He is the first non-American to receive the honour.
After graduating in Medicine from the University of New South Wales, Professor Coiera began a master’s degree in biomedical engineering – “because nobody would teach a doctor how to use a computer” – and he completed a pioneering computer science PhD focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) in 1990.
“I wasn’t a ‘techy’ kind of person, but I was drawn to computing and information technology because I could see how it was going to change medicine and healthcare,” says Professor Coiera.
“It seemed obvious to me this was the way the world was heading, and I found that very exciting.”
After leading clinical computing at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital, Professor Coiera took up an opportunity to further develop some of the themes of his PhD research in a post at Hewlett Packard Research Laboratories in the UK, where he spent almost a decade.
“Hewlett Packard had a large and successful business in patient monitoring technology, and I was investigating how we might be able to add AI ‘smarts’ to their systems,” he says.
“This involved trying to create models of human reasoning, how human systems work and how medical decisions are made.”
Professor Enrico Coiera is the first person outside the United States to be named a Distinguished Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.
In 1997, Professor Coiera published the first edition of his book Guide to Medical Informatics, the Internet and Telemedicine, which was praised for going well beyond the topic of computers in medicine, defining medical informatics as the study of how knowledge is created, shaped, shared and applied to transform healthcare practices.
Upon his return to Australia, Professor Coiera was appointed Professor of Medical Informatics at the University of New South Wales, where he founded the Centre for Health Informatics.
He joined Macquarie University in 2014 when the centre relocated as part of the Australian Institute for Health Innovation.
Professor Coiera also founded the Australian Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (AAAIH), which aims to improve health and economic outcomes by supporting the sustainable development of AI-enabled healthcare, and has produced a ‘roadmap’ for AI in healthcare in Australia.
“AI offers us profound new opportunities to improve clinical diagnosis, treatment and workflows by making Australian healthcare a learning system that’s more nimble, personalised, safe and effective,” he says.
Being made an ACMI Distinguished Fellow is welcome validation of the impact of his work, says Professor Coiera.
“Being an academic can be a difficult career – you get used to hearing the word ‘no’ – so to be told that what you do is important is very meaningful,” he says.
“I’m fortunate to have been involved in some big things that I’m proud of, but I can’t imagine having done this work without a great team of long-standing collaborators in Australia and around the world.”
ACMI is a highly respected body within the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), comprising elected Fellows who have made significant and lasting contributions to biomedical and health informatics.
Professor Coiera’s Distinguished Fellowship will be officially conferred in November at the AMIA 2025 Annual Symposium in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
