Informatics in the Round

Finding Peace in Portals

 
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:
Special shout-out to Deborah Estrin, whose work on breadcrumbs informed our "wish list" for interoperability. Her TED talk on the topic is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAEhSGYEHWU
Jeanie's production company is Great Big River Music. Check them out!
Jane has a new project that hasn't been formally announced, but you can follow her on https://janebachmusic.com/
 
 

Informatics, the EHR and LGBTQ+: Another issue out of the closet!

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.  
 

Who, Me? My Road to Informatics

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.  
Sarah Bland, a leader in Vanderbilt’s Center for Precision Medicine is here, along with her son Bradley.
Dr. Yaa Kumah Crystal, a clinical informatics expert and role model for African American women, is here with her son Jude.
Jane Bach (songwriter and storyteller extraordinaire) is here
Shannon Rich (my very smart and very courageous friend) is here.
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!

21st Century Cures: What Song are People Singing?

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! 
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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
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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!

Clinician Burnout

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.
Allison McCoy is an assistant  professor of biomedical informatics at VUMC, 
Sarah Bland is a senior project manager and all-round funny person, also at VUMC
Suzie Brown Sacks was a special guest on both episodes.  She’s a terrific storyteller, as we’ve come to learn, and uses those stories to illustrate her life in podcasts, and in song.
We had two other special guests on this episode:
Sarah Collins Rossetti  Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Nursing, Columbia University
Mollie Hobensack,  Doctoral Student, National Institute of Nursing Research Predoctoral Trainee, Columbia University School of Nursing
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

Women in Healthcare: A View from their Homes

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!

Genome-informed Care Decisions: Welcome to Cutting-edge Medicine!

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.  

21st Century Cures: Curing our Anxiety or Causing It?

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.