Marion J. Ball, EdD
Born	South Africa
Alma mater	Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA
Known for	Health Informatics, Nursing Informatics, Education, Hospital Information System
Awards	American College of Medical Informatics’ (ACMI) highest honor, the Morris F. Collen Award, International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) François Grémy Award (Award of Excellence)
Scientific career
Fields	Medical and Health Informatics Education, Nursing Informatics, Health Information Management, Consumer Health Informatics / Public Health Informatics, Point of Care Enabling Technologies, Trustworthy Webpages and Apps
Institutions	The University of Texas at Arlington, IBM Research at IBM, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Marion Jokl Ball is a South African born United States (U.S.) citizen, scientist, educator, and leader in global Biomedical and Health Informatics. She holds the Raj and Indra Nooyi Endowed Distinguished Chair in Bioengineering, University of Texas at Arlington, is Presidential Distinguished Professor, College of Nursing and Health Innovation and serves as the Founding Executive Director, Multi-Interprofessional Center for Health Informatics (MICHI), University of Texas at Arlington. She is Professor Emerita, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and Affiliate Professor, Division of Health Sciences Informatics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. ^[1] She is one of the early pioneers of Informatics in Nursing and in Medicine and a founding member of the Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER), a global grassroots initiative that formalized in 2006 to enable nurses and later, the multi-interdisciplinary healthcare workforce in 34 countries to best make use of Health Informatics principles, methods, tools, and resources ^[2]. Marion J. Ball is the author/editor of over 35 books and over 200 articles in the field of Health Informatics.

Biography and career

Marion J. Ball received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, U.S., where she started her career as a programmer and instructor at the Medical Center after graduation. Serving as the Director of the Computer Systems and Management Group at The Temple University Philadelphia, PA, U.S. she worked in parallel on her doctoral thesis in Medical Education. In 1978, she obtained her Doctor of Education (EdD) from Temple University. Moving to The University of Maryland at Baltimore in 1985, she was appointed Director, Academic Computing and later, Vice President Information Services/Chief Information Officer as well as Professor at the School of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Information Systems. In the years to follow (1985 – 2020), Dr. Ball combined academic appointments with leadership positions in the computer and consulting industry. She held an Adjunct Professorship position at The University of Maryland, School of Nursing, at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Biomedical Informatics and at John Hopkins University, School of Nursing. At the same time, Marion J Ball served as Vice President at First Consulting Group, later as Vice President, Clinical Informatics Strategies at Healthlink, Inc., and finally, in various positions as a Senior Advisor in IBM’s Research Division. ^[3] In 2020, she moved fully back into academia as the co-founder of the Multi-Interprofessional Center for Health Informatics (MICHI) at the University of Texas at Arlington ^[4]. She co-directs MICHI together with Gabriela M. Wilson.

Springer Health Informatics Series

Started as Computers in Health Care in 1988 edited by Kathryn J. Hannah and Marion J. Ball, the series Health Informatics - as it is now called - has expanded from a few to over 120 books covering the vast diversity of topics in Health Informatics including “Healthcare Information Management Systems”, “Terminology, Ontology and their Implementations”, “Mental Health Informatics”, “Clinical Research Informatics”, and “Evaluation Methods in Biomedical and Health Informatics” ^[5].

This series has accompanied the evolvement and further development of Biomedical and Health Informatics as an international scientific discipline. Some of its books published in the early days of the series, appeared in the 5th edition, such as “Nursing Informatics: Where Caring and Technology Meet” which was the book that started the series ^[6].

Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER)

TIGER began as a grassroots initiative for preparing the nursing workforce for the new challenges of a digital healthcare system. Bringing together more than one hundred nursing leaders from seventy organizations, the TIGER Summit of 1st November 2006, resulted in a white paper and report that defined action steps in the areas of 1. Management & Leadership, 2. Education, 3. Communication & Collaboration, 4. Informatics Design, 5. Information Technology, 6. Policy and 7. Culture, called the seven TIGER pillars ^[7]. In 2014, TIGER transitioned to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society HIMSS ^[8] where Marion J. Ball was the first TIGER international co-chair.

As the demand, complexity, and sophistication of competencies in Health Informatics increased over the following years, TIGER developed a comprehensive framework of recommendations of health informatics for nurses. The framework included a methodology of surveying international experts in the field, summarized their relevance ratings for competencies according to roles nurses can have, and illustrated findings them via case studies ^[9]. As the initiative reached out to interdisciplinary healthcare professionals to address their Health Informatics needs, TIGER developed a second framework, the International Framework for Recommendations of Core Competencies in Health Informatics 2.0 which covers the roles direct patient care, health information managers, executives, chief information officers, engineering and health IT specialists and science and education ^[10]. Over the years, Marion J. Ball has remained a TIGER leader by supporting its strategic and visionary direction to make positive impact on the global healthcare workforce ^[11].

Nursing and Health Informatics

Marion J. Ball is one of the global leaders who established Nursing Informatics as a discipline worldwide and in the process, became an innovator in the healthcare arena ^[12]. “She was a prime mover in establishing the nursing informatics program at the University of Maryland.” ^[13]. Through her many books in this area, she influenced generations of nurses and clinicians. She has served as a bridge builder between technology and the caring professions since 1988. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).. Her works addressed beginners, as well as advanced students, and the clinical workforce and has been translated into many languages. It is her understanding of Nursing, Health, and Medical Informatics “that technology is only an enabler; success depends on attention to human factors and collaboration across boundaries.” ^[13].

Health and Hospital Information Systems

Marion J. Ball’s interest in organization wide health information systems is rooted in her practical experience of information management systems which she had gained in various executive positions held at the Temple University at Philadelphia and the University of Maryland at Baltimore from 1968 to 1996. In the early years of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA), she was appointed program chair of the IMIA working conference centered on hospital information systems (1978 in Cape Town, South Africa), the first of its kind worldwide ^[13]. In a review over twenty years later, she pointed out “In 2002 as in 1979, HIS [hospital information systems rem. editor] must be integrated in the hospital's organizational structure; financial and economic benefits depend upon using technology as an enabler of improved clinical outcomes; and education and training remain critical to the successful use of technology solutions“ ^[14]. These requirements that coined the vision of information systems proved to be substantial 30 years later Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page)..

Health on the Net (HON)

Health on the Net was a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and a non-State actor in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO). The site search tool certified medical and health information on websites, apps for mobile devices, and for social networks. The certification process was based on the HONcode, a list of requirements reflecting how transparent, reliable and trustworthy the information was ^[15]. HON was founded in 1995 by a group of international scientists led by Jean Raoul Scherrer ^[16] and based in Geneva, Switzerland until 2022 ^[17]. Marion J. Ball served on the Board of HON from 1998 to 2019.

Health Record Banking

With the advent of Personal health record systems to empower the patients and citizens to access, visualize, manage, and share their health data, the need for resources enabling the secure and trusted data management arose. Coming from the area of Consumer Health Informatics, Marion J. Ball joined the Health Record Banking Alliance ^[18] and provided a conceptual model together with Jonathan D. Gold. The model instructed how to securely manage health data from citizens to make information available in cases of emergency and in other circumstances such as medical research. The model was inspired from the concept of financial institutions serving as safe and independent transaction platforms ^[19].

Awards and honors

• 2023 Glaser Award ^[20]
• 2019-2022 Board Member, International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI)
• 2021 Distinguished Fellow, American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)
• 2020 The Academy of Medicine, Engine ering and Science of Texas (TAMEST), Member
• 2017 International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI), elected as a Founding Member
• 2017 HIMSS, recognized as one of inaugural “ Most Influential Women in Health IT” ^[21]
• 2017 Health Data Management, Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT
• 2014 HIMSS awarded Life Membership for 30 years of membership in the Society and significant contributions to the field of healthcare information technology
• 2012 International Advisory Board Member, China Hospital Information Management Association (CHIMA)
• 2011 IBM Industry Academy elected member
• 2011 HIMSS 50 in 50, Received this HIMSS honor as one of the most influential IT contributors to the field over the last 50 years
• 2010 IMIA Award of Excellence, International Medical Informatics Association
• 2008 American Academy of Nursing (AAN), Honorary Member
• 2005 Book-of-the-Year Award, HIMSS for Consumer informatics: Application and Strategies in Cyber Health Care
• 2003 Honorary Membership in Sigma Theta Tau International, Honor Society of Nursing
• 2002 Morris F. Collen Lifetime Achievement Award (AMIA)
• 2001 President’s Award, American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)
• 1996 Elected Fellow, Institute of Medicine National Academy of Medicine (NAM)
• 1996 Fellow, College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME)
• 1996 Honorary Member, International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA)
• 1996 Honorary Member, Medical Library Association (MLA)
• 1995 President’s Award, American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)
• 1995 Clinical Systems Award, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)
• 1993 Distinguished Service Award, American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA)
• 1993 Elected first female President of the International Medical Informatics Association
• 1992 Founding Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering
• 1992 Pioneer Award Winner, Computer in Healthcare
• 1984 Fellow, American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI)

Publications

Books and Proceedings

• Hübner, Ursula H; Wilson, Gabriela M; Shaw Morawski, Marion J; Ball, eds. (2022). Nursing Informatics: A Health Informatics, Interprofessional and Global Perspective, 5th Edition. Springer Nature. ISBN  978-3-030-91237-6.

• Kiel, Joan M; Kim, George R; Ball, Marion J, eds. (2022). Healthcare Information Management Systems: Cases, Strategies, and Solutions, 5th Edition. Springer Nature. ISBN  978-3-031-07912-2.

• Weaver, C; Ball, Marion J; Kim, Georg R, eds. (2016). Healthcare Information Management Systems: Cases, Strategies, and Solutions, 4th Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-3-319-20765-0.

• Collen, Morris; Ball, Marion J, eds. (2015). The History of Medical Informatics in the United States, 2nd Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4471-6732-7.

• Hersh, William; Ball, Marion J, eds. (2015). Health Informatics for the Curious: Why Study Health Informatics (The Truth about the College Majors, Research Degree, Student Scholarships, and Career Success). Kindle Edition.

• Hannah, Kathryn J; Hussey, Pamela J; Kennedy, Margaret A; Ball, Marion J, eds. (2015). Introduction to Nursing Informatics, 4th Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4471-2998-1.

• Hannah, Kathryn J; Ball, Marion J; Marin, Heimar F., eds. (2010). Introduction to Nursing Informatics, 3rd Edition - Portuguese Translation.

• Ball, Marion J; Hannah, Kathryn J; DuLong, Donna; et, al., eds. (2011). Nursing Informatics: Where Technology and Caring Meet, 4th Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4471-2617-1.

• Ball, Marion J; Hannah, Kathryn J; Marin, Heimar F., eds. (2008). Nursing Informatics: Where Caring and Technology, 3rd Edition - Portuguese Translation.

• Ball, Marion J; Hannah, Kathryn J; Newbold, Susan K.; Douglas, Judith J, eds. (2006). Nursing Informatics: Where Caring and Technology, 3rd Edition Chinese Translation. Farseeing Publishing. ISBN  978-0-3879-8923-5.

• Ball, Marion J; Hannah, Kathryn J; Newbold, Susan K; Douglas, Judith V, eds. (2002). Nursing Informatics: Where Caring and Technology, 3rd Edition – Korean Translation. HANMI Medical Publishing, Seoul South Korea.

• Lehmann, Harold P; Abbott, Patricia A; Roderer, Nancy K; Rothschild, Marion J; Mandell, Steven; Ferrer, Jorge A; Miller; Ball, eds. (2006). Aspects of the Computer Based Patient Record Systems, 4th Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-0-387-29154-3.

• Lehmann, Harold P; Abbott, Patricia A; Roderer, Nancy K; Rothschild, Marion J; Mandell, Steven; Ferrer, Jorge A; Miller; Ball, eds. (2006). Aspects of the Computer Based Patient Record Systems, 4th Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-0-387-29154-3.

• Hannah, Kathryn J; Ball, Marion J; Edwards, Margaret, eds. (2006). Introduction to Nursing Informatics, 3rd Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-0-387-32189-9.

• Ball, Marion J; Weaver, C; Kiel, Joan M, eds. (2004). Healthcare Information Management Systems 3rd Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4757-4041-7.

• Nelson, Rosemary; Ball, Marion J, eds. (2004). Consumer Informatics: Applications and Strategies in Cyber Health Care. Springer. ISBN  978-0-387-40414-1.

• Silva, John S.; Ball, Marion J; Chute, Christopher G.; Douglas, Judith V; Langlotz, Curtis P; Niland, William L; Scherlis, eds. (2002). Cancer Informatics: Essential Technologies for Clinical Trials. Springer. ISBN  978-0-387-95328-1.

• Ramsaroop, Peter; Ball, Marion J; Beaulieu, David; Douglas, Judith V, eds. (2001). Advancing Federal Sector Health Care: A Model for Technology Transfer. Springer. ISBN  978-0-387-95107-2.

• Ball, Marion J; Hannah, Kathryn J; Newbold, Susan K.; Douglas, Judith J, eds. (2000). Nursing Informatics: Where Caring and Technology, 3rd Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-0-3879-8923-5.

• Ball, Marion J; Hannah, Kathryn J; Newbold, Susan K.; Douglas, Judith J (eds.). Nursing Informatics: Where Caring and Technology, 3rd Edition - Korean Translation. Springer. ISBN  0-387-98923-4.

• Hübner, Ursula H (2002). Hannah, Kathryn J; Ball, Marion J; Edwards, Margaret (eds.). Pflegeinformatik. Springer. ISBN  978-3-642-56275-4.

• Ball, Marion J; Douglas, Judith V; Gerets, David E, eds. (1999). Strategies and Technologies for Health Care Information: From Theory Into Practice. Springer. ISBN  978-0-387-98442-1.

• Ball, Marion J; Douglas, Judith V, eds. (1999). Performance Improvement Through Information Management: Health Care’s Bridge to Success. Springer. ISBN  978-0-387-98452-0.

• Hannah, Kathryn J; Ball, Marion J; Edwards, Margaret, eds. (1999). Introduction to Nursing Informatics, 2nd Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4757-3095-1.

• Ball, Marion J; O’Desky, Robert I; Douglas, James W; Albright, Judith V, eds. (1997). Healthcare Information Management Systems: A Practical Guide, 1st Edition Polish Translation. PWN Warsaw, Poland. ISBN  978-1-4757-4043-1.

• Ball, Marion J; Hannah, Kathryn J; Newbold, Susan K.; Douglas, Judith V, eds. (1995). Nursing Informatics: Where Caring and Technology, 2nd Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4757-2428-8.

• Ball, Marion J; Simborg, Donald W; Albright, James W; Douglas, Judith V, eds. (1995). Healthcare Information Management Systems: A Practical Guide, 2nd Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4757-2402-8.

• Hannah, Kathryn J; Ball, Marion J; Edwards, Margaret, eds. (1994). Introduction to Nursing Informatics, 1st Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4757-2246-8.

• Lorenzi, Nancy M; Riley, Robert T; Ball, Marion J; Douglas, Judith V, eds. (1995). Transforming Health Care Through Information: Case Studies, 1st Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4757-2385-4.

• Ball, Marion J; Silva, John S; Douglas, Judith V; Degoulet, Shigekoto; Kaihara, eds. (1994). The Health Care Professional Workstation. Proceedings of an International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Conference. Washington D.C., 14-16 June 1993. Elsevier Science, Ireland. ISSN  0020-7101.

• Ball, Marion J; O’Desky, Robert I; Douglas, James W; Albright, Judith V, eds. (1991). Healthcare Information Management Systems: A Practical Guide, 1st Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4757-4043-1.

• Salley, John J; Zimmerman, John L; Ball, Marion J, eds. (1990). Dental Informatics: Strategic Issues for the Dental Profession. Springer. ISBN  978-3-540-52759-6.

• Ball, Marion J; Hannah, Kathryn J; Gerdin Jelger, Ulla; Peterson, Hans, eds. (1988). Nursing Informatics: Where Caring and Technology, 1st Edition. Springer. ISBN  978-1-4757-4160-5.

• Ball, Marion J; Hannah, Kathryne J, eds. (1984). Using Computers in Nursing. Reston Publishing Co. ISBN  0-8359-8130-4.

• Piemme, Marion J; Ball, eds. (1984). Executive Management of Computer Resources in the Academic Health Center and Action Plan. Association of Academic Health Centers, Washington, DC USA.

• Ball, Marion J; Charp, Sylvia, eds. (1978). Be a Computer Literate!. Creative Computing Press. ISBN  978-0-916-68808-0.

• Ball, Marion J, ed. (1972). How to Select a Computerized Hospital Information System. Vol. 2. S. Kager AG, Basel Switzerland. ISBN  978-3-8055-1465-1.

• Ball, Marion J, ed. (1972). What is a Computer?. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. ISBN  978-0-395-13772-7.

• Ball, Marion J, ed. (1971). Selecting a Computer System for the Clinical Laboratory. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, IL USA.

All publications

• Google Scholar publications
• Medline (Pubmed) publications

References

External links