Elmer Gabrieli

DR. ELMER GABRIELI DIES; BEGAN USE OF COMPUTERS IN MEDICINE By Staff Apr 1, 2000 0 Facebook Twitter Email Print Elmer R. Gabrieli, 81, an internationally known physician whopioneered the use of computers in medicine and a former resident of Buffalo, died Wednesday (March 29, 2000) in his Cambridge, Mass., home after a short illness. Born in Hungary, he was known as a physician who learned three medical specialties in three different languages. He received his medical degree at the P. Pazmany University School of Medicine in Budapest, Hungary, in 1941 and was a research assistant and later instructor in the university's Department of Experimental Pathology. In 1946, he was invited to become a research associate of Sahlgrenska Hospital in Sweden, and from 1951 to 1955 was a research fellow and instructor in the Yale University School of Medicine. He was named assistant pathologist at Millard Fillmore Hospital in 1958 and later was director of laboratories at the former E.J. Meyer Memorial Hospital and clinical assistant professor of pathology at the University at Buffalo Medical School. Gabrieli, who lived and worked in Buffalo for 35 years before moving to the Boston area, became a leader in the study of how computers could be used to facilitate patient care, and wrote for numerous scientific publications. He founded the Journal of Clinical Computing, which was edited in Buffalo for many years, and Gabrieli Medical Information Systems, a successful software company. Today in history: Oct. 28 Along the way, he became a leading advocate for the protection of privacy for medical information and headed committees on the issue for the medical societies of Erie County and New York State. He also became an adviser for the Office of Technology Assessment for Congress and an expert witness at congressional hearings on medical privacy. He was called on to testify at congressional hearings in behalf of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics as recently as 1999. Author of three books, "Computerization of Clinical Records," "Ethical Guidelines for Data Centers Handling Medical Records" and "Clinically Oriented Documentation of Laboratory Data," Gabrieli was writing another book at the time of his death. He was founder and president of Computer Based Medicine Inc., and developed a medical narrative text processor that is able to read and understand free medical text, extract and code the clinical facts and build an electronic clinical fact bank to convert medical records into live storage. Gabrieli also developed a biomedical nomenclature of more than 180,000 medical terms arrangedhierarchically and coded. He belonged to numerous professional organizations and, in 1998, was the initial recipient of the Elmer Gabrieli Award established in his honor by the American Society for Testing and Materials. Gabrieli, who lived most of his 35 years in Buffalo in the Central Park area, also was known for his sense of humor and observations. He said that coffee didn't make drunks sober and that alcohol didn't improve a person's sex life. Survivors include his wife, Lilla; two sons, John of Palo Alto, Calif., and Christopher of Boston; and four grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at a time and place to be announced.