Nicole Werner, PhD, has been named director of the Center for Research and Innovation in Systems Safety (CRISS). Werner is an associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and comes to Vanderbilt University Medical Center from Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington.
CRISS uses a wide range of human factors and systems engineering, cognitive psychology, biomedical informatics and implementation science techniques to study performance during patient care. Through realistic simulations, researchers can better understand how and why care deviates from optimal. Interventions are then designed and evaluated to improve safety and care quality.
Werner said she is excited to join a center with a rich history and build on what has already been done.
“I think directing the center was particularly exciting to me because I have been motivated by the idea of building capacity for human factors and engineering methods in healthcare,” she said. “Through this center directorship, I’d be able to do that by supporting the faculty and staff in the center and by doing research in the center that spreads that throughout Vanderbilt and the country, and even the world.”
Werner’s work focuses on dementia care and care for children with complex medical conditions. As a doctoral student, her research focused on older adults transitioning from the hospital to home. Until then, she primarily worked in clinical settings and said she was focused on patient safety and how to improve that in hospital settings.
“But when I went out in the community and saw a lot of these families who were caring for people living with dementia, it was just astonishing. The system was so poorly designed to support the care delivered in the home,” she said.
From then on, she knew she wanted to be a part of designing systems to support these people who are the most medically complex and their families who are responsible for so much care.
Matthew Weinger, MD, was the previous director of CRISS, which he started in 2010. He said CRISS first identified Werner as a potential recruit when she was a visiting doctoral student.
“Dr. Werner is a creative and rigorous health services researcher who has demonstrated a remarkable ability to develop productive interdisciplinary collaborations, obtain extramural funds, conduct cutting-edge science and publish in the top journals,” he said.
Weinger said he’s excited to turn the reins of CRISS over to a capable and accomplished researcher.
“I feel very comfortable that she will be able to take CRISS to the next level as a nationally recognized center for academic human factors and systems engineering research and practice,” Weinger said.
Warren Sandberg, MD, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology said it was a “personally rewarding experience” to lead the recruitment for this role, and that he is confident the future of CRISS is secure with Werner.
“Dr. Werner’s interdisciplinary credentials and stature in the field made a compelling case for a multi-center, multi-departmental recruitment at VUMC,” he said. “And bringing together support from multiple centers and departments demonstrated to Nicole that we were serious about bringing her to Vanderbilt and springboarding CRISS to a new level of accomplishment.”
Werner reflected on her time with CRISS as a research student and said that, while it was for a short amount of time, it had a lot of influence on her.
Connections to the Department of Biomedical Informatics and the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer’s Center also drew Werner to the position.
“I would love to expand the center, its reach and impact across the healthcare system at Vanderbilt,” she said. “I’d really like to see the center grow; it’s poised for that.”
