W. Paul Nichol, MD
W. Paul Nichol, MD is the National Director of Medical Informatics for the Veterans Health
Administration in the Health Informatics Section of the Office of Informatics and Analytics. Dr. Nichol
serves as the co-chair of the VA DoD Inter-agency Clinical Informatics Board and is the VHA clinical lead
for the VA DoD initiative to create an integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR). He also serves as the
co-chair of the VHA MyHealtheVet Clinical Advisory Board, which has a focus on consumer health
informatics. He is a member of numerous working groups and represents VHA Patient Care Services in
many aspects of information systems planning, development, and implementation.
Prior to this appointment, he was the Associate Chief of Staff for Clinical Information Management at
the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System (VAPSHCS). As a long-standing test site for VA
computer systems, VAPSHCS is nationally recognized for its use of information technology in health care.
In conjunction with the Madigan Army Medical Center, it has served as national demonstration site for
Information Technology Sharing between the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of
Defense; and was selected as a VLER pilot site to extend information sharing to community health care
systems.
Dr. Nichol’s academic appointments include Clinical Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine, and
Clinical Professor in Health Services, School of Public Health at the University of Washington in Seattle,
Washington. His academic and professional interests include electronic medical records and other point
of care information technologies, decision support, data exchange, personal health records, and their
use in improving health care systems, patient safety, and management of chronic illnesses. He has
participated in many activities outside the VA including American Medical Informatics Association
Conferences and Workgroups, the American Health Information Community Chronic Care Workgroup
and the State of Washington Health Information Infrastructure Stakeholder Advisory Committee. He
currently serves on the Advisory Board for the National Center for Cognitive Informatics and Decision
Making in Healthcare funded by the HHS Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP).
Dr. Nichol received his undergraduate education at Dartmouth College (BA Degree) and attended Duke
University School of Medicine (MD Degree). He completed his residency training at the Oregon Health
Sciences University where also spent a sabbatical year in 2001 pursuing interests in medical informatics.
He is board Certified in Internal Medicine and received a certificate of Added Qualifications in Geriatrics.
He remains active in direct patient care and is faculty for the VAPSHCS Medical Informatics Fellowship
Program.