Dr. Chartash's interests are in understanding the adage in medicine that,

The history is the foundation of diagnosis, management and rapport with the patient, and that diagnosis is based on, first, a focused and meticulous history, followed by a focused and confirmatory physical examination and ending with a parsimonious ancillary investigation. — Crombie, D. L. "General Practice Today and Tomorrow. X. Diagnostic Methods." The Practitioner 191 (1963): 539-545.

Methodologically, his research aims to model information within the medical record and clinical encounter through the use of cognitive science, computational linguistic and complex systems science approaches.

Dr. Chartash earned his bachelor's degree in engineering science from The University of Western Ontario in electrical engineering, focusing on biomedical signals and systems analysis. He completed a masters degree in health science by research at the University of Toronto in clinical engineering, during the course of this degree, practicing as an engineer at the Toronto Health Economics and Technology Assessment Collaborative and Toronto General Hospital. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from Indiana University Bloomington, specializing in medical informatics and complex systems. During the course of this doctorate he was a fellow at the Center for Biomedical Informatics at the Regenstrief Institute, as well as the Department of Pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine.