2024 CAP Outstanding Service Award

Established in Honor of Frank W. Hartman, MD, FCAP

The College of American Pathologists (CAP) Outstanding Service Award Established in Honor of Frank W. Hartman, MD, FCAP, recognizes a CAP Fellow for outstanding service to a single CAP program, project, or related endeavor, generally over a long period of time. The award is named for Dr. Hartman, the CAP’s first president. The CAP presents this award when merited, not necessarily on an annual basis.

James H. Harrison, Jr., MD, PhD, FCAP

The College of American Pathologists presents James H. Harrison, Jr., MD, PhD, FCAP, with the CAP Outstanding Service Award in recognition of his extensive contributions in the field of informatics.

Dr. Harrison’s expertise and guidance in clinical laboratory information systems, biorepository systems, electronic health records, clinical decision support, data modeling, clinical data repositories, artificial intelligence, and informatics education over more than 30 years of have advanced the CAP’s informatics agenda and enabled the CAP to promote effectively the use of pathology data to improve healthcare and patient safety.

Dr. Harrison was an active participant in the original development of the CAP’s informational Website and chaired the Electronic Media Coordinating Committee, which oversaw the development and operation of the CAP website, during that time. Dr. Harrison established and chaired the CAP’s first project team for AI and machine learning, and he led the publication of an overview of AI and machine learning for pathology in Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. The success of that project team spurred the formation of the AI Committee.

As chair of the Informatics Committee for the past four years, Dr. Harrison helped author the CAP’s interoperability and artificial intelligence strategies and contributed to the CAP’s participation in national policy development on interoperability and the use of artificial intelligence in health care. He advanced the development of pathology-related data standards as a data profile author and liaison to the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise’s (IHE) Pathology and Laboratory Medicine workgroup (PaLM). This work benefited the CAP’s engagement with the FDA on the Standardization of Lab Data to Enhance Patient-Centered Outcomes Research and Value-Based Care (SHIELD) initiative. Under his direction, the Informatics Committee has provided subject matter expertise and a committee home for the FDA Broad Agency Announcement contract awarded to the CAP for work on the interoperability and curation of laboratory data.

Dr. Harrison’s passion for excellence and for the CAP and its mission are evident through his involvement in more than 30 CAP committees, councils, project teams, and workgroups, as well as his continued involvement in several other pathology organizations and entities.

Dr. Harrison is a professor of pathology and director of laboratory informatics at the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, Virginia.