Informatics in the Round

What happens when you bring together three previous heads of biomedical informatics departments? A lot of reflection, storytelling, and joking around! In this episode, we bring together guests who have previously run informatics departments and are still involved in various ways, whether through research, teaching, or creating content to educate the public. We get the inside scoop into all the administrative responsibilities of these department chairs, their favorite parts of the job, and how they hope to see the field respond to modern technological developments like AI. We had some fantastic guests on this episode. Dr. William (Bill) Hersh is a Professor in the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE) in the School of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Dr. Hersh served as the inaugural Chair of DMICE from its inception in 2003 through 2022. He also served as Director of OHSU's Biomedical Informatics Graduate Program, from its inception in 1996 through 2023. Dr. Hersh also conceptualized and implemented the first offering of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 10x10 ("ten by ten") program; his course has been completed by more than 3000 individuals since 2005. In addition, he serves as Editor of the textbook, Health Informatics: Practical Guide, 8th Edition. Since stepping down as department chair, Dr. Hersh has maintained his research and teaching activities, and writes the Informatics Professor blog. Dr. George Hripcsak is the Vivian Beaumont Allen Professor at Columbia University's Department of Biomedical Informatics. He led Columbia University's informatics department for 15 years. He currently leads the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics coordinating center, which organizes the health records of almost one billion patients. He has authored over 350 scientific papers, serves as the PI for Columbia's recruitment center for the All of Us precision medicine program, and focuses his research on developing the next generation of health record systems. Finally, our host turned guest for this episode! Dr. Kevin Johnson is the David L. Cohen University Professor of Pediatrics, Biomedical Informatics, and Science Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Before Penn, he was the Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University from 2012-2022. He currently researches how to integrate advanced technology and artificial intelligence with health documentation systems. And, of course, he loves sharing informatics with a wider audience whether through his children's books, his documentary projects, or this podcast! Thanks to our host Harris Bland and our production assistant Ellie Shuert for leading us through this discussion. We loved reminiscing together, and we hope you enjoy getting an inside look into informatics departments! Make sure to follow our Instagram, Twitter, Threads, and TikTok accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd and @htbland21. You can also find us wherever you typically get your podcasts. Thanks for listening! Instagram: @infointhernd Twitter: @infointhernd Threads: @infointhernd TikTok: @infointhernd Website: https://www.kevinbjohnsonmd.net/projects

How does social media challenge or reinforce our own biases? On this episode, we sat down with the University of Pennsylvania's Desmond Upton Patton to discuss his research on social media and adolescence. We talk about the many roles social media has for young people and how they have taken advantage of social media as a storytelling mechanism and a tool for navigating safety. We discuss how social media can also be reductionist, reinforce negative stereotypes, and even perpetuate misinformation, revealing the flaws in AI and similar technologies. Desmond talks us through all these facets of social media in relation to his work and challenges us to think about what it would look like to recognize social media as increasingly integrated into our reality. We were so excited to have Dr. Desmond Upton Patton with us for this episode. Desmond is not only a great friend, but an incredible scholar. As a social worker, researcher, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Desmond has published groundbreaking research on the linkage between grief and aggressive behavior on social media platforms, and now his research focuses on the topics such AI, social media, machine learning, empathy, and race with the goal to create unbiased and culturally conscious algorithms. In addition, he serves on the research and safety advisory boards of Twitter, Spotify, and TikTok, and he has been chosen as part of the inaugural cohort of Obama Foundation Leaders for his research. Now, he is the director for the research initiative known as SAFELab at the Annenberg School for Communication, a project we will hear more about in this episode! We also had with us songwriters Alissa Abeler and Hannah Smith from the Americana duo The Daily Fare. They shared amazing insights not just on their own experiences with social media, but also on songwriting and the storytelling process. We were so thankful to have this group of people in discussion with us, and we hope you enjoy the episode! Mentioned in this episode: -Sing Me a Story -AIDS Memorial Quilt -Follow SAFELab on Twitter Make sure to follow our Instagram, Twitter, Threads, TikTok, and Facebook accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd and @htbland21. You can also find us wherever you typically get your podcasts. Thanks for listening! Instagram: @infointhernd Twitter: @infointhernd Threads: @infointhernd TikTok: @infointhernd Website: https://www.kevinbjohnsonmd.net/podcast

Is every clinical trial created equal? In this episode, we learn some shocking information about the proportions of populations normally included in clinical trials. We specifically cover recent treatments for Alzheimer’s disease to discuss how we may have failed to consider minority populations in our research and how we can use precision medicine to create more equitable clinical trials. We also discuss how we can redevelop trust in scientific institutions in the wake of the pandemic and how health professionals can adapt their research techniques to include data from historically underrepresented populations. We had a wonderful cast join us for this episode. We had Stephanie Monroe, Vice President and Senior Advisor of Health Equity and Access for UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, a national advocacy group that aims to diversify the movement to cure Alzheimer’s disease. After working on Capitol Hill and holding the position of Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights for three years, Stephanie’s work has focused on raising awareness about the disparate impact of Alzheimer’s disease on communities of color and women. We also had Consuelo Wilkins, Senior Vice President and Senior Associate Dean of Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence, and a Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and works with the All of Us Research Program, a national precision medicine project. She is also the Principal Investigator of three NIH-funded centers which aim to decrease health disparities for communities of color and create new approaches to recruiting marginalized communities for clinical trials. This conversation was so fun and yielded so many valuable insights regarding how we can create more equitable research for communities of color. We hope you enjoy the episode! Interested in how misinformation circulates? Listen to our previous podcast episode with guest Evan Thornburg. Make sure to follow our Instagram, Twitter, Threads, TikTok, and Facebook accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd and @htbland21. You can also find us wherever you typically get your podcasts. Thanks for listening! Instagram: @infointhernd Twitter: @infointhernd Threads: @infointhernd TikTok: @infointhernd Website: https://www.kevinbjohnsonmd.net/podcast

In this episode, we tackle an all-too-familiar topic: misinformation. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen how technology and social media can be used to both spread health information awareness and popularize misinformation. The question remains: in the age of technology, how can we be sure about the validity of the information we are receiving online, and how can we all be vigilant against the spread of misinformation? To help us, we had the wonderful Evan Thornburg join us for today's podcast. Evan is a bioethicist and health equity officer for the City of Pennsylvania's Department of Public Health. In the past, they've also worked in the Philadelphia Mayor's Office as Deputy Director of LGBT. After completing a Master's of Arts in Urban Bioethics at Temple University's Lewis Katz School of Medicine and writing their thesis on the spread of misinformation, Evan took to TikTok, utilizing the platform to share their knowledge about bioethics, comment on current health news, and challenge the online community to be discerning about how they absorb and converse about health information. You can find Evan on TikTok at EVN the (Bio) Ethicist. We loved talking with Evan, and we hope you come out of this episode with some practical tools to help you filter the information you see on social media! Learn more about ethical research conduct from government websites such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the American Psychological Association. Check out what the American Board of Internal Medicine has to say about the rise of misinformation: -https://blog.abim.org/an-update-on-our-efforts-to-address-medical-misinformation/ -https://blog.abim.org/new-paper-recommends-creating-a-durably-funded-infrastructure-for-media-monitoring-and-effective-coordinated-responses-to-medical-misinformation/ Learn more about the work Desmond Upton Patton is doing with SAFELab here: https://www.asc.upenn.edu/research/centers/safe-lab Make sure to follow our Instagram, Twitter, Threads, TikTok, and Facebook accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd and @htbland21. You can also find us wherever you typically get your podcasts. Thanks for listening! Instagram: @infointhernd Twitter: @infointhernd Threads: @infointhernd TikTok: @infointhernd Facebook: @Informatics in the Round Website: https://www.kevinbjohnsonmd.net/podcast

In this episode, we look at the genetic basis for different psychiatric disorders, the interconnectedness of psychological and physical symptoms, and how they apply to our ongoing conversation regarding health equity. For this episode, we welcomed back some of our previous guests: Lea Davis Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Division of Genetic Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Her work explores the genomic architecture of complex traits, defined as the type, frequency, and function of DNA variants en masse that contribute to the genetic predisposition of a given trait. We also welcomed back the talented Jane Bach, a successful songwriter from Nashville, to help us dissect how exactly gene inheritance works and share her stories and music with us! Ellie Shuert, our new production assistant from the University of Pennsylvania, also joined in for the discussion. They both made our conversation so lively and fun, and they really helped us dig deep into the fundamentals of genetics and the importance of listening intentionally to patients' stories and symptoms. We have new social media pages! Make sure to follow our new Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Threads accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd and @htbland21. Thanks for listening! Facebook: Informatics in the Round Twitter: @infointhernd TikTok: @informaticsintheround Instagram: @infointheround Threads: @infointheround Website: https://www.kevinbjohnsonmd.net/podcast

In this episode, we talk a bit about the recent advances in large language models, also known as GPT/ChatGPT. We have two wonderful guests: Christoph U. Lehmann, M.D., is a Professor of Pediatrics, Population and Data Sciences, and Bioinformatics at UT Southwestern, where he directs the Clinical Informatics Center. In addition, Chris was the first chair of the Examination Committee of the American Board of Preventive Medicine, Subcommittee for Clinical Informatics. Dr. Lehmann’s research focuses on improving clinical information technology and clinical decision support. Yaa Kumah-Crystal Crystal MD, MPH, MS is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Pediatric Endocrinology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Yaa’s research focuses on studying communication and documentation in healthcare and developing strategies to improve workflow and patient care delivery. Yaa works in the Innovations Portfolio at Vanderbilt HealthIT on the development of Voice Assistant Technologies to improve the usability of the EHR through natural language communication. Chris and Yaa bring very complementary perspectives to the topic of our future. Yaa's research focuses on how we can innovate to improve the use of technology in medicine. Chris is also internationally known as the Editor in Chief of Applied Clinical Informatics, as well as one of the leaders in our clinical informatics board certification work. He is intimately familiar with the potential uses of this technology beyond clinical care, but, as an actively practicing neonatologist, more than holds his own when it comes to how medicine can benefit from--or be harmed by--new technologies such as AI. We leave it to you to decide both which direction we're heading, and how we can put up the guardrails to keep us on the preferred track. And, I suspect this won't be our last discussion about AI in Medicine!----more---- By the way, in case you want to learn more about topics we brought up in this episode: Belmont principles include autonomy Artists and AI: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/chrisstokelwalker/art-subreddit-illustrator-ai-art-controversyhttps://www.businessinsider.com/ai-image-generators-artists-copying-style-thousands-images-2022-10 TikTok voiceover person: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/22701167/bev-standing-tiktok-lawsuit-settles-text-to-speech-voice GPT and test performance: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/26/tech/chatgpt-passes-exams/index.html, https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.05.23286533v1.full Deepfake concerns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessedamiani/2019/09/03/a-voice-deepfake-was-used-to-scam-a-ceo-out-of-243000/?sh=292f03982241https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/threats/protect-yourself-from-deep-fakehttps://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/deepfake-porn-ai-mr-deep-fake-economy-google-visa-mastercard-download-rcna75071 MidJourney and bias: https://uxdesign.cc/midjourney-is-incredible-but-you-can-see-there-are-definite-existing-biases-in-its-dataset-4b1131fb0533. https://nftnow.com/features/the-objectification-of-women-in-ai-art/https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.11261 Amazon AI Tool Bias: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G Apple credit biased against wives: https://www.wired.com/story/the-apple-card-didnt-see-genderand-thats-the-problem/ AMIA document about ethical principles around AI: https://amia.org/news-publications/amia-position-paper-details-policy-framework-aiml-driven-decision-support AI in Medicine JAMA Viewpoint: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36972068/ Sophia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_(robot)

This episode is going to introduce the concepts of health equity and biomedical informatics. We'll revisit this theme multiple times in 2023 but ST and I wanted to kick off the year with this overview that will also serve to provide a framework for some of what we will be discussing as we revisit this theme. We are really lucky to have two guests, both of whom are great colleagues and friends, whose careers have focused on this topic from two very different disciplines. Lea Davis Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Division of Genetic Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Her work explores the genomic architecture of complex traits, defined as the type, frequency, and function of DNA variants en masse that contribute to the genetic predisposition of a given trait. Consuelo H. Wilkins, MD, MCSI, is a nationally recognized physician-scientist leader in health equity research focused on integrating social, cultural, and environmental factors into clinical and translational research. Dr. Wilkins is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine within the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is Senior Vice President, Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence, VUMC; and Senior Associate Dean, Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. We also welcome back The Daily Fare Northern-born songwriters Alissa Abeler and Hannah Smith who’ve joined creative forces to form a musical duo with a unique sound and look for Nashville performers. The pair grew up on opposite sides of the music world with influences ranging from Judy Garland and Adele to Beethoven and Bach, with a healthy dose of Broadway, punk cabaret, and 80s ballads sprinkled in the mix. They also share a story common with many newish groups breaking into the music biz that makes the topic of today one they relate to in ways you’ll readily appreciate. St and I tried to keep this at high level, but we also weren’t afraid to push our friends to explain some difficult concepts. It was as important a discussion as it was enlightening and engaging, and I’m glad to be able to share it with the world.

This episode, ST and I cover one of the hottest non-COVID topics in healthcare today. We strike at the heart of clinician burnout and in particular issues related to unnecessary documentation. Our guests today were discovered by Sam Butler from Epic, who invited them to present their incredible work at a national meeting where I was an attendee. I thought this was work that needed to get noticed as quickly as possible. And so we decided to develop this podcast to discuss what they’ve been doing. Dr. Heidi Twedt is Associate Chief Medical Information Officer, UW Health, and Clinical Professor of the division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Dr. Peter Kleinschmidt is the Medical Informatics Director of Quality and Safety and Assistant Professor in the division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Wisconsin. The two of them have developed an entire program dedicated to reducing the length and complexity of physician documentation. As they tell us during the episode, it's simple to implement technically, but, as one might imagine, very challenging to make "sticky" from a change management perspective. By the way, here's a link to a presentation by Heidi and Peter for those who want to hear more about this.

This promises to be an incredibly informative podcast for most of us., If there was anything learned from the pandemic, it was the importance of data and helping most of us track SARS CoV2 prevalence wherever we traveled when we traveled, as well as to manage vaccine compliance within specific regions or states. Health information exchange was vital to many public health organizations. And our speakers today were front and center during the pandemic, as well as in some cases, decades before the pandemic, evangelizing this technology for the rest of us. We’ll hear from them and discuss both what health information exchange is and what health information hubs could be going forward. I learned a ton during this podcast. I hope you enjoy it. ST Bland and I are proud to introduce you to three guests: Brian Dixon is a Professor at Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and a world expert on the public health information ecosystem, including how things are accomplished and the information or tech used to accomplish them. John Kansky is President and CEO at Indiana Health Information Exchange in Indianapolis, which is arguably the exemplar for health information exchanges around the world. Morgan Honea is Executive VP of Contexture an IT services and consulting group in Denver and CEO of CSRI, the Consortium for State and Regional Interoperability, as well as CEO of CORHIO. The Colorado Regional Health Information Organization.

Hello and welcome to Informatics in the Round, a podcast designed to help everyone become a part of the dialog about topics in biomedical informatics. I’m Kevin Johnson, a physician and informatics researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. @kbjohnsonmd on Twitter, www.kevinbjohnsonmd.net on the web! The overturning of Roe v. Wade has had a significant impact on our country. What many may not realize is the impact it might have across all of the health care system as we know it, including the informatics community. However, this episode will enlighten us all about this, and, unfortunately, will probably make a few people lose sleep. We are joined in this episode by Professor Bradley Malin, Accenture Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Biostatistics, and Computer Science, as well as Vice Chair for Research Affairs in the Department of Biomedical Informatics. He is one of the world’s experts on data privacy, having invented or helped to debunk myths around the most common approaches used to protect electronic medical records from use or to facilitate safe data sharing. He is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI), the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI), and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). In addition, he was honored as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the White House. Brad is joined by Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, JD, MD. Ellen is an internationally respected leader in the field of law and genomics who holds appointments in Pediatrics and in Health Policy at VUMC, and in the Law School as well as the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University. Ellen has helped to develop policy statements for numerous national and international organizations, including the Public Population Project in Genomics, Human Genome Organization, Council of International Organizations of Medical Sciences, the American Society of Human Genetics, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Ellen has worked on a number of projects for the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) and is currently a member of its National Advisory Council, director of its Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, and the Report Review Committee. For her service, she received the David P. Rall Medal from the IOM in 2013. In addition to these amazing guests, we’re excited to have ST Bland, a leader in Vanderbilt’s Center for Precision Medicine here, as well as Jane Bach, an extremely successful “performing” songwriter in Nashville. Jane is joined again by Jeanie McQuinn of http://www.greatbigrivermusic.com, a partner with Jane in songwriting.

This episode of IIR focuses on the functions we want in our EHR portals, including some research into some surprising new uses for portal information. Our special guest is a brilliant young faculty member from Johns Hopkins. Kevon-Mark Jackman is a Dr.PH and MPH, and an assistant professor of pediatrics, in adolescent medicine. We met a few months ago, and I thought it would be fun to discuss some of what he’s doing with EHR patient portals with the group. Sarah Bland, a leader in Vanderbilt’s Center for Precision Medicine is here, as is Jane Bach, an extremely successful “performing” songwriter in Nashville. Jane is joined by Jeanie McQuinn, a partner with Jane in songwriting. They go back many years—Jeanie was a huge fan of Jane’s, as you’ll hear, and now work with her from time to time. You’ll get to hear from all of them discussing Kevon’s work, as well as work that still needs to be done to improve the use of patient portals. During the episode, we made reference to the following work/people: https://janebachmusic.com/

In this episode of Informatics in the Round we have a small but MIGHTY team. Sarah Bland, a leader in Vanderbilt’s Center for Precision Medicine is here, and offers her usual insight coupled with wit! We’re happy to introduce you all to Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld, who is the Senior Associate Dean and Director of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment, and Professor of Anesthesiology Medical College of Wisconsin. But wait, there’s more. Jesse is chair of the American Medical Association Board of Trustees, a commander in the U.S. Navy and combat veteran, the head of perioperative informatics at Vanderbilt before leaving for Wisconsin, and so much more. All the guests today have one or more non-heteronormative characteristics on our “problem list.” We’re all in the SOGI remarkable group. We are all in the LGBTQ+ tribe. We’re all gay! Our topic for this conversation focuses on the inclusion of LBGTQ+ data in the EHR. In case you’re wondering how we can fill 50 minutes on that topic, suffice it to say that we had more than enough material. By the way, did I mention that Jesse was the former director of the Vanderbilt Program for LGBTQ Health, that he’s been a staunch supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, and has been at the center of much of the knowledge now published about the unique health requirements of patients who identify as LGBTQ+. Oh, and then there’s his book, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Healthcare: A Clinical Guide to Preventive, Primary, and Specialist Care.

Hello and welcome to Informatics in the Round, a podcast designed to help everyone become a part of the dialog about topics in biomedical informatics. I’m Kevin Johnson, a physician and informatics researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. @kbjohnsonmd on Twitter, www.kevinbjohnsonmd.net on the web! In this episode of Informatics in the Round I’m joined by a half dozen guests. Why all these guests? Because today’s topic is all about me and my new Children’s book called Who, Me? I’m a Biomedical Informatics Expert Now. It’s part of a series that Professor David Weintraub, Professor Ann Neely, and I are producing. I want to warn you that the guests ask me some very personal questions that I answer honestly. It might not be for everyone’s tastes. But that’s what the fast forward button is for. Anyway, I hope you learn a bit about me, and about my journey from this episode. We end with a wonderfully fitting song for this episode, written by Jane Bach and sung by Jo Dee Messina: Dare to Dream. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg2aF1z9myw. Thanks for letting me end with such great music!

Hello and welcome to Informatics in the Round, a podcast designed to help everyone become a part of the dialog about topics in biomedical informatics. I’m Kevin Johnson, physician and informatics chair at Vanderbilt. @kbjohnsonmd on twitter, www.kevinbjohnsonmd.net on the web! ------------------- In this episode of Informatics in the Round, we get some follow-up information. A few episodes back, Dr. Trent Rosenbloom led a discussion about impending changes and a lot of national concern about a statutory response to information blocking that has resulted in patients having immediate access to clinical encounter summaries but also lab results. We were wrapped in anticipation of the fallout from implementing this change, and have eagerly awaited hearing from a patient and from Trent. So…. Here we are! Digging into the aftermath. The nuclear option, or tempest in a teapot? Trent is Professor of Biomedical Informatics, nursing, medicine and pediatrics. He directs the Vanderbilt patient portal, known as MyHealthatVanderbilt. MyHealth for short. He’s also an avid runner, with his own marathon. Here's a link to his marathon: https://www.harpethhillsmarathon.com/ Sarah Bland is a regular guest on this podcast. By day, she’s a senior project manager and all around funny person, but, as you’ve been learning and will hear more about today…she has layers. She’s also at Vanderbilt. We were able to get a friend of Trent's, a geek, and a musician all in one in the form of Karl Kersey. Karl’s band, Doonthebray, represents yet another form of music in Music City. And then there's Karl—He’s low key, with a wonderful dry wit, and asks the hard questions. Trent didn’t disappoint. He knows this stuff, and had great information to share both in response to questions we asked during the episode, and questions other listeners will undoubtedly be asking. https://www.facebook.com/doonthebrae ---------- By the way, tell a friend about the podcast. I’d love to get our listenership over 5K, and I need your help. If you have suggestions or ideas, hit me up on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd, or if think tweeting is for twits, email me at kevin1061@comcast.net. I love hearing from you!

Summary In this episode, we talk in a bit more honest detail about clinician burnout and the role electronic health records are playing in taking the joy out of health care for some professionals, and in the case of some patients, making it completely unclear what is changing with their own health. For those of you who are regular listeners to this podcast, you’ll recall that our last episode focused on the issue of women in health. We’re joined by that team again. We had two other special guests on this episode: Show Notes You can find more music from Suzie Brown here: https://www.suziebrownsongs.com/ You can find out more information about the 25 x 5 effort here: https://www.dbmi.columbia.edu/25x5/ You can find out more about Clickbusters here: https://www.vumc.org/vclic/clickbusters

This episode is a bit of a departure from our norm. I set up this team with the intention of discussing physician burnout from EHRs and what we are doing to improve it. It happened to be our first all-female team, plus me. In the wake of our post-pandemic attempts to return to normalcy, and some of the conversations I’ve heard from my colleagues, I realized we had an opportunity to cover some ground here that might be of interest to professionals in academic environments, dealing with remote work and pressures to return to work. So we made the pivot. We’ll be discussing the “original” topic next month. I was joined on this episode by Professor Allison McCoy, an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at VUMC, and by a regular on this podcast, Sarah Bland, who has a lot to say (as you heard in the introduction) on this topic. We are THRILLED to introduce you to Suzie Brown Sacks. Dr. Sacks has a very unique story that is highly relevant to both topics. I’m not giving anything away though. You’ll have to listen to the episode. If you’re a regular, you might have a sense of what makes her a unique doctor. Let’s see if you’re right. You can hear more of Suzie Brown's music at https://www.suziebrownsongs.com/. She's souful country personified, and would love to welcome you into her fan club!

Hello and welcome to Informatics in the Round, a podcast designed to help everyone become a part of the dialog about topics in biomedical informatics. To paraphrase Dorothy, “Exomes and genomes and VUSes…oh my!” Time to go back to high school biology, but not the version most of us took!!!!….the one they’re teaching now. Our fourth episode of this year covers a very current informatics topic—how health care is using your genomic information to understand your symptoms and your diagnoses. This idea of genome-informed medicine is a major part of precision medicine. It’s been at the center of cancer therapy for a few decades and is now becoming a part of health care beyond cancer. Here’s the rub: most doctors don’t know very much about it. So it’s up to those of us who understand it and who specialize in informatics to come to the rescue. You’ll meet three such informatician/genomic medicine experts on this episode. Sarah Bland, one of the most insightful and quick-witted people I have the pleasure of working with is on this podcast as both an expert in the issues and as the person who keeps it real. Melissa McPheeters is a public health informatics and epidemiology expert. For those of you who’ve been listening to IIR for over a year, you’ve heard Melissa discuss COVID with us before. However, her other life at Vanderbilt has been helping to coordinate and think critically about how we can bring patient’s genomics into the care of everyday physicians and advanced practices nurses. As you’ll see, although this is a relatively new area for her, she has mastered much of it! Travis Osterman is a physician I’ve often called the doctor’s doctor (at least this doctor, should I ever get cancer.) He’s the consummate professional and a terrific communicator. Because of his expertise in cancer informatics, he’s one of the most knowledgeable people in the country about genome-informed care, and brings that knowledge to a very challenging discussion. We start off the discussion not with a songwriter/singer, but with a Songwriter/singer’s most essential team member. Gaelyn Garrett is Senior Executive Medical Director of the Vanderbilt Voice Center, Guy M. Maness Chair, Laryngology and Voice, and Professor of Otolaryngology.

Our third episode of this year covers a very important, timely, and relevant topic. Every so often the Federal government passes landmark legislation. We’re going to see what’s happening at Vanderbilt, which is a microcosm of what’s happening in your world as a result of 21st Century Cures and the specific actions it is requiring to stop information blocking. Huh? Yea, we’ll get into what that means. We have Dr. Trent Rosenbloom, an expert in biomedical informatics and especially technologies that are used by patients to manage their health information. Trent’s been at the forefront of this issue and has way more than one podcast to share with us. We might well have him back in a few months to discuss how this is going in more detail. Trent is joined by Sarah Bland, one of the very insightful and quick witted people I have the pleasure of working with on this podcast from time to time. Thanks, Sarah, as always. Although the masks she was wearing on our zoom recording were next-level weird. You’ll see those pics on our podbean-based website for Informatics in the Round, on our Facebook site, on Twitter, on Instagram, and maybe soon even on TikTok! One thing I love about Nashville—Music City as it’s often called—is that you can find a fantastic singer or songwriter almost everywhere you look. This episode is no exception! Will Comstock, one of the amazing, affable, and always professional administrative staff in my department, is also a wonderful musician and songwriter and blessed this show with his voice and his creativity. He also, by the way, shared an important piece of personal insight, from which part of the opening clip was snipped.

Our second episode of this year is fascinating. What do phenotypes, COVID, Cancer, Spiderman, and Jurassic Park have in common? Well, we talk about almost all of this in the episode, but I bring up Spiderman now, and the Peter Parker principle (With great power comes great responsibility....) We welcome back Shannon Rich (@richones1), a regular on this show and a constant boost of energy and cynicism. Jane Bach (@janebach) also returns for this episode, with a great song that hints at the subtext of our conversation. Wei QI Wei, PhD (@weiweiqi) is a national expert in phenotyping— the science of using analytics and natural language processing to uniquely identify subgroups of people in a medical record system who have specific defining characteristics. Jane was kind enough to send me a fabulous recording of "I Am One" written by Jane Bach, Sandra Piller, Jeanie McQuinn. Vocals by Briana Tyson. Copyright Piller Sounds Music Publishing (ASCAP), Great Big River Music (BMI). Check out that lyric video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyKN0Gk2-3M Kevin

Season 2 is here! Our first episode of this year should have the theme, meeting guests where they are. We welcome back Sarah Bland who is a regular on the podcast, for which I’m very thankful. Sarah is a leading project manager in our biomedical informatics department, and is extremely knowledgeable about informatics and precision medicine, very funny, but who also has life experiences very relevant to this episode that she shares. Alissa Abeler and Hannah Smith are a wonderful team. In their professional life they are the singer/songwriter duo called The Daily Fare. Check out their brand of Indie Americana music in this episode and on their website https://www.thedailyfaremusic.com or on Facebook. They also have had "quite the year" and take this episode in a critical direction. Thank you! Dr. Colin Walsh is a national expert in predictive analytics (AI, machine learning) focusing on mental health and behavioral disorders. Colin is a physician who cares deeply about wellness issues. ---- So, what data do we need to manage life after COVID? That was the initial focus of the episode. But one of the themes of the conversation is what are the questions people need to be asking today so that we can capture the information they need us in healthcare to know? Speaking of questions, I need to hear from you about topics you want us to cover. I’m on Twitter @KBJVanderbilt, and you can also leave me comments on my Facebook site for informatics in the round, or on this site.