Janna Hastings

Janna Hastings holds a PhD in Biological Science (University of Cambridge, 2019) and Masters in Computer Science (University of South Africa, 2011) and Philosophy (Open University, 2012). Prior to completing her PhD, she was group coordinator for Cheminformatics and Metabolism at the European Bioinformatics Institute (2006-2015) where she led the development of the ChEBI molecular ontology and metabolism knowledgebase. During her PhD (2015-2019) she studied the role of metabolism in healthy ageing using multi-omics data and a time-series model-ling approach. She completed postdoctoral studies at the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg (2019-2022) working at the intersection between knowledge-based systems and artificial intelligence, and with the Human Be-haviour-Change Project at University College London (2017-2022) to building a comprehensive ontology, data repository and artificial intelligence-driven knowledge system for evidence about human behaviour change to sup-port decision-making, policy and practice for healthy behaviours.
Since August 2022, Dr Hastings has been Assistant Professor for Medical Knowledge and Decision Support at the Institute for Implementation Science in Health Care, Medical Faculty, University of Zurich, and a member of the board of directors of the School of Medicine at the University of St.Gallen. She studies the impact of digitalisation in clinical contexts. Increasingly, clinicians are working not only with their own knowledge, but with digital knowledge systems that aim to support them in decision-making. How do such systems change everyday clinical practice? How is professional identity affected? What role model will emerge for the physicians of the future? How do such systems in the context of the wider media environment affect the doctor-patient relationship and shared decision-making? What are the capabilities and limitations of modern clinical information system technologies, including those based on artificial intelligence technologies? And how do these map onto the real problems in the clinic?