UNMC Professor Appointed to Federal Committee

Steven Hinrichs, M.D., the Stokes-Shackelford Professor of Pathology and Chair at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, has been appointed by the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Dr. Sylvia M. Burwell, to the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC).

CLIAC is a federal advisory committee administered by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  It provides scientific and technical advice and guidance to HHS and its agencies on issues related to clinical laboratories that are regulated under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1988.

"As founding director of the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory at UNMC, Dr. Steven Hinrichs has a wealth of knowledge and years of experience and will be a valuable asset to this federal committee. We are proud of his appointment, as his leadership represents the excellence of all of our clinical laboratories." Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., chancellor, UNMC and UNO.  

The CLIAC committee includes diverse membership across laboratory specialties with a variety of professional roles including laboratory management, testing specialists, physicians and nurses. The scope of committee activities includes the full range of laboratory practice settings such as academic medical centers, community hospitals, clinical laboratories, and public health laboratories.   

Dr. Hinrichs was the founding director of the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory (NPHL) at UNMC and the University-wide Nebraska Center for Biosecurity. He is past chair of the Committee on Management and Information Systems for the Association of Public Health Laboratories and is a strong advocate for the development of communication systems and electronic infrastructure throughout the United States. 

During his tenure as the NPHL director, it became one of the first public health laboratories to develop internet-based test ordering and reporting capabilities. Dr. Hinrichs was a national co-leader of the Public Health Informatics Project focused on the harmonization of electronic laboratory messaging practices. In addition to informatics, Dr. Hinrichs has a research interest in virology and emerging infectious diseases.

Dr. Hinrichs graduated from the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and completed an anatomic and clinical pathology residency at University of California Davis, followed by fellowship training in molecular pathology at the National Institutes of Health.

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