James Langabeer, II, PhD, MBA

The Robert H. Graham Professorship in Entrepreneurial Biomedical Informatics and Bioengineering Professor and Executive Director, Center for Behavioral Emergency and Addiction Research

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Department of Clinical and Health Informatics

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Contact

James.R.Langabeer@uth.tmc.edu | 713-500-3925

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NCBI Bibliography

Google Scholar

James Langabeer II, PhD, EdD, FACHE is a tenured full professor. He holds joint appointments at the McGovern Medical School in both Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine. He also is the Executive Director of the Center for Health Systems Analytics.

Dr. Langabeer is a behavioral decision scientist and management strategist. His health-related research focuses on emergency, cardiovascular, and addiction medicine. He has built an international reputation for his research in improving quality and outcomes of care. He is a member of the American Psychological Association and the American Heart Association. His career has involved hospital leadership, technology startups, management consulting, and research and teaching. Langabeer was the founding Chief Executive Officer of Greater Houston Healthconnect (one of the largest regional health information exchanges in the country). He has helped develop and lead multiple research centers, including the UTHealth Center for Emergency Research and the Fleming Center for Healthcare Management. He was previously on the graduate management faculty at Boston University.

Dr. Langabeer currently leads a comprehensive system of care for managing substance use and behavioral health disorders, called the Houston Emergency Opioid Engagement System (HEROES). He also writes a popular column on decision-making for Psychology Today.

Langabeer earned his PhD in decision sciences from the University of Lancaster (England) School of Management. He is the author of multiple textbooks, including the best-selling Healthcare Operations Management: A Systems Perspective (Jones and Bartlett), utilized in hundreds of graduate healthcare management programs. Dr. Langabeer served for three years as the National Chair of the Ambulatory Health Quality Committee for the American Heart Association, as well as several other national quality committees for AHA. He served as the AHA scientific advisor for multiple large research projects in Wyoming and North Texas in recent years. He has been funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Department of Health and Human Services. He was previously the Associate Editor of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine and on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Healthcare Management.

“The future of healthcare is in maximizing the use of technology, creating organizational collaboration and partnerships, and improving processes and quality simultaneously. Discovering how to make sense of emerging clinical and administrative data, and modeling these for better decisions and higher quality of care, is what my research team focuses on,” said Langabeer.

• Tell us about your research center and/or what research/work you are currently working on?
  I am the Director of the Center for Behavioral Emergency and Addiction Research (CBEAR). Our team of 30 faculty and staff focus on using applied behavioral science and analytics to address several areas, including drug use disorders and the fentanyl crisis. We are inter-disciplinary, and our partners come from Nursing, Psychiatry, Emergency Medicine, and Internal Medicine. We lead a large program called the Houston Emergency Opioid Engagement System, which through 30 strategic partners across 5 cities in Texas provide outreach, medical and behavioral treatment, and ongoing care to individuals who have initiated 911 for emergency overdoses. We are also leaders in providing awareness, education, and policy research around substance use disorders and behavioral health.
• What type of student or Postdoctoral Fellow are you looking for to work in your center?
  We could always use somebody that has advanced training in psychology or social sciences, with an interest in applying informatics techniques, to help us evaluate large data sets in novel ways. If you have these skills, we’d love to hear from you.
• What does the future of your research look like?
  Our research is largely applied right now. We work on streets, ambulances, and emergency departments. We would love to utilize gene-based models to explore prevention and treatment strategies for people with addictions or behavioral health conditions. That is one direction for where we are headed.
• What does the future of informatics look like?
  Informatics involves much more than artificial intelligence. Informatics is the process by which data and signals are converted into meaningful information, which can be used for a variety of healthcare decisions. Informatics is all about decision-making. Physicians use informatics to help them improve their medical decision making. Government policy makers use informatics to create more effective legislation. Managers use informatics to improve operations and business processes. Consumers also regularly use informatics. The future of informatics centers around more real-time, accurate problem-solving. so that we can make the best clinical, consumer, or management decisions.
• What does the future of your research look like?
  I currently teach at McWilliams a doctoral level course on leadership and decision making. I have previously taught finance, strategic management, and operations management. As a behaviorist, I behavioral science skills into my classes. As a former CEO and COO of several organizations, I appreciate the skills required for more effective leaders, especially in healthcare. I also am faculty in the McGovern Medical School where I served on core faculty for the scholarly concentrations of both emergency preparedness and behavioral sciences and substance disorders.

Clinical Training and Fellowships

• Licensed Emergency Medical Technician, NREMT
• Advanced Cardiac Life Support
• Fellow, American Heart Association (FAHA)
• Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE)
• Fellow, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (FHIMSS)

Publications

Textbooks:

• Langabeer, James R. (2018). Performance Improvement in Hospitals and Health Systems: Managing Analytics and Quality in Healthcare Organizations, 2^nd Taylor and Francis Publishing/CRC Press. Forthcoming in February 2018.
• Langabeer, James R. and Helton, J. (2016). Health Care Operations Management: A Systems Perspective. 2^nd Boston, Massachusetts: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. ISBN 1284050068.
• Langabeer, James R. & Rose, J. (2003). Creating Demand Driven Supply Chains: Concepts, Economics, and Strategies for Demand Driven Organizations, 2nd edition.  London England: Spiro Press.  177 pages.  ISBN 1904298400.
• Langabeer, James R. and Napiewocki, J. (2000). Competitive Business Strategy for Teaching Hospitals. Westport, Connecticut: ABC/CLIO (formerly Greenwood Publishing).  312 pages.  ISBN: 1567203493.

Journals

Dr. Langabeer has been published in leading medical, management, and informatics journals. See all his publications:

Google Scholar: Public Citations

PubMed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1rqKltc4zp65r/bibliography/49928779/public/?sort=date&direction=descending