Paul Govern

July 1, 2020

VUMC-led network to focus on polygenic risk for common diseases

With the aid of a $75 million, five-year grant renewal, the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics Network (eMERGE) will venture beyond its current focus on monogenic disease to scoring research participants’ relative risk for complex heritable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease and type 2 diabetes.

By Paul Govern
July 1, 2020

Facial recognition solves patient identification: study

Patient misidentification is an all too common cause of medical error. In low- and middle-income countries, free, open-source facial recognition software could provide an economical solution for verifying patient identity across health care settings, according to a study by Martin Were, MD, MS, and colleagues, appearing in the International Journal of Medical Informatics.

By Paul Govern
photo of David Charles and Mallory Hacker
June 30, 2020

Pilot study suggests Parkinson’s disease progression can be slowed

A pair of ultra-thin electrodes surgically implanted deep into the brain might slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease, according to five-year outcomes from a 30-patient randomized clinical trial conducted by investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

By Paul Govern
June 24, 2020

Use of VUMC’s patient portal is surging

Enrollment in the Vanderbilt Health patient portal, My Health at Vanderbilt (MHAV), has surged in recent months.

By Paul Govern
June 9, 2020

VUMC’s REDCap serves pandemic response around the world

REDCap, the research data management tool created and powered by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is serving extra duty as research teams and public health authorities around the world grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Paul Govern
June 8, 2020

When rankings are unfounded

There are many good reasons to survey anesthesiology patient satisfaction but ranking individual clinicians isn’t one of them, the authors of a new study conclude.

By Paul Govern
May 27, 2020

Darby lands award for research on complex human behaviors

For outstanding contributions to research in behavioral neurology, Ryan Darby, MD, assistant professor of Neurology, has won the 2020 Norman Geschwind Prize in Behavioral Neurology from the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).
By Paul Govern
May 27, 2020

Target trials support drug safety in pregnant women

Out of concern for fetal safety, pregnant people have typically been excluded from drug trials. And when human health is on the line, drug studies assessing fetal safety in animal models may be viewed as far from definitive.
By Paul Govern
May 21, 2020

Rounding based on acuity helps preserve attention of clinicians

Multidisciplinary teams conducting daily rounds in intensive care units will typically work their way down hallways, going from one patient to the next based on spatial proximity.
By Paul Govern
May 21, 2020

Team to develop patient data sharing framework for pandemics

Any large-scale effort to use data from COVID-19 patients to serve biomedical or public health research must first concern itself with patient privacy issues.
By Paul Govern
May 14, 2020

Yin receives early investigator MERIT Award from NCI

Zhijun Yin, PhD, assistant professor of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has received the National Cancer Institute’s Method to Extend Research in Time Award (or MERIT Award) for Early Stage Investigators.
By Paul Govern
May 7, 2020

New study examines Alzheimer’s disease images and molecular biomarkers

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) involves distinctive wasting away of certain brain regions, such that medical imaging of these regions can distinguish the disease from other subtypes of dementia.
By Paul Govern