Welcome to the Harvard Clinical Informatics Lecture Series
2026 - 2027
In order to attend the lecture series, you must register for the series via Zoom. Even if you registered for the series in the past, you will need to register again for the new year:
Register via Zoom
You must register using an email address that is currently associated with an active zoom account. You will receive an error message if you attempt to register with an email address that is not tied to a zoom account at the time of registration.
To receive notifications of meetings and subsequent CME surveys, please join the HCILS Mailing List.
The Harvard Clinical Informatics Lecture Series (HCILS) provides a forum for clinicians and researchers at HMS and beyond to learn the field of clinical informatics. The series addresses core topics in clinical informatics as outlined by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education as well as cutting-edge research being done nationally.
This series is designed to change the way clinicians approach clinical informatics problems and provide them with tools to create more successful intervention.
The seminar intends to provide attendees with the tools to:
- Apply Clinical Informatics principles to solve clinical and operational challenges
- Understand proven informatics tools and techniques
- Critically review informatics evidence
Sessions are held virtually (via Zoom) on Tuesdays 12–1pm unless otherwise noted.
For questions about the series, please contact CILS@hms.harvard.edu.
Schedule 2026 - 2027: Upcoming Talks
Founders - Startup law - What physician entrepreneurs need to know
Tuesday, September 22, 2026 12 PM ETDetails Coming Soon
AI and Mental Health
Tuesday, September 29, 2026 12 PM ETAI and Mental Health
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
John Torous, MD, MBI
John Torous, MD, MBI, is a board-certified psychiatrist and clinical informaticist working at the intersection of mental health, technology, and clinical care. He directs the Division of Digital Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, where his team's research, clinical programs, and open-source tools focus on a single goal: making mental health care more accessible, more measurable, and more effective through the responsible use of smartphones, wearables, and artificial intelligence.
A Fireside Chat with Judy Faulkner
Tuesday, October 13, 2026 12 PM ETA Fireside Chat with Judy Faulkner
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Judy Faulkner, MS
Judy Faulkner is CEO and founder of Epic, which she began in 1979 in the basement of an apartment house with $70,000 in start-up money and 2 half-time assistants. Epic has grown by its bootstraps, without venture capital or going public.
Judy has received a BS in Mathematics from Dickinson College, an MS in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, and honorary doctorates from the University of Wisconsin, Rush University, Temple University College of Public Health, Dickinson College, Mount Sinai, Grand Valley State, and University of Rochester. After teaching computer science for several years she then worked as a software developer, creating one of the first databases organized around the patient.
Judy currently is a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Leadership Roundtable, The Scottsdale Institute, and of the Aspen Health Strategy Group. She has pledged that 99% of her assets will go to philanthropy.
Digital Health & Remote Patient monitoring
Tuesday, October 20, 2026 12 PM ETDigital Health & Remote Patient monitoring
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Bimal Desai, MD, MBI, FAAP, FAMIA
Bimal Desai, MD, MBI, FAAP, FAMIA - Assistant Vice President and Chief Health Informatics Officer, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Desai is an attending pediatrician and Chief Health Informatics Officer at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), where he leads the programs in Clinical Informatics and Digital Health. He holds a medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine and a master’s degree in Biomedical Informatics from Oregon Health & Science University. He completed his residency and chief residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Dr. Desai co-leads CHOP’s digital transformation strategy, with a clinical focus on the use of telehealth and remote patient monitoring in pediatrics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his team oversaw the explosive growth of telehealth, a program that has served over 100,000 children across 300,000 video visits.
In 2017, Dr. Desai was awarded the PACT Enterprise Healthcare Innovator award and he has been recognized three times as one of the country’s “CMIO’s to Know” by Becker’s Healthcare. He is an active member of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and co-founder of Haystack Informatics, a 2014 graduate of the DreamIt Health startup accelerator. He is a founding faculty-member of the AMIA Clinical Informatics Board Review Course, now in its ninth year.
Bimal lives with his wife and twin children in Philadelphia. He enjoys road cycling, origami, cooking, and DIY projects.
Leading change as CIO in the age of AI
Tuesday, October 27, 2026 12 PM ETLeading change as CIO in the age of AI
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Daniel Nigrin, MD
Daniel Nigrin, MD is currently the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at MaineHealth, and previously served as the SVP & CIO (and practicing pediatric endocrinologist) at Boston Children's Hospital, where he was also Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. As CIO for over two decades, he has been responsible for all IT systems at both of these large, multi-billion dollar organizations. As a practicing physician, medical informatics researcher, board-certified clinical informatician and IT executive, he is in a unique position to put into practice cutting edge digital technologies and ideas, bringing advances to patient care, quality, and research, but while keeping in mind the needs of busy clinicians.