Ms. French is a Registered Nurse with over 35 years of clinical and administrative nursing experience in diversified healthcare settings. Tina holds a healthcare quality certification (CPHQ), originally obtained in 1998, re-sitting for the exam again in 2013 to satisfy her passion for supporting the Quadruple Aim. She joined our team in 2021 in a Nurse Informatics Data Analyst role. Tina started at Vanderbilt in 2004, working in Women’s Health before moving to the Evidence Based Medicine Team in 2009 focusing on clinical order set content for Women’s Health, Pharmacy, Anesthesia, and Psychiatry service lines. During this time, she participated in and taught a class for the Evidence Based Nursing Fellowship Program on “Why PICO?”.  Joining the Epic Leap Implementation team in 2015, she became an Epic Inpatient Certified Orders Analyst collaborating with clinical teams on the design, requirements, build, validation, and adoption of subject matter. Post implementation, her role was with the Clinical Decision Support team, in partnership with Pharmacy Informatics, developing/optimizing order panels and best practice alerts (BPAs) for OB/GYN, MFM, Anesthesia and Addiction Medicine. Most recently, Tina was the lead on aligning with Accreditation and Standards to implement Covid-19 Pandemic standing orders across the Enterprise.  

Samuel Melles is a research analyst working closely with Dr. McPheeters focusing on clinical genomics and health policy and improving public health through informatics. Samuel obtained his B.A from Florida agricultural and mechanical university with a degree in health informatics and information management. Prior to working at Vanderbilt Samuel worked in the pharmaceutical industry, and completed various clinical rotations at Doctors memorial hospital. 

Jill Whitaker is a Nurse Informatics Data Analyst with 6 years of clinical experience in nephrology nursing and 4 years of experience in nursing informatics. She began working at Vanderbilt in 2011 on the Kidney Transplant unit before transitioning to the acute Dialysis/Apheresis unit in 2012. Prior to transiting to DBMI, Jill worked on the Vanderbilt Nursing Informatics Services team for 4 years as a Sr. Nurse Informatics Specialist. Her contributions while on the Vanderbilt Nursing Informatics Services team include assisting in several technology implementations and providing nursing informatics support to the Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital, Vanderbilt Wilson County Psychiatric Hospital, and the Radiology and Dialysis/Apheresis units. She obtained her BSN from Cumberland University in 2010 and is currently pursuing her MSN degree in Nursing Informatics at Vanderbilt University’s School of Nursing. 

Jessica S Ancker, MPH, PhD, FACMI, is professor of biomedical informatics and vice chair for educational affairs in DBMI, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Health Policy.

As an informatics and health services researcher, I conduct research on how decision-making is influenced by information technology design, using both experimental (randomized) and quasi-experimental (non-randomized and naturalistic) designs. This work has explored alert fatigue, the cognitive impact of uncertainty visualizations, effects of traditional static decision support, and more innovative and interactive technologies. Some of these innovations have been embedded into routine practice in academic medical centers and safety net clinics and have been demonstrated to improve quality of care. My NIH-funded “Making Numbers Meaningful” project is synthesizing best evidence for how to present quantitative health data to patients. My recent work on medical AI has focused on understanding the current state of research and applying these insights to attempt to optimize “appropriate reliance” on AI. 

I also direct large-scale evaluations of health information technology impact. These have included retrospective analyses of EHR data and administrative data to assess impact of telehealth during the COVID-19 public health emergency; effect of personal data release on patients’ activity in electronic patient portals; and relationships between clinicians’ EHR activity and healthcare quality metrics. I also apply qualitative methods to understand effects of health information technology innovations on patients and providers, and to collaboratively design novel technology solutions with end-users.

I’ve received research funding from the NIH, the NSF, AHRQ, and PCORI, among other sources.
As vice chair for education in the country’s largest biomedical informatics department, I am the contact PI for our T15 training grant from the National Library of Medicine. I teach biomedical informatics methods to PhD students, and I oversee our training programs for graduate students, medical students, clinical informatics fellows, undergraduate research interns, and applied clinical informaticists. I have a strong track record of mentoring graduate students, postdocs, K award applicants and recipients, and junior faculty. 

My first career was as a journalist, working for several newspapers and the Associated Press wire service. After becoming fascinated with how people use – and misuse – statistical information in important decisions, I earned my master’s degree in biostatistics from the Mailman School of Public Health, and my PhD in biomedical informatics from the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (both at Columbia).

I serve as associate editor at the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) and Medical Decision Making, and I am a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics. I was also named one of 400 scientists and engineers who received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in January 2025.
 

See Dr. Ancker's recent publications here and below: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/jessica.ancker.1/bibliography/public/