Author: Paul Govern
Grant supports speedy sorting of health records by phenotype
Feb. 11, 2021—Wei-Qi Wei, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Biomedical Informatics and scientific director of the Precision Phenotyping Core at the Center for Precision Medicine, has been awarded a four-year, $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue development of high-throughput software for quickly identifying traits of interest, or phenotypes, in electronic health records (EHRs).
Study will delve into EHR for signs of suicidality
Feb. 11, 2021—Retrieval of clearer, more complete information from the EHR could go a long way toward improving predictive models of who will next be at risk of suicide, thereby improving care for patients with suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
Study finds recommended ICU sedatives equally safe, effective
Feb. 2, 2021—Sedative medications used in intensive care are associated with increased delirium, which is in turn connected with higher medical costs and greater risk of death and ICU-related dementia.
Vitamin D activation and cancer risk
Jan. 7, 2021—Vitamin D protection against colon cancer varies according to parathyroid hormone response, particularly among women.
Building a cohort, the easy way
Jan. 7, 2021—An automated system using keyword searches can help identify candidates for clinical trials on adverse drug reactions.
Model students: improving clinical decision-making
Dec. 10, 2020—Vanderbilt investigators have devised a system to alert health IT teams to deteriorating performance in clinical prediction models.
Genes spell penicillin allergy risk
Oct. 1, 2020—Studies using large DNA biobanks revealed genetic variants associated with penicillin allergy, the most common type of drug-induced allergic reaction.
Throwing weight around on the internet
Sep. 21, 2020—What users mention in online weight loss forum tracks with how much weight they lose.
VUMC to lay groundwork for Tennessee’s first federally funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center
Sep. 10, 2020—Angela Jefferson, PhD, professor of Neurology and director of the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer’s Center, has been awarded a $3.7 million, three-year grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to support establishment of a prospective NIA-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Study uses AI to sort patient messages by complexity
Aug. 27, 2020—Taking an interest in electronic message threads between surgical patients and their health care teams, a research group at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has tested how well certain commonly used machine learning algorithms can classify such exchanges according to their clinical decision-making complexity.
Land of plenty (of opioids)
Aug. 24, 2020—Surgical patients are being given more opioids than they need for postsurgical pain management, raising the risk of addiction.
Cashew shell compound appears to mend damaged nerves
Aug. 17, 2020—In laboratory experiments, a chemical compound found in the shell of the cashew nut promotes the repair of myelin, a team from Vanderbilt University Medical Center reported Aug. 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.