About Us

This is the one page of this website where we break the glass and explain ourselves without the ironic twists that are generally found on other pages of the site.  The American College of Medical Informatimusicology, or ACMImimi as it has come to be known, is not a real college.  It's not even a real organization, though it does, in fact, have Members and Fellows.

Ross Martin, generally referred to on this site as Ross D. Martin, MD, MHA, FACMImimi, esteemed President and Founder of The College, is a real doctor.  At least he did go to medical school and delivered babies for a while before becoming a consultant in healthcare and health informatics so he would have time to support his writing habit.  He wrote a bunch of screenplays and musicals and was making progress toward his goal of getting Michael Crichton's job when life made other plans.  He became a husband to an amazing woman, Kym, a cancer survivor, and they quickly added a son to the clan, which caused Ross to put his writing career on hold so he could get a daddy job with good health insurance.

Music and creating was still a vital part of Ross's life, though it took a back seat to a career that was increasingly focused on enabling the transformation of healthcare through informatics and health IT.  Frustrated with a general lack of time for other pursuits, he found himself writing and sharing songs about his work with health IT standards development organizations to the amusement and sometimes bewilderment of his colleagues.  Over the years, he wrote songs for the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP), HL7, MedBiquitous, X12 and others.

Fast forward about a decade to 2009 when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed to pull the US out of an economic tailspin.  Embedded in that Act was the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.  Ross became Dr. HITECH and created his first music video, HITECH: An Interoperetta in Three Acts under the fictitious auspices of The American College of Medical Informatimusicology.  It just seemed funny to Ross--that if one specializes enough, one can become the best in the world at something.  He declared himself to be the world's leading medical informatimusicologist.  And who says he's not?

He figured that if a few hundred of his closest geek friends saw and enjoyed his little musical tribute to the HITECH Act, it would be worth all of the hours writing and editing that video.  It took about 24 hours for 300 people to see it, then it was posted to a number of blogs, including HIStalk and ModernHealthcare.  Then the Wall Street Journal wrote an article on their blog and it was clear that this video was going to go as viral as something about the acronyms associated with HIT legislation could go.

Since that time, ACMImimi has become the purveyor of all things informatimusicological.  In early 2012, we eased up on our exacting criteria for ACMImimi Members and Fellows and now have more than 30 Fellows who have made material contributions to the art and science of medical informatimusicology.  We have buttons and certificates for those so designated and are very excited about the growing link between creating and disseminating information about health IT.

Ross has a serious day job with a large consulting firm, where he focuses on health IT strategy, mostly for federal clients.  But all of the ACMImimi works are done as unfunded volunteer work, including the writing of this "About Us" page, which is being written by Ross, who wonders why he's writing it in the third person.  Must be an election year.

Most everything posted on this site is shared under a Creative Commons license, which makes the content free to share with attribution.  We are happy to share freely, but at least want to retain some awareness of how it is being used.  So be nice back and comment, like and all those other behaviors of the social medially virtuous.

If you want to become a part of our merry band, sign up on our Membership Application page.  It's fun and you can get a cool certificate and a button if we have any left.


If you have questions, contact us at Admin@ACMImimi.org.

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