Email

rochat@bcm.edu

Positions

Assistant Professor

Pediatric Infectious Diseases
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas United States

Secondary Faculty Appointment

Education, Innovation, and Technology
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas United States

Director

MD/MS-SBMI
Dual Degree Program
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas United States
The Electronic Health Record (EHR) has become a compendium of health information, from broad clinical assessments down to an individual’s heart rate. The wealth of information in these EMRs holds promise for clinical discovery and hypothesis generation. Unfortunately, as these systems have become more robust, mining them for clinical information often requires the expertise of a clinical informatician to efficiently extract data. From quality improvement to decision support systems, the availability of clinical data in modern medicine has heralded a goldrush in this field. Given the limited number of providers who possess both clinical content knowledge and biomedical informatics training, we are offering additional training to individuals with an interest in this contemporary field of medicine.

Thread Director

Undergraduate Medical Education
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas United States

Adjunct Assistant Professor

Biomedical Informatics
UT Health Sceinces Center
Houston, Texas United States

Education

Fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine

06/2020 - Houston, Texas United States

Pediatric Infectious Diseases

Residency at Baylor College of Medicine

Houston, Texas United States

Pediatrics, 2017

MD from Baylor College of Medicine

05/2014 - Houston, Texas United States

PhD from Baylor College of Medicine

05/2012 - Houston, Texas United States

SCBMB Program

MS from Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine

05/2005 - St. Louis, Missouri United States

Genetic Epidemiology

BA from Washington University in St. Louis

05/2003 - St. Louis, Missouri United States

Physics and Mathematics

Certifications

Board Certified Pediatrics

American Board of Pediatrics

Board Certified Clinical Informatics

American Board of Preventative Medicine

Board Certified Pediatric Infectious Diseases

American Board of Pediatrics

Honors & Awards

Travel award for “Pediatric Fellows' Day Pre-meeting Session

2017

IDWeek

Residency Research Award

2017

Texas Children’s Hospital

Residency Scholarship Day (Selected Speaker)

2017

Texas Children’s Hospital

Junior Faculty Seed Award

Health Outcomes and Healthcare Utilization in Congenital Cytomegalovirus: A Systematized Approach in the Electronic Medical Record Era

Baylor College of Medicine (06/2021 - 06/2022)

Professional Interests

• Congenital Cytomegalovirus
• Congenital Syphilis

Professional Statement

My experience as an MD/PhD has been a variegated and unique one. My exposure to bioinformatics during my graduate training in Genetic Epidemiology and Big Data during my PhD training has shaped the way in which I approach medicine in the era of the Electronic Health Records (EHRs). I had my first foray into informatics during my Masters training when I developed a series of computer programs to collect, parse, and aggregate genetic data from queries of large publicly available databases to focus selection of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms for genetic research. During my residency training I focused my efforts developing a series of computer programs that would parse the EHR and systematically re-write themselves to adapt to the varied input data to determine rates of medication side-effects. It is this background that has given me a unique perspective to medicine and nurtured my unconventional approach to data processing, informatics, and research. I have a special interest in bioinformatics and during my fellowship in pediatric infectious disease I used high-throughput informatics to understand the healthcare associated costs of congenital infections to better understand the progression of these diseases and their many sequelae throughout time. It is my belief that by normalizing the evaluation and management of children with congenital syphilis within a centralized clinic, not only will we be able to provide excellence in patient care, but also provide a useful resource to providers, the community, and local health departments. By integrating the evaluation and management of these children across the vast hospital system at Texas Children’s Hospital, I feels we will be exceptionally well equipped to understand the natural epidemiology of this congenital infection and prioritize treatment, and patient follow up, to ebb this current trend.

Websites

Videos

Professional Development

A Novel Technique for High-Volume Data Extraction from EPIC using Metadata-Driven Autonomous Scripts

Seminar (Presenter, 2016)

Sponsor: Texas Children’s Hospital

Residency Scholarship Day

No Time to Lues: A Call to Arms Amidst a Congenital Syphilis Epidemic

Conference (Presenter, 2023)

Sponsor: Texas Children's Hospital

No Time to Lues: Opportunities for Informatics Amidst a Congenital Syphilis Epidemic

Conference (Presenter)

Sponsor: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Selected Publications

• "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Rochat+RH." ;

Projects

Congenital Syphilis Clinic

Texas Children's Hospital (04/2022 - present)

Houston, Texas

I am excited to share news with you about a new Congenital Syphilis Clinic at TCH-Medical Center. I started this clinic in response to the rising congenital syphilis cases across the region. Despite having a safe and effective treatment for syphilis in pregnancy, between 2014 and 2019, congenital syphilis cases in the US increased from 706 (9.2 cases/100,000 births) to 1,870 (48.5/100,000), reflecting an increase of nearly 300% over 5 years. Unfortunately, in Texas, the case rate has ranged from 2-3 times that of the national rate, reaching 132.7/100,000 in 2019, leading the US with 528 of the 1,870 cases reported that year. Unfortunately, we find ourselves amidst another epidemic, and one that is affecting one of the most vulnerable populations we serve. As you all know, the current guidelines for evaluation and management of congenital syphilis can be very confusing, and often lead to questions in management and evaluation. Ultimately, many children need follow up at specified intervals, with repeat testing and evaluation to make sure that their evaluation and management at birth was sufficient.

Clinical Informatics

Baylor College of Medicine (06/2006 - present)

Houston, Texas

Nearly 15 years ago, as a medical student at BCM, I wrote a computer program to pull millions of abstracts from the medical literature to identify common themes in the history of medicine. What I found was that informatics was permeating the field of medicine at an exponential rate, however our medical education and training did not mimic this meteoric rise. As a result of this project, I advocated for the integration of bioinformatics into medical education, winning an award in the History of Medicine class. Now I find myself uniquely positioned to champion these skills at the level of medical education as the Director of the Biomedical Informatics Dual Degree Program at BCM. My background positions me well as an advocate for biomedical informatics, and I hope my passion for this field will inspire medical students to pursue additional training in this field as it is sure to be foundational in the era of electronic medical records.

Memberships

Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society

Conference Committee (01/2022)

Skills

Husband and Father

Barista

I am fully proficient in the production of a top-tier latte.

Clinical Informatics

I am board certified in clinical informatics and have an interest in improving data literacy and promoting data ownership.

Photography

Have been doing photography for nearly 30 years, from the days of Kodachrome to the newest digital sensors. Once a Canon user, I have now been shooting Nikon since the turn of the century. It is amazing to see how much these tools have changed over the years, and now to the point that they can capture images with unprecedented resolution.

Vinyl Records

Intrigued by the reproduction of sound, I got back into vinyl records nearly 15 years ago and have found joy again in the art of listening to music and the skill it took to put "an album" together. My collection has slowly grown over the years to nearly 400 albums. Some of my favorite albums are old Sinatra albums from the 50s, however more contemporary offerings with complex sounds like the Gorillas or electronica like Daft Punk really shine on vinyl. Setup is B&W speakers with Rotel or Conrad Johnson amplifiers, with Sutherland Insight pre-amp and Project Turntable.

Home Repair

I love the challenge in fixing things that break at home. I recently heard that my son has been doing the same thing at school and couldn't be more proud. There isn't any project I won't take on.