News

Bennett Landman, PhD, Chair of the Department and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received a $2.6 million NIH grant to improve the understanding of structural changes in the brains of people who have Alzheimer’s Disease. The goal is to identify opportunities for early intervention by developing more effective interventional strategies. Dr. Landman leads the four-year project.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Tennessee Department of Health (TDOH) have developed 30-day predictive models for fatal and non-fatal opioid-related overdose among patients receiving opioid prescriptions in the state. The team applied machine learning techniques to statewide data sources that included details on 2,574 fatal and 8,455 non-fatal opioid-related overdoses occurring within 30 days of an opioid prescription. In all, the data involved just over 3 million patients and more than 71 million prescriptions for controlled substances.

The Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) Department of Biomedical Informatics's (DBMI) monthly newsletter, DBMI Digest, is now available to view. Read the October 2021 issue here.  Each DBMI Digest features department & faculty announcements, awards & appointments, educational & HR updates, funding opportunities and more. Each issue also includes a profile of one of our faculty, staff, postdocs and students. 

Gretchen Purcell Jackson, MD, PhD, FACS, FACMI, FAMIA, Vice President and Chief Science Officer at IBM Watson Health and Associate Professor of Pediatric Surgery and Biomedical Informatics, was listed on the "Women to Watch Class of 2021" by Nashville Medical News. 

The Women in AMIA Committee will be hosting undergraduate women with an interest in informatics and/or STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) to attend the 2021 AMIA Symposium “First Look” Program on October 31, 2021 in San Diego, CA. We are seeking female volunteer mentor guides.

Critical care patients are prone to shift intermittently into delirium or coma without warning. A team at Vanderbilt University Medical Center used machine learning to predict the likelihood of next-day brain function status changes in these patients. The team’s report appears in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Adam Wright, PhD, FACMI, FAMIA, FIAHSI, Director of the Vanderbilt Clinical Informatics Center (VCLIC) and Professor of Biomedical Informatics, will receive the Donald A.B. Lindberg Award for Innovation in Informatics, given annually to an individual for contributions that advance biomedical informatics on the national or international level. He will be honored at the 2021 American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium on October 30, 2021.

The American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) will present the 2021 Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence to Randolph A. Miller, MD, FACMI, Emeritus Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University, during the opening session of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2021 Annual Symposium. AMIA’s Annual Symposium is October 30 – November 3 in San Diego.

Jessica Ancker, PhD, MPH, FACMI, and Kim Unertl, PhD, MS, FACMI, published a study in JAMIA titled "Guidance for Publishing Qualitative Research in Informatics."

The Department of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University is accepting applications from postdoctoral trainees interested in the field of biomedical informatics and data science.