Doctoral Fellow of Department of Biomedical Informatics

Contact Info:

Research Interests

Information Technology in Dental Education, Natural Language Processing, Standards, Terminologies and Vocabularies, Decision Support Systems, Organizational Issues in Healthcare, Public Policy and Information Technology in Healthcare

Current projects

Evaluation and improvement of the SNODENT terminology, determination of diagnostic reasoning strategies used by dentists.

Education

• 2005-Present University of Pittsburgh, Department of Biomedical Informatics, PhD Student, Biomedical Informatics
• 2003-2004 University of Pittsburgh, Center for Biomedical Informatics, Master of Science, Biomedical Informatics
• 1994-1999 National Autonomous University of Mexico, School of Dentistry Doctor in Dental Surgery, April 2001 Class president, High Academic Performance Program

Publications

Selected

Torres-Urquidy MH, Wallstrom G, Schleyer T. Detection of Disease Outbreaks by the Use of Oral Manifestations. J Dent Res 2009 Jan; 88(1):89-94. PMID: 19131324 PMC Journal – In process.

Torres-Urquidy MH, Acharya A, Hernandez-Cott P, Misner J, Schleyer T. Evaluating the effectiveness of modeling principles for data models. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2009;143:525-33. PMID: 19380987 PMCID: PMC2736630

Hill HK, Torres-Urquidy MH. The impact of clinical information systems in dental schools. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2008 Nov 6:968. PMID: 18998905

Torres-Urquidy MH, Schleyer T. Evaluation of the Systematized Nomenclature of Dentistry using case reports: preliminary results. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2006:1124. PMID: 17238743 PMCID: PMC1839273

Schleyer TK, Thyvalikakath TP, Spallek H, Torres-Urquidy MH, Hernandez P, Yuhaniak J. Clinical Computing in General Dentistry. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2006 May;13(3):344-52. 16501177 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]

Torres-Urquidy MH. Guest Editorial: Las Tecnologas de la Información y su Influencia en la Educación Mdico-Odontológica (Information Technology and Its Influence in Medical and Dental Education) Rev Odont Mex 2006; 10(3).

Torres-Urquidy MH, Collins BM. VisualDx Clinical Decision Support Software. J Dent Educ. 2006 Aug;70(8):892-4.

Torres-Urquidy MH. Government’s public policy in regards to the National Health Information Infrastructure: two approaches. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2005;:1139. PMID: 16779425 PMCID: PMC1560534

Schleyer TK, Torres-Urquidy H, Straja S. Validation of an instrument to measure dental students’ use of, knowledge about, and attitudes towards computers. J Dent Educ. 2001 Sep;65(9):883-91.

Schleyer TK, Spallek H, Torres-Urquidy MH. A profile of current Internet users in dentistry. J Am Dent Assoc. 1998 Dec;129(12):1748-53.

Thesis

Torres-Urquidy H, Thesis: Uso, Conocimientos Actitudes y Percepciones de los Estudiantes de Odontologa con Respecto a las Computadoras (Use, Knowledge, Attitudes and Perceptions of Dental Students Regarding Computers). National Autonomous University of Mexico. Apr 2001.

Oral presentations

Torres-Urquidy MH, Bader JD, Kalkwarf K, Misner J, Schleyer T. Characterization of the Cognitive Diagnostic Structured by Dentists. IADR Conference Miami, FL. Apr 2009

Torres-Urquidy MH, Schleyer T. Formal Conceptualization of Dental Diagnoses: Status Report. InterOntology Tokyo, Japan Feb-Mar 2009

Torres-Urquidy MH, Acharya A, Hernandez-Cott P, Misner J, Schleyer T. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Modeling Principles for Data Models. Information Technology and Communications in Health (ITCH) Conference, Victoria, Canada. Feb 2009

Torres-Urquidy MH. Dental Diagnosis: Challenges for Informatics. University of Pittsburgh Department of Biomedical Informatics Lecture Series. Pittsburgh, PA. Dec 5, 2008.

Torres-Urquidy MH, Efficiency of a Software Program in Detecting Oral Terms in Emergency Department Reports. Panelist – Contributed Session. National Oral Health Conference Pittsburgh, PA May 2005

Fuente de la H, Torres-Urquidy MH. Topic: “Teleodontologa: instrumento para el mejoramiento de los servicios odontológicos nacionales” (Teledentistry: an instrument to improve national dental health services) Congress: 40 years of Computing in Mexico. Nov 1998.

Torres-Urquidy MH. Topic: “Aplicaciones de Computo en la Odontologa” (Applications of computers in dentistry) Fifth Student Congress. Nov 1995. Mexico City.

Posters

Torres-Urquidy MH, Schleyer T. Adoption Issues of a Top-Level Ontology in Dentistry. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2009 Nov (Accepted).

Torres-Urquidy MH, Wali T, Schleyer T. Evaluation of diagnostic term extraction from dental cases: preliminary results. American Association of Dental Research, Dallas, TX. April 2008.

Thyvalikakath T, Torres-Urquidy MH, Schleyer T. Cognitive task analysis of clinicians' decision-making activities during diagnosis and treatment planning American Dental Education Association, Dallas TX. March 2008.

Torres-Urquidy MH, Schleyer TK, Lee M. Automatic Detection of Disease Outbreaks Using Oral Manifestations: Preliminary Results. IADR General Session & Exhibition Brisbane, Australia. June– July, 2006.

Torres-Urquidy MH, Thyvalikakath T, Hernandez P, Liu K, Chapman W. Evaluating NLP Tools for Classifying Head and Neck Radiology Reports. American Association of Dental Research, Orlando FL. March 2006.

Yuhaniak J, Torres-Urquidy MH, Schleyer T. Workflow and Information Management During Charting and Treatment Planning. Am Assoc Dent Res, Orlando FL. Mar 2006.

Torres-Urquidy MH. Government’s Public Policy in Regards to the National Health Information Infrastructure: two Approaches. Poster. American Medical Informatics Association, Annual Symposium, Washington DC, Oct 2005

Thyvalikakath T, Hernandez P, Torres-Urquidy MH, Spallek H, Schleyer T. Chairside Computer Use in Clinical Dentistry. Poster. American Dental Education Association, Baltimore MA. Mar 2005

Torres-Urquidy MH, de la Fuente Hernandez J. Use of, Knowledge About, and Attitudes Towards Computers at the National Autonomous Univ of Mexico, Dental School Poster. American Dental Education Association. Baltimore, MA. Mar 2005.

Thyvalikakath T, Hernandez P, Torres-Urquidy MH, Schleyer T. Chairside Computer Use in Clinical Dentistry. Poster. NLM meeting. Indianapolis IN. Aug 2004

Schleyer T, Torres-Urquidy MH, Spallek H. Internet Use in Dentistry TEPR '97 Computer Based Oral Health Records Track, May 1997, Nashville, TN

Multimedia publications

Torres-Urquidy MH, Samano A, Ortiz R. Operative Dentistry Multimedia CDROM, UNAM School of Dentistry, Nov 2002

Deinosaurus CDROM Multimedia, Academic Services Division, UNAM, Feb 1999.

Reviewer and Conference Chair

Journal of the American Dental Association, Journal of Dental Education, American Medical Informatics Association Conference 2008, 2009.

Alternate Chair, Clinical Skills Acquisition. IADR 2009 General Session. Miami, FL

In the media

Quoted on the newspaper article “Experts lobby to add key dental data to medical records” by Allison Heinrichs of the Tribune-Review on Thursday December 18, 2008.

Grants

NIH NIDCR R21DE018548-02 A Controlled Terminology for Diagnoses and Findings in General Dentistry Role: Co-Investigator,
National Council of Science and Technology (Mexico),
Telmex Foundation,
UNAM Foundation