Department of Biomedical Informatics

January 7, 2021

Building a cohort, the easy way

An automated system using keyword searches can help identify candidates for clinical trials on adverse drug reactions.

By Paul Govern
December 17, 2020

COVID-associated delays for elective services studied

This spring in the U.S., there were widespread delays in elective health care procedures and screenings. Hospitals, in observance of federal guidelines, were, for a time, conserving beds and protective equipment in preparation for a surge in COVID-19 admissions. And, perhaps on a more prolonged basis, patients in many areas of the country stayed away due to anxiety over catching COVID-19 from other patients or their health care team.

By Paul Govern
December 10, 2020

Model students: improving clinical decision-making

Vanderbilt investigators have devised a system to alert health IT teams to deteriorating performance in clinical prediction models.

By Paul Govern
December 3, 2020

Team tracks sources of false positives in urine drug screens

False positives on urine drug screens are common and are frequently due to cross-reactivity of these tests to medications. Last year, Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers Jacob Hughey, PhD, assistant professor of Biomedical Informatics, and Jennifer Colby, PhD, at that time assistant professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, devised, tested and published a method to systematically identify medications that interfere with screenings for drugs of abuse.

By Paul Govern
November 4, 2020

Study tracks physician use of electronic health records

According to a new large-scale descriptive study in the journal Pediatrics, for each outpatient encounter, pediatricians on average spend 16 minutes using the electronic health record (EHR).

By Paul Govern
October 29, 2020

New tool rapidly identifies health records for studies

Electronic health records (EHR) are increasingly a resource for biomedical discovery, and automated searches for records that reflect a phenotype of interest, typically a disease, are a common starting point.

By Paul Govern
September 21, 2020

Throwing weight around on the internet

What users mention in online weight loss forum tracks with how much weight they lose.
By Paul Govern
September 17, 2020

Stead to step down from Chief Strategy Officer role after decades of remarkable contributions

Visionary — someone who thinks about the future or advancements in a creative and imaginative way, a person who is ahead of her or his time and who has a powerful plan for change in the future. Such a person is William “Bill” Stead, MD, Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Chief Strategy Officer, McKesson Foundation Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Professor of Medicine.
By John Howser
August 27, 2020

Study uses AI to sort patient messages by complexity

Taking an interest in electronic message threads between surgical patients and their health care teams, a research group at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has tested how well certain commonly used machine learning algorithms can classify such exchanges according to their clinical decision-making complexity.
By Paul Govern
August 27, 2020

Three elected to international health informatics academy

Among the 35 new fellows of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics are three Vanderbilt University Medical Center faculty members — Steven Brown, MD, MS, Bradley Malin, PhD, MS, MPhil, and Martin Were, MD, MS. All three have primary appointments in the Department of Biomedical Informatics.
By Paul Govern
July 29, 2020

Study finds patients defer routine health care during pandemic

During February and March at two large academic medical centers in Nashville and Boston, screening for high cholesterol and high blood sugar dropped 81-90% and initiation of drug therapy for these conditions dropped 52-60%.
By Paul Govern
July 22, 2020

New data offer insights on COVID treatments for people with cancer

Newly released data on treatment outcomes of people with cancer diagnosed with COVID-19 reveal a racial disparity in access to Remdesivir, an antiviral drug that has been shown to shorten hospital stays, and increased mortality associated with dexamethasone, a steroid that has had the opposite effect in the general patient population.
By Tom Wilemon
July 20, 2020

Post-surgical bleeding associated with more deaths when compared to blood clots after surgery

Post-surgical bleeding is associated with more deaths than blood clots from surgery, according to a Vanderbilt University Medical Center study published in the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia.
By Craig Boerner
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