Hwayoung Cho, PhD, RN

TEACHING

Dr. Cho teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Nursing Research and Nursing Informatics, including those in the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program—Applied Statistical Analysis, Theory and Research for Nursing, Research Methods and Evidence-Based Practice, and Nursing Informatics and Information Management—as well as courses in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program—Research and Evidence-Based Nursing, Professional Nursing Practice, and Professional Nursing Transformation.

RESEARCH

Expertise: Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Clinical Decision Support (CDS); mHealth; Usability; Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML); HIV/AIDS; Symptom Care; Substance Use

Dr. Cho’s research focuses on using technology to reduce health disparities and improve health outcomes. Her work centers on generating real-world evidence and translating it into informatics tools to support the implementation of evidence-based programs. Specifically, her expertise includes developing and evaluating the usability of technology-based interventions (e.g., mHealth apps) for people living with HIV/AIDS and designing AI/ML-driven, EHR-based CDS tools by leveraging large-scale real-world EHR data to assist clinicians at the point of care.

SERVICE

Dr. Cho holds memberships in the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), Academy Health, Sigma Theta Tau International, among others. Her service activities include serving on professional association committees, such as Member-at-Large for the AMIA Clinical Research Informatics Working Group, the AI faculty search committee at the UF Health Science Center, and the Scientific Program Committee for AMIA conferences. Additionally, she has served as a Guest Editor for the Special Issue on Mobile Health Technology in Future Internet and the Special Issue on Advanced Image and Video Processing Technology for Healthcare in Applied Sciences, both MDPI journals. She also serves as a Core Faculty Mentor at the Southern HIV and Alcohol Research Consortium (SHARC; https://sharc-research.org/about-us/faculty/).

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Clinical Decision Support (CDS) | mHealth | Usability | Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning | HIV/AIDS | Symptom Care | Substance Use

Dr. Cho’s areas of expertise include nursing informatics, specifically in Implementation Science—using user-centered design and rigorous usability evaluations (incorporating both quantitative and qualitative approaches, such as an innovative eye-tracking method, card sorting technique, heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthrough, think-aloud protocols, focus groups, and in-depth interviews)—and Data Science, leveraging AI and machine learning with large-scale real-world data from EHRs and claims data.

Her seminal research contributions include developing, testing, and implementing mHealth applications to support symptom management for people with HIV/AIDS in their daily lives, as well as designing CDS tools integrated with EHRs to enhance decision-making processes and reduce cognitive burden for clinicians in practice.