Wu Xu, PhD
Adjunct Faculty, Sociology, Bio-Medical Informatics, and Clinical Epidemiology
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, UT 84112
Dr. Xu is a former State Director of Center for Health Data and Informatics in Utah Department of Health (UDOH). She has more than 25 years of experience in innovation, development and administration of interoperable information systems and analyzing integrated health data for public health policy and practice. Before her retirement in 2018, she oversaw statewide enterprise data management, analysis, exchange and sharing. Dr. Xu was a member of the UDOH Executive Leadership Team and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials’ (ASTHO) Informatics Policy Committee. Dr. Xu was the State Health IT Coordinator and on the Board of Directors for the Utah Health Information Network, Utah’s statewide Health Information Exchange (HIE). She also served as the executive staffer for two state statutory committees: Utah Digital Health Service Commission and Utah Health Data Committee.
Dr. Xu has served as principal investigator or project director for more than 20 competitive federal grants from HHS and DOJ. She was one of the founding members for Utah’s hospital discharge data system, state immunization information system, and web-based query systems in the 1990s. In recent decades, she focused on promoting interoperability and integration of public health information systems and electronic health information exchange with healthcare systems. She was the inaugural director of Utah Office of Public Health Informatics, Utah All Payer Claims Database, and the UDOH first information security officer. Under her leadership, UDOH has been recognized by CDC’s informatics fellowship program and ASTHO as one of the top informatics-savvy state health departments.
Currently, Dr. Xu is a member of the Utah Citizens’ Counsel, an independent group of senior community advocates dedicated to improving public policy. Dr. Xu also is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Utah’s Departments of Bio-medical Informatics, Internal Medicine/Clinical Epidemiology, and Sociology. She has published applied research in peer-reviewed journals with her academic colleagues and trainees. She received the 2018 Utah Governor’s Award for Excellence for Outstanding Public Service in her public health career and a Team Award for Outstanding Technology Innovation for timely development and implementation of an overdose alert application for the Utah controlled substance prescription and dispense system. Dr. Xu received her doctoral degree in sociology with specialty in health demography from Utah State University in 1996, M.A. in Political Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, China in 1983 and B.A. in History, Sichuan University, China, 1980. Dr. Xu was appointed to NCVHS in 2020.