Christine Lai, PhD

Christine Pikki Lai, Ph.D.: Christine joined the Department of Health as a Health Policy Analyst IV in January 2019. She started as a Health System Analyst III at Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute VHVI, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center VUMC in 2011. She then had been the principal statistician in Enterprise Analytics for four years. Christine’s works are mainly on integrating massive administrative, clinical and claims data from different sources. Completed works include stem cell transplant pricing, predictive modeling and financial risk assessment on episode of care/bundle payment initiatives.

Christine is a co-founder and currently a co-organizer of the Healthcare Analytics Meetup in Nashville. The Meetup started in late 2012 and has been providing a network and learning platform for people who are interested in health data analytics to share ideas and stay abreast of the dynamics in health care industry.  

Christine received a BSocSci from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a MA and a PhD in Economics from the University of Alabama.

Selected Publications:

Cox ZL, Lai P, Lewis CM, Lindenfeld J, Collins SP, Lenihan DJ. Customizing national models for a medical center's population to rapidly identify patients at high risk of 30-day all-cause hospital readmission following a heart failure hospitalization. Heart Lung. 2018 Jul - Aug;47(4):290-296

Cox ZL, Lai P, Lewis CM, Lenihan DJ. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Readmission Reports Inaccurately Describe an Institution’s Decompensated Heart Failure Admissions. Clinical Cardiology. 2017; 40(9): 620-625.

Cox ZL, Lewis CM, Lai P, Lenihan DJ. Validation of an automated electronic algorithm and "dashboard" to identify and characterize decompensated heart failure admissions across a medical center. American Heart Journal. 2017; 183:40-48.