Angad Singh

I am honored and excited to nominate Dr. Angad Singh for the David Thorud Leadership Award. He embodies all the characteristics of an exceptional leader and I feel lucky to know and work with him. I have had the privilege to work closely with Dr. Singh over the past 18 months and I have been looking for a way to celebrate him more publicly, as he is simply phenomenal. I work with amazing people every day at the University of Washington and am often surprised and impressed with everyone’s accomplishments; Dr. Singh rises above that difficult threshold with his creativity, skill, persistence and compassion.

Angad Singh is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine; however, this designation tells only a very small part of his story. He cares for patients and makes meaningful contributions to their lives and health. Through this context, he has first-hand knowledge of how the electronic medical record is inextricably interwoven into the provision of health care, and how it has enormous impacts on both patients and providers. The EMR can be both a blessing and a curse, and it undeniably can make things both much easier, and in some ways also harder, for patients and clinicians. When the EMR feels like a curse, one can get frustrated and bemoan this technology and its limitations (as I am always tempted to do), or one can be Angad Singh, who just rolls up his metaphorical sleeves and solves the problems. I asked Angad how he keeps from resorting to babbling and tears (again, as I’m tempted to do), he said that early on, he was frustrated with the EMR, so he decided he should learn as much about it as he can and have it be a tool that works for him, and all of us. That right there exemplifies his whole approach to challenges – they are simply a speed bump on the way to improving the situation.

Dr. Singh did more than just learn about the EMR – he became an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor in Biomedical Informatics and Medical education. From there, he became Faculty in the Clinical Informatics Fellowship to help others also learn to be expert in using and manipulating the critical information infrastructure of Medicine. Over time, he became the Technical Architect of the Epic Physician Builder Program, which helps train residents, fellows and faculty in how to use the EMR at UW. In this way, he has positively influenced quite literally every single physician who practices in the UW system. Dr. Singh is now also the Associate Chief Medical Information Officer for both Ambulatory Care and Health Equity, and through these roles, he takes on projects that have an enormous positive impact for both patients and clinicians.

Dr. Singh spearheaded the project to allow Epic to reflect the names by which patients prefer to be identified, something that is so critical for the dignity and respect due every patient. Similarly, he heads a project to help identify the Social Determinants of Health that are contributing to poor health outcomes for patients, and to then link them to services to help alleviate those challenges. Both projects clearly demonstrate his deep caring and commitment to equity for patients. He not only recognized a problem, but then created the technical infrastructure necessary to use our EMR to help address it.

Another example of seeing a problem and then working to create a solution is telemedicine abortion provision. This is the project with which I had the opportunity to work closely with Angad, and to thus recognize how incredible he is. I am an obstetrician/gynecologist and complex family planning sub-specialist, so when the Dobbs decision overturned Roe vs. Wade in June of 2022, I knew there was a lot of work we’d need to do at the University of Washington to meet the challenge of continuing to provide excellent, evidence-based reproductive health care for our patients. One aspect of this was to roll out telemedicine abortion services, something very few other academic institutions have managed to do. A committed, multidisciplinary group of incredible people started meeting over the summer of 2022 to brainstorm how to accomplish this task. We had expertise from OBGYN and Family Medicine clinicians and leaders, clinic managers and service leads, Assistant Attorneys General, UW Counsel, Compliance Officers, Pharmacists and Pharmacy Business and Strategy, and, critically, from Bioinformatics. This group met regularly for a year, addressing the numerous roadblocks that existed, including issues for which technical solutions did not exist. It is not stretching the truth to say that there would not be provision of telemedicine abortion at the University of Washington were it not for Dr. Angad Singh. He created the technical platform through which we are now able to consent patients via telehealth, and to communicate with Pharmacy who is then able to mail the patient medications. I personally put countless hours into making this service a reality, and I’d still be spinning in circles if Angad had not put his powerful intellect and problem-solving skills toward this service and almost willed it into being. For this alone, Dr. Singh will forever have my respect and appreciation.

Despite all his many talents and successes, Angad Singh is unbelievably modest and humble, truly just wanting to help all of us and our patients have an easier time with every health care encounter. He seems to have unlimited patients and energy, and a capacity to seamlessly juggle multiple responsibilities and roles and still field questions about Epic from less confident users like me without showing any frustration! When I decided to nominate Dr. Singh for this award, I emailed several people who work with him in a variety of ways, and there was universal and enthusiastic interest in supporting his nomination. Their comments ranged from “Absolutely” to “1000% he deserves this”. Dr. Singh is at the beginning of his career and already demonstrating leadership qualities from which all of us can learn. He is an exceptional human and leader and I and many others would love to have him honored with this award.

Sincerely,

Sarah Prager
Professor
Complex Family Planning/Obstetrics and Gynecology