Beginning Oct. 29, Vanderbilt University Hospital will use a new process for patient handovers between nurses in the adult Emergency Department and nurses on inpatient units.

A new Web-based tool is helping Vanderbilt research coordinators assemble accurate billing plans more quickly.

With the aid of a two-year, $487,000 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a Vanderbilt research team will develop a reusable model to promote better patient engagement with the health care team through delivery of consumer-friendly pharmacogenetic information.

A research team led by Josh Peterson, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine, and John Graves, Ph.D., assistant professor of Preventive Medicine, will study the cost-effectiveness of testing patients’ risk of adverse gene-drug interactions.

A new computer program called Cornelius calculates two risk scores for each newly arrived Vanderbilt University Hospital patient — one estimating the patient’s risk of developing pressure ulcers (bedsores) during the current hospital stay, and the other estimating the patient’s risk of returning to VUH for readmission within 30 days of discharge.

Launched in 2009 by a team at Vanderbilt, ResearchMatch is the first nationwide, disease-neutral research volunteer registry. More than 43,000 volunteers spread among all 50 states have registered with ResearchMatch.org.