News

Two of the “top 10” papers representing key advances in genomic medicine published between September 2020 and August 2021 were written by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. One of the papers, published in June 2021 in JAMA Internal Medicine, described how a gene variant that lowers white blood cell counts and which is common in those with African ancestry contributes to unnecessary bone marrow biopsies.

The 21st Century Cures Act Interoperability Final Rule calls for improved information sharing between clinicians and their patients. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) created a series of five minute "Quick Talks" in which AAP members address common questions and concerns about the Final Rule. 

The first study to evaluate the clinical characteristics and outcomes of fully vaccinated patients with cancer who had breakthrough COVID-19 infections indicates they remained at high risk for hospitalization and death.

Information based biomedical discovery, in particular the push toward precision medicine, depends on open-ended analysis of de-identified data from patients and research participants on the largest possible scale. Sharing data while controlling the risk of data reidentification under privacy attack is vital to the enterprise.

The Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) Department of Biomedical Informatics's (DBMI) monthly newsletter, DBMI Digest, is now available to view. Read the December 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. 

Vanderbilt University Medical Center patients are overwhelmingly in favor of having immediate electronic access to their clinical test results, recent surveys show.  A federal rule, called the 21st Century Cures Act, in effect since April 5 was designed in part to ensure that patients are given electronic access to their health information upon their request and at no cost, including, with very few exceptions, immediate access to any clinical test results. 

Six current faculty members at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have made this year’s list of scientists whose papers have been cited most frequently by other researchers. They are among 6,600 researchers around the world identified by the global analytics firm Clarivate whose publications rank in the top 1% by citations for field of research and publication year in the Web of Science citation index. VUMC researchers on the list this year include:

Reducing documentation burden on U.S. clinicians is an urgent priority within the health care community, and leaders around the field continue to collaborate on this effort since the conclusion of the 25x5 Symposium, held over six weeks in early 2021 to set the foundation for those efforts.  The 25x5 Symposium was developed to establish strategies and approaches to reduce clinician documentation burden on U.S. clinicians by 75% by 2025. 

The Vanderbilt Department of Biomedical Informatics is accepting applications for our PhD and MS programs until January 15, 2022. 

Ten leaders from across the enterprise in clinical care, research, education and administration have been named as holders of endowed directorships.