Betsy Humphreys

Betsy L. Humphreys (born April 26, 1947) is an American medical librarian and health informatician known for leading the cross-institutional efforts to establish biomedical terminology standards such as SNOMED CT and the Unified Medical Language System.[1][2] She was the deputy director of the National Library of Medicine from 2005 until her retirement in 2017, serving as acting director from 2015 to 2016.[3]

Betsy Humphreys
Born (1947-04-26) April 26, 1947
Lowell, Massachusetts, USA
Other namesBetsy L. Humphreys
Alma materSmith College
University of Maryland, College Park
OccupationMedical librarian
EmployerNational Library of Medicine
Known forSNOMED CT
SpouseGlenn Palatini

Early life

Betsy Humphreys was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the middle child of three. Her mother was a competitive athlete, and her father was a life insurance underwriter and amateur athlete.[4]

Education and career

Betsy Humphreys earned her B.A. from Smith College in 1969.[4] She earned her M.L.S. from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1972.[4][3]

Humphreys joined the National Library of Medicine (NLM) in 1973. She served on the MEDLARS III Task Force.[3][5] Throughout her time at NLM, Humphreys worked to automate library processes and was instrumental in launching DOCLINE.[4]

A meeting of the task force of the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System at the National Library of Medicine

Humphreys negotiated the U.S. nationwide license for the clinical terminology SNOMED CT and served as founding chair for the International Health Terminology Standards Organisation.[6][7]

From 2005 to June 30, 2017, Humphreys served as deputy director of the National Library of Medicine's.[7] Additionally, from 2015 to 2016, she served as the acting director, becoming the first woman and the first librarian to direct the National Library of Medicine.[6][7]

Awards and honors

She was named a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics in 1990.[8] In 2008, she was named a Fellow of the Medical Library Association.[9] Humphreys was also elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine.[7]

She has received several awards, including the Morris F. Collen Award for Excellence from the American College of Medical Informatics, the Marcia C. Noyes Award from the Medical Library Association, the Cornerstone Award from the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries, and the Smith College Medal.[4][9]

A LOINC (Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes code, Maestro of scalable information infrastructure, was created in her honor.[10]

References
  1. Humphreys, B. L.; Lindberg, D. A. B.; Schoolman, H. M.; Barnett, G. O. (1998-01-01). "The Unified Medical Language System: An Informatics Research Collaboration". Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 5 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1136/jamia.1998.0050001. ISSN 1067-5027. PMC 61271. PMID 9452981.
  2. Humphreys, Betsy L; Del Fiol, Guilherme; Xu, Hua (2020-10-01). "The UMLS knowledge sources at 30: indispensable to current research and applications in biomedical informatics". Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 27 (10): 1499–1501. doi:10.1093/jamia/ocaa208. ISSN 1067-5027. PMC 7647371. PMID 33059366.
  3. "Betsy Humphreys: Farewell to a Leader Who Set the Standard". NLM in Focus. 2017-06-28. Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  4. Mitchell, Joyce; Humphreys, Betsy L.; Ellison, Donald (2010-07-01). "Presentation of the 2009 Morris F Collen Award to Betsy L Humphreys, with remarks from the recipient". Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 17 (4): 481–485. doi:10.1136/jamia.2010.005728. ISSN 1067-5027. PMC 2995660. PMID 20595319.
  5. Reznick, Jeffrey S. (Jeffrey Stephen) (2017). US National Library of Medicine. Koyle, Kenneth M.,, National Library of Medicine (U.S.). Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN 9781467126083. OCLC 973111951.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. Van Hollen, Chris (2017-06-13). "Tribute to Betsy Humphreys" (PDF). Congressional Record - Senate: S3452 – via Congress.gov.
  7. "Betsy L. Humphreys, Former Deputy Director, National Library of Medicine". 2019-02-19. Archived from the original on 2019-02-19. Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  8. "Betsy L. Humphreys, MLS, FACMI". www.amia.org. Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  9. "MLA : Blogs : Humphreys, Betsy". www.mlanet.org. Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  10. "86466-0". s.details.loinc.org. Retrieved 2019-05-30.
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