Douglas McNair, M.D., PhD, is president of Cerner Math, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cerner Innovations, Inc. Cerner Math develops licensable analytics solutions for Cerner and other non-traditional clients.

McNair, a successful inventor and developer, is leading the initiative. Cerner Math will be a small but highly specialized group of data analysts who can discern patterns in raw data and build predictive, actionable models from the data.

Cerner Math solutions will improve operational and financial outcomes, and potentially lead to lifesaving interventions and better health outcomes. Probable examples range from: automatic mapping of multiple electronic health record feeds into a single health information exchange repository; optimizing the scheduling of nursing resources based on analyzing patient and staffing patterns; and developing models that help prevent complications from diabetes.

McNair joined Cerner in 1986, first as general manager for Cerner’s Detroit and Kansas City branches; then as vice president of regulatory affairs, responsible for both submissions and compliance. He is co-inventor and co-developer of Discern Expert®, a decision-support engine.

McNair came to Cerner from Select Therapeutics, Inc., where he was senior vice president for research and development. There, he was responsible for the company’s clinical development programs and regulatory affairs activities. He also invented two patent applications on cell therapy-related hybrid drug delivery medical devices.

Before that, McNair was vice president for clinical development at Abiomed, where he authored investigational plans and protocols for all products and was responsible for clinical trials, both in North America and in Europe. He was also a faculty member of Baylor College of Medicine, in the Departments of Medicine and Pathology, and co-directed the Biostatistics and Design & Analysis Unit under Drs. Tony Gotto and Michael Debakey.