues in Legacy Systems Can Compromise Patient Safety. In Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2020) - Volume 5: HEALTHINF, pages 609-613 ISBN: 978-989-758-398-8, SCITEPRESS.

Meehan, R. (2019). Transitions from acute care to long-term care: evaluation of the continued access model. Journal of Applied Gerontology 38 (4), 510-529. https://doi.org/10.1177/0733464817723565; first published 2017.

Meehan, R., Kawalec, J., Caldwell, B., and Putman, D. (2018). Proficiency of first year podiatric medical residents in the use of electronic medical records. Perspectives in Health Information Management (2018): 1-14.

Meehan, R.  (2017) Electronic Health Records in Long-Term Care: Staff Perspectives. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 36(10), 1175–1196. https://doi.org/10.1177/0733464815608493

Meehan, R., Mon, D., Kelly, K., Rocca, M., Dickinson, G., Ritter, J., & Johnson, C. (2016). Increasing EHR system usability through standards: Conformance criteria in the HL7 EHR system functional model. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 63, 169173. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2016.08.015

Grants

Co-Investigator on project “Smart Translation for Enabling and Aiding Multi-cultural Populations [STREAM]” (with N. Egbert, Q. Guan, & S.Katila), funded by the College of Communication and Information, Research and Creative Activities, Kent State University

Professional Service

• Coalition for Health Artificial Intelligence (CHAI), member (2023 - present)
• HIMSS- Xcertia Health App Work Group  (2020 - 2021)
• HL7 (Health Level Seven International) Electronic Health Record Usability Work Group, (2013 - 2018)
• International Program Committee and Reviewer for the International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies Health Informatics (HEALTHINF) Conference (2016 - Present)
• Reviewer for AMIA Annual Conference
• Reviewer for HIMSS Annual Conference
• Reviewer for Journal of Applied Clinical Informatics (2019 - Present)
• Reviewer for Journal of Biomedical Informatics (2016 - Present)
• Reviewer for Journal of Applied Gerontology (2015 - Present)
• Sequoia Data Usability Workgroup (2023 - present)

Affiliations

• Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), Member (2012 - Present)
• American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), Member (2012 - Present)
• Northern Ohio Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (NOHIMSS), Member (2013 - Present)
• Leading Age -Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST), Member (1999 - 2014)
• User Experience Professional Association (UXPA), Member (2008 - Present)