The May 2024 issue of the DBMI Digest is now available!
The May 2024 issue of the DBMI Digest is now available!

WATCH: Mental Health Awareness in the AANHPI Community Panel

On May 29, VUMC's Health Care Alliance of Asian American and Pacific Islanders (HAAPI) Employee Resource Group hosted a panel discussion with mental health professionals on mental health awareness in the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community. 
The panel was moderated by Mia Garchitorena-Scancarelli, Co-Chair of HAAPI. Click here to watch
In case you're interested, a great source for local AANHPI events, news, businesses, and resources is API Middle Tennessee! Visit here: https://www.apimidtn.org/

Table of Contents

  1. HR & Admin Updates
  2. DBMI Education Updates
  3. DBMI Faculty Updates
  4. DBMI/VCLIC Spotlight: Physician Buiders
  5. Open Positions & Upcoming Events

HR & Admin Updates

PTO REMINDER from Elizabeth Brown

Elizabeth Brown, Chief Business Officer in DBMI, asks that all supervisors approve their staff PTO requests within Workday in a timely manner.
  • If PTO has not been approved/denied within 5-6 days, then administration will approve the time.
  • If PTO is not approved, it can cause payroll issues, especially as we approach a bi-weekly or monthly payroll deadline. Administration will approve to avoid these issues, but prefer the supervisor approve themselves, so they have awareness of their team’s upcoming PTO.
If you have any questions or concerns, email elizabeth.a.brown@vumc.org

Key Dates to Know for Fiscal Year 2024 flexPTO Cutover

As we approach the end of the fiscal year 2024, there are a few important dates you should know about related to flexPTO. Managing your flexPTO balances effectively before year end can not only contribute to your well-being and job satisfaction but is also aids in the overall productivity and efficiency of your team.
One of the many benefits VUMC offers you is the option to roll over up to 40 hours of unused flexPTO to sick time off. But there's a cap of 160 hours for total sick time off. Sick time off can be used in accordance with the current VUMC sick policy, including using it to cover days before short-term disability kicks in. The good news is that you don't have to do anything — the hours will automatically be moved to your sick time off on July 1. Any unused flexPTO hours above 40.0 hours will be lost. Note: Some exceptions may apply. 
  • FY24 flexPTO: June 30, 2024 is the last day to use FY24 flexPTO allotments.
  • FY25 flexPTO allotments will be available on July 1 and must be used by June 30, 2025.
  • Staff can see FY25 flexPTO hours in Workday on July 1.
  • Staff can see hours rolled into FY25 sick time off from FY24 in Workday on July 1.
  • To view your flexPTO and sick time off balances:
    Log in to Workday
    Click on Time Off and Leave in the main menu
    Click on Time off Balance
    Change the date to July 1, 2024
You’ll see your full flexPTO allotment for FY25 and the rolled over hours (up to 40) to your sick time off from FY24. If you have questions about flexPTO, see the Medical Center flexPTO program page here or reach out to jennifer.martellotti@vumc.org

Annual Compliance Training Due June 17

It's your friendly reminder that the deadline for annual compliance training is June 17, 2024. Completing the annual training can help you to avoid common mistakes and violations around our key policies, including those focused on helping to reduce the risk to critical information systems.
 
In today's digital age, cybersecurity threats are becoming more prevalent and sophisticated. In fact, every 39 seconds, a hacker attacks a computer. As a result, the cybersecurity section of our annual training is crucial to help educate our employees on the importance of guarding against cyberattacks. The training focuses on two areas: 
  • One common threat is phishing, including the third-party impersonation technique. It happens when someone pretends to be a trusted vendor or colleague and asks for private information (e.g., payment information or passwords). If you receive an email that seems suspicious, forward to phishing@VUMC.org or call the VUMC Help Desk at 615-343-HELP.
  • While AI tools like ChatGPT and GPT4 can be helpful, they can also pose a risk to private information. To keep our data safe, only use VUMC-approved AI tools, which can be founds at https://www.vumc.org/dbmi/GenerativeAI
Remember, you must complete all the Learning Exchange required annual compliance courses viewable in the compliance portal by June 17 as well as the conflict of interest (COI) form by June 30 to be eligible for an annual increase. If you have any questions, please reach out to jennifer.martellotti@vumc.org

DBMI Education: Congrats to Our Graduates!

Congratulations to our graduates! Barrett Jones and Thomas Brown obtained their PhDs this year, and Hannah Slater and Uday Suresh completed the master’s degree program and will be continuing on to our PhD program. 

In addition, congratulations to MSACI Class of 2024Julie Bauml (pictured below, right), Adam BroslatEric BrownNick GoldsmithJay Patel, and Hanna Semega! Director Scott Nelson and Program Manager Claudia McCarn shared the following message: “We’re very proud of all your hard work and accomplishments. It’s been an honor and pleasure working with you and getting to see the wonderful people behind all the impressive resumes! Please stay in touch as we can't wait to see what's next in your journey.”

Pictured below: Kim UnertlBarrett JonesHannah SlaterPeter EmbíThomas BrownUday SureshJessica Ancker (left); the students with Rischelle Jenkins, who ordered a cake to celebrate! (middle); Scott NelsonJulie BaumlPeter Embí (right) 

Welcoming Our 2024 Vanderbilt Biomedical Informatics Summer Program (VBISP) Students! 

From May 28—August 2, 2024, DBMI is hosting a new group of VBISP students, including 1 high school student, 10 undergraduate students, and 3 graduate students at the MS level!
The majority of our VBISP students have some kind of technical background, with majors like computer science, data science, engineering, and a few students with a focus on biology. Our undergrad students span all levels of training (from rising sophomores to rising seniors), while our graduate students range from people straight out of undergrad to people who had previous careers and have now returned to school for additional training. For some of the students, this is their first experience doing research, while a few students have more experience/exposure to biomedical research. For almost all of them, it is their first time having an extended exposure to biomedical informatics and biomedical data science. 
A good way to meet and get to our VBISP students is to attend our VBISP Summer Seminar Series! Seminars are held from 11:00 am—12 pm CT on Mondays and Fridays. See the DBMI Events Page for a complete list of speakers and seminar presentations!
Pictured below: Some new DBMI sock swag to welcome our VBISP students (left and right); Icebreaker chats with VBISP students (middle). 

Faculty Affairs Updates, News & Publications

Last week, the HIMSS Tennessee Chapter hosted an Executive Dinner featuring insightful discussions led by Peter Embí & Dara Mize. The evening delved into the fascinating intersection of AI and health care, sparking engaging conversations and valuable insights. Click here to learn more about TN HIMSS.

Glenn Gobbel Retiring by End of June!

Glenn Gobbel, Research Associate Professor in DBMI and Medicine, will be officially retiring! His last day will be June 30, 2024. Congrats, Glenn!
Currently, the Center for Improving the Public's Health through Informatics (CIPHI) team is planning a retirement party for Glenn. Email joshua.osmanski@vumc.org if you'd like to participate!
Share your congratulatory messages with Glenn by emailing him at glenn.t.gobbel@vumc.org!

NEW STUDY: Identifying Erroneous Height & Weight Values from Adult EHRs in the All of Us Research Program

DBMI's Lina Sulieman, Robert Carroll, Paul Harris & Qingxia Chen investigated an automatic error detection algorithm for adult height and weight measurements in EHR for the All of Us Research Program. The study was published in the Journal of Biomedical Informatics

DBMI at the AMIA Clinical Informatics Conference

DBM faculty and trainees attended the recent Clinical Informatics Conference, hosted by AMIA, in Minneapolis. Pictured below: Allison McCoy and Josh Smith (who was named a 2024 Fellow of AMIA); Bryan Steitz and Uday Suresh at the poster sessions to present "Effect of Immediate Result Release on New Appointment Scheduling". 

DBMI/VCLIC Spotlight:

Physician Builders Help Close Care Gaps

Each month, we feature one of our DBMI faculty, staff, students, trainees or alumni. If you or someone you know is new to the department, has an interesting backstory, or is making an impact at work or in their personal lives, email Mia Garchitorena at mia.garchitorena@vumc.org!  
A group of physician builders from DBMI and the Vanderbilt Clinical Informatics Center (VCLIC)—Aileen Wright, MD, MS; Julian Genkins, MD; Sean Huang, MD—built some new functionality that allows VUMC physicians to close “care gaps” (i.e. overdue for LDL screening, or mammogram, etc.) in a single click. Previously, Epic would display the care gaps, but you had to address each of them manually – now, thanks to Aileen, Julian and Sean, you can handle some or all of them with a single click.
Here are some additional details for those who’d like to close care gaps efficiently from Storyboard:
On April 10, 2024, you will be able to place orders and take action on Care Gaps (health maintenance topics) from the storyboard. There are two ways to do this: 
Take action on individual Care Gaps one at a time: You can place orders for individual care gaps by clicking on the green check mark that appears when you hover over the Care Gap. You can also address the topic (e.g., postpone it) by clicking on the x.
Take action on multiple Care Gaps at the same time with a SmartSet: Click on the double green check mark to bring up a dynamic SmartSet with orders, diagnoses, and information specific to your patient’s Care Gaps. See this video on One Click Care Gap Closure and Tipsheet for more information. Send feedback or email julian.genkins@vumc.org.

NeoCommand in Demand: Wael Alrifai

DBMI secondary faculty member Wael Alrifai presented on his NeoCommand Epic Build project at Epic’s XGM conference earlier this month. 
Beyond that presentation, Wael’s work on this fantastic NICU dashboard has been presented as a Physician Builder Spotlight (requested by Epic trainers).
He has also met with several organizations who have asked for a demonstration and consultation to replicate the dashboard. Epic also just requested that it be incorporated into one of the most popular training courses (CLN 176 Physician Builder Analytics), as this concept did not exist in training materials before Epic saw Wael’s NeoCommand build. Finally, per a Neonatology Steering Board request NeoCommand is being adopted into Epic Foundation System in a basic form. 
Congratulations on a build well done, Wael! It’s an inspiration to see this work make it into so many Epic materials and other organizations. 

Open Positions

Feel free to share our DBMI Open Positions with your friends and colleagues! 
Contact Jennifer Martellotti with questions. 

REMINDER: Update Your DBMI Bio Page

REMINDER: Please review your DBMI bio page and notify us of any changes. Updates can include:
  • New headshot
  • Updated degrees, professional titles
  • Updated bio information
  • Adding Google Scholar, PubMed, LinkedIn URLs
Email Mia Garchitorena (mia.garchitorena@vumc.org) and Wil Comstock (wil.comstock@vumc.org).

Upcoming Events

Visit here for more details on upcoming events and previously recorded DBMI seminars.
Suggestions? Email dbmicomms@vumc.org.