Diane G. Schwartz
MLS, FMLA
Position: Collaborator
Dr Schwartz, a Physician and researcher par excellence and Dinstinguished Professor of Medicine brings great leadership skills to our executive team.
Personal Biography
Diane Schwartz is a Research Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics in the Department of Biomedical Informatics (BMI), Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, SUNY (UB). My career has been defined by my instructional activities which have focused on training healthcare practitioners and learners how to employ medical informatics to ensure that they are obtaining the best quality information for use in their clinical practice, research, and education. I taught these individuals the importance of evidence-based practice, lifelong learning, how to conduct quality searches of the literature, how to use the information to create new knowledge, and how to value, use and recognize the expertise of the health sciences librarian.
Experience & Career
Prior to joining BMI, Diane was a health science librarian and director of a health system group of four libraries affiliated with the UB Jacobs School of Medicine. I developed an outstanding clinical hospital library program with a dedication to service for everyone; clinicians, biomedical scientists, learners, and patients/consumers. As a hospital librarian, I developed educational programs for patients and families to ensure that they had access to quality, reliable, understandable health information. I was a member of a multidisciplinary team of health care professionals who taught refugee mothers from Somalia best practices for managing the health and wellness of their children. With funding from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Middle Atlantic Region, I created a program to teach diabetic patients with limited health literacy skills, how to find a quality, reliable, and understandable health information to enable them to better manage their disease.
I designed outreach programs for hospitalized patients to deliver information to their bedside, and also mailed material to patients’ homes. I persuaded the hospital’s CEO to provide space and support for a Wellness Center Library in the new vascular institute to meet the information needs of outpatients seeking day treatment for their disease. I have served my profession in many different capacities; a basic science librarian, an academic health sciences librarian, the director of libraries for a health system consisting of four libraries, and a faculty member embedded in the educational domain of the UB medical school; teaching medical students and residents, conducting research, serving on university committees, writing grants, and publishing the results of my work.