The biomedical and health informatics field lost a great pioneer and leader recently with the passing of Reed M. Gardner, PhD. Dr. Gardner was known internationally for his contributions to the International Medical Informatics Association, (IMIA) and the International academy for Health Sciences Informatics, IAHSI, IMIA’s Academy.  The loss of Dr. Gardner is felt heavily among members of the American Medical Informatics Association, AMIA, a trusted colleague and friend to many.  Our thoughts go out to his wife, Jackie and their family.

Dr. Gardner completed his PhD in 1968 and followed Dr. Homer Warner as Chair of what is now the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Utah. He presided over tremendous growth and accomplishment of the department and its contributions to the science and practice of the field. His AMIA service included 8 years on the AMIA Board and AMIA President from 1996-1997.  Dr. Gardner was the 2005 recipient of the Morris Collen Award. He served on editorial boards of informatics and clinical journals. He was active in standards development and in public policy. He also led the effort to develop the “core content” for the physician subspecialty of clinical informatics.

Dr. Gardner was a familiar face to IMIA at MedInfo’s and a welcomed presenter at the congress over  many years (1980’s – 2000’s), and was featured as the introductory keynote paper for the 2009 IMIA Yearbook,  https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/html/10.1055/s-0038-1638631.  He was elected into IMIA’s Academy, IAHSI, as part of the Inaugural Class of Fellows in 2017.

Dr. Gardner’s career is summarized well in the Collen Award Video that was made when he won the award in 2005.  It also features several other giants in the field who are no longer with us:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAoCgQZ-qbM

Dr. Reed Gardner at the University of Utah, July 25, 2003, during one of the Master Classes of the International Partnership of Health Informatics Education; compliments of Dr. Reinhold Haux