Medical Informatics
We focus on the interdisciplinary study of designing, developing and using information technology solutions in healthcare.
Leadership and people
The Centre for Medical Informatics (CMI) is led by Head of Centre Professor Ewen Harrison and Deputy Head of Centre, Professor Miguel Bernabeu.
Full list of Centre for Medical Informatics staff
Usher PhD and MD students listed by programme
Research and methodology groups
Current key groups led by members of the Centre for Medical Informatics include:
Our research concerns the development of computational approaches capable of answering open questions in biomedicine and healthcare. We work closely with biologists, clinicians, and industry in problems of high relevance in both basic and clinical research, including: a) the development of automated methods for eye and systemic disease diagnosis in retinal scans, b) the evaluation of AI systems supporting healthcare delivery in real clinical settings, c) the study of how the structural properties of tumour vasculature affect oxygen/drug transport, and d) the investigation of vascular remodelling during angiogenesis.
A dynamic research group working at the interface of engineering, mathematics, informatics, and medicine. We passionately believe we can design and provide effective solutions which will revolutionize contemporary healthcare delivery through capitalizing technology and harnessing data.
A group of health/science professionals, working across the University of Edinburgh and NHS, the Edinburgh Pregnancy Research Team is committed to promoting and supporting perinatal research in order to improve pregnancy outcomes and experiences for pregnant women and families.
Our vision is to use routine healthcare data to improve outcomes for critically ill patients with co-existing cardiovascular disease.
Better surgical and critical care through data and technology
Projects and programmes
Examples of on-going activities and larger project/programme grants led by members of the Centre for Medical Informatics.
An exciting venture between Asthma and Lung UK, leading asthma researchers from universities across the UK, people affected by asthma, NHS partners and other organisations. The Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research launched in 2014 with the aim of improving care and treatment for people with asthma.
Directors: Professor Aziz Sheikh (University of Edinburgh) and Professor Chris Griffiths (QMUL)
BREATHE is a Health Data Research Hub, part of a wider programme coordinated by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK). The Hubs were set up as part of a four-year £37.5million investment from UK Research and Innovation's Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, to enable the safe and responsible use of health-related data at scale for research and innovation.
BREATHE website
A collaborative consortium for the study of pregnancy treatments.
The COVID-19 in Pregnancy in Scotland (COPS) study aims to find out how COVID-19 infection during pregnancy affects mothers and babies.
Tracking the COVID-19 pandemic as it happens across Scotland.
Connected projects include:
National Core Studies - Data and Connectivity: COVID-19 Vaccines Pharmacovigilance
The impact of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy, children and young people, and vulnerable groups (DaC-VaP-2)
Developing and validating a risk prediction model for Long COVID
Long COVID risk prediction model
Rapid Outcomes of COVID therapeutics in Eave II (ROCOVE)
Vaccine breakthrough project
Development and evaluation of a complex ePrescribing-based Antimicrobial Stewardship (ePAMS+) intervention for hospitals.
This project aims to develop policy relevant insights into how best to achieve systems optimisation of NHS hospital electronic prescribing (ePrescribing ) systems in order to improve the safety, quality and efficiency of medicines management processes.
Generation Scotland is a population and family based study of genetic and environmental health determinants, richly annotated with personal, genetic and e-HR data, all available for collaborative research.
GlobalSurg and the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery are working together to improve surgical outcomes for patients around the world. The NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery is a consortium between UK Universities of Birmingham, Edinburgh & Warwick together with international partners at hubs and centres around the world.
Health Data Research UK is a collaboration of 22 universities and research institutes, clustered into six regions, or sites. Each research sites brings world-class expertise and a track record in using health data securely to derive new knowledge and scientific discovery. They bring together world-leading health data scientists to deliver our mission of uniting the UK’s health data to make discoveries that improve people’s lives.
IHDP seeks to fundamentally change the way data and analytics are used to drive improvement in health outcomes, by fostering new relationships between the NHS, industry, academia, and the third sector.
The NHS Scotland interactive diabetes website to help support people who have diabetes and their family and friends.
Formative and summative evaluations of the Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) Programme.
A project which collected the largest speech-Parkinson’s voice database, having 19,000+ phonations from 7 countries in the world
A programme of academic research investigating telemetric supported self monitoring of long term health conditions. Telescot is a collaboration between a number of public, private and voluntary sector organisations supporting the development of innovative healthcare in Scotland, UK.
Edinburgh Research Explorer