Patricia Flatley Brennan is the Director of the NLM, a component of the NIH. The NLM is the world’s largest biomedical library and the producer of digital information services used by scientists, health professionals, and members of the public worldwide. She assumed the directorship in August 2016.
Patti came to NIH from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was the Lillian L. Moehlman Bascom Professor at the School of Nursing and College of Engineering. She also led the Living Environments Laboratory at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, which develops new ways for effective visualization of high dimensional data.
Patti is a pioneer in the development of information systems for patients. She developed ComputerLink, an electronic network designed to reduce isolation and improve self-care among home care patients. She directed HeartCare, a web-based information and communication service that helps home-dwelling cardiac patients recover faster, and with fewer symptoms. She also directed Project HealthDesign, an initiative designed to stimulate the next generation of personal health records. Patti has also conducted external evaluations of health information technology architectures and worked to repurpose engineering methods for health care.
She received a master of science in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Following seven years of clinical practice in critical care nursing and psychiatric nursing, Patti held several academic positions at Marquette University, Milwaukee; Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Patti is a past president of the American Medical Informatics Association, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, the American College of Medical Informatics, and the New York Academy of Medicine.
