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Faculty Research

Jose F. Arocha, Associate Professor

  • Lic. Psychology (1981, Central University, Caracas)
  • MA. Educational Psychology (1985, McGill University)
  • Ph.D. Educational Psychology (1991, McGill University)

Contact Information

Office: LHN 3734
Telephone: (519) 888-4567 ext 32729
Email: jfarocha@uwaterloo.ca

Teaching Interests

Health informatics, decision-making, cognitive science and human computer interaction

Course Descriptions

HLTH 230 Health Informatics
HLTH 472/630 Special Topics in Health Informatics / Decision Making

Research Interests

Consumer health informatics, clinical problem solving, reasoning, and decision making, cognitive methodologies for the analysis of human computer interaction, knowledge acquisition, medical expertise, cognitive aspects of computerized clinical practice guidelines

Current Major Funding Sources

  • Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Selected Publications

  • Patel VL, Arocha JF, Diermeier M, Greenes RA, Shortliffe EH.
    Methods of cognitive analysis to support the design and evaluation
    of biomedical systems: the case of clinical practice guidelines. J
    Biomed Inform. 2001;34:52-66.
  • Pantazi SV, Arocha, JF, & Moehr, JR (2004). Case-based medical
    informatics. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak     <URL: http://
    www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6947-4-19.pdf>.
  • Friedman DB, Hoffman-Goetz L, Arocha JF. Readability of cancer
    information on the internet. J Cancer Educ. 2004;19:117-122.
  • Patel VL, Arocha JF, & Zhang J. Thinking and reasoning in medicine.
    In: Holyoak, K.J. & Morrison, R.G, editors. Cambridge handbook of
    thinking and reasoning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
    2005. p. 727-750.
  • Arocha JF, Wang D, & Patel VL Identifying reasoning strategies in
    medical decision making: A methodological guide. J Biomed Inform.
    2005;38,154-171.
  • Friedman, DB, Hoffman-Goetz L, & Arocha JF. Health literacy and the
    World Wide Web: Comparing the readability of leading incident
    cancers on the internet. Med Inform Internet Med. 2006;31: 67-87.
  • Arocha JF, & Patel VL. Methods in the study of clinical reasoning.
    In: Higgs J, Jones M, Loftus S, & Christensen N, editors. Clinical
    reasoning in the health professions. London: Elsevier. In press.

Selected Professional Activities and Networks

Technology-related Links

Visit my research page on Consumer Health Informatics at:
http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/chirp/