LEWISTON — “Health Information Technology in Maine,” the second installment of a six-part mini-medical school educational series sponsored by Central Maine Medical Center and the Central Maine Heart and Vascular Institute, will be presented on Wednesday, Oct. 13.

Susan Thomas, M.D., an expert in the use of digital technology in health care information management, will give the audience a “tour” of how their medical information may be captured by their physician, local hospital and commercial labs, viewed by consulting physicians, transmitted to Health Infonet and retrieved by an emergency physician in another city.

Her presentation will address how health information travels in an age in which patients expect their physicians to have instantaneous access to all of their health records. She will address the realities of the digital age, including how health information gets to primary care providers and specialists, privacy and security, and how information technology helps save lives.

Thomas is an expert in the adoption of health information technology in physician practices. She is a family physician and former chief medical officer for GE Healthcare. She holds a degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., and graduated from the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn.

Before becoming a physician, she worked for Hewlett-Packard and Intel Corporation during the pioneering days of microprocessor development, and then founded her own company designing microprocessor-based control systems.

During her 20 years as a family physician in Maine, her technical expertise became invaluable to her medical practice. She helped implement the GE Centricity Electronic Medical Record in her practice and championed the use of EMR software locally and nationally.

She will make her presentation from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at G65 Pettengill Hall, Bates College.

To register or for more information, call 795-8448 or e-mail prevention@cmhc.org. The presentation will be offered at no charge. Interpreter services are available upon advance request.