[1] Trained in emergency medicine and medical informatics, Halamka has been developing and implementing health care information strategy and policy for more than 25 years.
While at Stanford he wrote econometrics software for Milton Friedman, performed research for the autobiography of Dr. Edward Teller, and served as teaching assistant to presidential candidate John B. Anderson.
He authored three books on technology issues, wrote a regular column for InfoWorld, and was founding technical editor for Computer Language magazine.
[4][5][6] In 1981, he formed a software startup company, Ibis Research Labs, in the basement of Frederick Terman's Palo Alto home.
The company developed tax and accounting software for CP/M and early IBM PC computers; it grew to have 25 employees and was sold to senior management in 1992.
He attended the joint MD/PhD program at UCSF and UC Berkeley between 1984 & 1993 and completed an Emergency Medicine residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center between 1993 & 1996.