KATHERINE A SWARD
  • Professor, Biomedical Informatics
  • Professor, College Of Nursing
801-585-1481

Current Courses

Spring 2025

  • BMI 616-001
    Biomed Data Wrangling
  • BMI 6016-001
    Biomed Data Wrangling
    Location: TBA (TBA)
  • BMI 6016-002
    Biomed Data Wrangling
  • BMI 7990-001
    Cont Registration - PhD
  • NURS 7980-038
    Faculty Consultation

Fall 2024

Summer 2024

Professional Organizations

  • Western Institute of Nursing. 01/2019 - present. Position : Member.
  • Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science. 01/2019 - present. Position : Member.
  • International Society for Exposure Science. 01/2018 - present. Position : Member.
  • American Academy of Nursing. 10/2017 - present. Position : Fellow.
  • Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMMS). 06/2000 - present. Position : Member.
  • Utah Nursing Informatics. 06/1998 - present. Position : President.
  • American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) . 06/1997 - present. Position : Member.
  • American Nurses Association. 06/1981 - present. Position : Member.
  • Sigma Theta Tau International, Gamma Rho chapter. 06/1981 - present. Position : Member.

Teaching Philosophy

I view teaching as a co-constructive, collaborative process. I love interacting with students, and find that I learn something new in every class I teach. I enjoy exploring new ideas and the unique perspective each student brings to class. I primarily teach graduate informatics courses, but have also taught nursing PhD quantitative design and statistics. Informatics is both a nursing specialty and a transdisciplinary science, melding perspectives and techniques from diverse disciplines including clinical healthcare, cognitive and behavioral science, computer science, linguistics, and others. This provides a richness to the field that I try to convey to students as they establish a professional identity within informatics. The courses I teach fit with my research in data and knowledge management, decision support systems, clinician interaction with computer systems, and informatics methods and tools that support clinical research. I include a variety of activities, discussions, journaling, and hands on experience in my courses. I prefer to use a "mastery" approach with technology-intensive courses, and use flexible, formative reviews of assignment drafts more often than summative tests. I recognize that students come to my courses with a considerable body of experience and skills, and encourage them to collaborate and share their expertise. I strive to keep courses current, updating content & teaching methods at least yearly. I welcome feedback on my courses, and continue to learn about and implement innovations in teaching/learning theory and practice.

Courses I Teach

  • Clinical Database Design - NURS 6803
    Hands-on experience with design and use of clinical databases, focused predominantly on relational database model.
  • Foundations of Health Informatics - NURS 6702
    Required course for graduate nursing students.