Homer Richards and Katherine Romney Warner papers

Collection

Identifier: ACCN 2564

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Homer Richards and Katherine Romney Warner papers contains yearbooks and professional publications.

Dates

1939-1996

Creator

Warner, Homer R., 1922-2012 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Twenty-four hour advanced notice encouraged. Materials must be used on-site. Access to parts of this Collection may be restricted under provisions of state or federal law.

Conditions Governing Use

The library does not claim to control copyright for all materials in the collection. An individual depicted in a reproduction has privacy rights as outlined in Title 45 CFR, part 46 (Protection of Human Subjects). For further information, please review the J. Willard Marriott Library’s Use Agreement and Reproduction Request forms.

Biographical Note

Homer Richards Warner, son of Homer (Pug) and Grace Richards Warner was born April 18, 1922 and died November 30, 2012, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He graduated from and played football for East High School and the University of Utah. He was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity.

During WWII he enlisted in the Naval Air Corps where he was trained to be a carrier-based fighter pilot. After the war he returned to the U where he met Katherine Ann Romney and they graduated together in 1946 and later married. He graduated from the University of Utah medical school (1949) and continued his training in Dallas, the University of Minnesota (Ph.D. in Physiology, 1953) and the Mayo Clinic where he developed an equation for estimating the beat-by-beat stroke volume of the heart from the shape of the pressure wave in the aorta. His experience with Dr. Earl Wood at the Mayo Clinic was pivotal in his decision to pursue a career in medical research.

With an American Heart research fellowship he returned to Salt Lake City where he opened the Cardiovascular Laboratory at the LDS Hospital in 1954 and within four years published his first article about the use of computers to analyze waveforms. During the remainder of the decade, Homer established the Department of Biophysics and Bioengineering (later renamed Medical Informatics) at the University of Utah in 1964, with Homer as Chair. In the 1960's Homer built an analog computer to represent mathematical models of the circulation. With this tool he was able to demonstrate for the first time in experiments on animals that the amount of blood pumped by the heart during exercise was dependent upon the dil ation of the blood vessels in the exercising muscles. Then, with the digital computer, he developed a model of diagnostic reasoning that could diagnose patients with congenital heart disease more accurately than physicians could without this tool. For this work he received a Career Research Award from the National Institutes of Health and went on to build with his colleagues at LDS hospital the first computer-based patient record system (HELP) that incorporated a knowledge base to improve decision-making by physicians and nurses.

Homer founded the journal Computers and Biomedical Research in 1968 and remained its editor for the next 24 years. In 1977 while on sabbatical in Vancouver, B.C., he authored a medical informatics textbook still used today. After his department moved to the medical school in 1985, Homer worked with internal medicine faculty to develop a computer program called Iliad which was used to teach diagnostic skills to medical students. The Homer Warner Center for Informatics Research at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City continues his pioneering work in computers and medicine.

Homer was an avid sportsman and loved teaching his children skiing, waterskiing, biking, boating, tennis and later golf. He was a scoutmaster for ten years while his boys were in the program. In 1975 he bought a sail boat and began sailing with his family on the Great Salt Lake and seven years later they completed the Victoria, B.C. to Maui yacht race. The years visiting their condo on Bainbridge Island, WA, and sailing in the San Juan Islands with Kay were memorable. As a devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served as Bishop of the Colonial Hills First Ward and later with Kay as medical missionaries in the Western European Area from 1996-1997.

(Biographical note quoted from an obituary printed in the Salt Lake Tribune, December 2, 2012.)

Katherine Ann Romney Warner was born December 27, 1924, to Daisy Rolapp and David S. Romney in Salt Lake City, Utah and died August 17, 2006. Katherine Ann grew up in Ogden where she began a life-long love of music, drama and sports. She graduated from the University of Utah with a BA in drama and performed a piano concerto with the University Orchestra at her commencement. While at the U she met Homer Richards Warner when he was home on leave from the Naval Air Corp. They were married on September 3, 1946. As a member of the LDS Church, Kay served in the Young Women's organization at the ward, stake and general board levels. She also served as ward Relief Society president and in 1996-1998 as a missionary with her husband in Western Europe. Kay served on the University of Utah's Emeritus Alumni Board recruiting potential new students to the school she loved.

(Biographical note quoted from an obituary printed in the Deseret News, August 21, 2006.)

Extent

0.5 Linear Feet (1 Box)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

The Homer Richards and Katherine Romney Warner papers (1939-1996) contains yearbooks and professional publications. Homer Warner established the Department of Biophysics and Bioengineering (later renamed Medical Informatics) at the University of Utah and the journal Computers and Biomedical Research. Katherine Romney Warner was a musician and active member of the LDS Church.