January 4, 2007
UW Medicine mourns death of Dr. Harold Goldberg
By Roberta Wilkes
Department of Medicine
Dr. Harold Goldberg, UW professor of medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Harborview Medical Center, died unexpectedly on Wednesday, Dec. 27, at the age of 57. He had been a member of the Department of Medicine for 20 years and was also an adjunct professor in the Departments of Health Services and Medical Education and Biomedical Informatics.
Goldberg was a general internist with specific expertise in clinic-based research, health services research, and informatics. Born in New York, he was a graduate of Oberlin College and Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed a residency in medicine at UW before returning to Stanford as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. He joined the UW Department of Medicine in 1986 and held many positions at Harborview, including medical director of the Adult Medicine Clinic, acting section chief, physician coordinator for managed care, and associate medical director for clinical information services.
As director of clinical informatics development for the UW Medicine IT Services and a national leader in medical informatics, Dr. Goldberg coordinated clinical informatics R&D for the University’s two academic medical centers. He led a team that created the nation’s first regional, Web-based electronic medical record, MINDscape, used by more than 4,000 physicians in five states.
Goldberg was an active contributor to the clinical and teaching programs at Harborview. He saw patients and supervised residents in the Adult Medicine Clinic, and he mentored junior faculty and fellows interested in medical informatics. His own investigations ranged from the use of mid-level practitioners and self care to his recent work on internet-based diabetes care and outcomes-based “report cards” as a measure of population health. He was one of the original developers of the firm-system analytic technique in clinical research, and he employed MINDscape data to study numerous issues in health care delivery and quality of care.
He is survived by his wife Yuki Durham, his son Noah, and his daughter Kimiko. A celebration of Harold Goldberg’s life will be held at Harborview Medical Center on Tuesday, January 9, at 5:30 pm in the Research and Training Building Auditorium. A reception will follow in room 109/113. Donations can be made in his honor to a memorial fund in the Division of General Internal Medicine (c/o Karen McMasters, Box 359780) or to the charity of your choice.
