Vanderbilt University Medical Center has a long history of innovation in clinical informatics. Until 2017, VUMC developed its own clinical information systems, but has now transitioned to Epic. VUMC has also seen increasing interest in clinical informatics research and operational projects throughout the university and medical center, including frequent requests for data, as well as ideas for clinical informatics interventions.
Vision: VUMC is the best place to practice, research, and learn clinical informatics in the world, and our work together makes healthcare better everywhere.
Mission: To form and nurture an outstanding community of clinical informaticians at VUMC and "pave the road" so that Vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff find it easy to access data, test innovations, and evaluate results in support of informatics practice, research, and education.
Goals: The goal of VCLIC is to enable clinical informatics research and practice. The Center's goals are:
- Faculty, students, and staff in DBMI and Vanderbilt clinical departments find it easy to access data, test innovations, and evaluate results.
- VCLIC members are a trusted source of strategic advice and consultation and work on projects of strategic and clinical importance to VUMC.
- Center members are recognized locally, nationally, and internationally for their expertise in and contributions to the field of clinical informatics.
- VCLIC is the centralized repository of clinical informatics resources in the medical center, providing synergy across departments and disciplines.
- Lessons learned from VUMC are disseminated widely through traditional academic channels (conferences and journals) as well as new channels (Epic’s UGM, social media, open source).
- Vanderbilt is recognized as a top educational program in clinical informatics nationally.
- Vanderbilt is a top recipient of NIH funding for clinical informatics research.
VCLIC's current activities include:
Research
- Paving the road for clinical informatics initiatives
- How to access to Epic
- How to get trained and certified
- How to build and evaluate interventions
- How to get data
- How to disseminate results within and beyond VUMC
- Creating and facilitating access to infrastructure needed by informaticians
- Innovation sandboxes
- Web services
- Helping investigators design, plan, and execute their clinical informatics research
- Identifying topics of interest for new research initiatives
Education
- Supporting undergraduate and graduate medical education, including EHR-enabled simulation, assessment, and learning
- Supporting nursing and allied health education
- Offering educational opportunities for those interested in informatics, including:
- Clinical informatics lab course for informatics graduate students
- Opportunities to learn more about building and extending Epic
- Resident elective in clinical informatics
- Regular local trainings on FHIR and APIs
- Opportunities to purse Epic training and certification
- Clinical informatics grand rounds
Service
- Providing informatics expertise to operational Health IT initiatives at VUMC
- Coordinating evaluations and research collaborations between Health IT and VCLIC members
- Informatics consultation with researchers and quality improvement staff throughout the organization
- Administering data access programs