Well, here we are—the final episode of Informatics in the Round (we think!). After five incredible years, 38 episodes, and thousands of listeners, we’ve decided it’s time to wrap up this journey. But first, we’re taking a minute (or maybe two hours) to reflect on this wild ride—and we’ve brought some people you might recognize! In this episode, we …

What role can AI play in mental health care? Let’s talk about it! In this year's final episode of Informatics in the Round, we explore how AI can assist both patients seeking diagnoses and treatments for mental health disorders as well as therapists looking to improve their clinical practice. While AI offers exciting possibilities, we also address …

Can AI do our jobs better than we can? Let’s test it! You might have noticed that this episode got off to a strange start… who were those people talking anyway? That, my friends, was Google NotebookLM’s best shot at recording this very podcast. In it, two AI-generated guests conduct an ironic “deep dive” into the topic we are discussing in this epi…

What exactly is a “learning health system”? In several of our episodes, you’ve heard us talk about how data collection has modernized through new technologies and enhanced approaches to clinical trials. But now that we have all that data, we need to transform it into clinical practice. Learning health systems are all about completing this virtuous …

Live from the studio, it's Informatics in the Round! Okay, we aren't technically live, but we are bringing you an extra special episode from the Penn Engineering Online studio! Since all our guests are from the University of Pennsylvania, we thought we would sit down in-person to enjoy this lively discussion. Today we are talking all about chatbots…

Welcome, everyone, to your introductory course in public health informatics! On today's episode, we discuss all things public health, including what it is, how it varies on a state and national level, and how health departments respond to public health crises. We demystify some of our misconceptions about how the public health system works, like ho…

It’s no secret that handling medical data is complicated and time-consuming. Of course, the goal is to address the patient buried beneath the in-depth patient notes, multiple EHRs, and drug prescriptions. Perhaps technology can make that a bit easier! In this episode, we have the special privilege of hearing the research of two graduate students wh…

What happens when you bring together three previous heads of biomedical informatics departments? A lot of reflection, storytelling, and joking around! In this episode, we bring together guests who have previously run informatics departments and are still involved in various ways, whether through research, teaching, or creating content to educate th…

How does social media challenge or reinforce our own biases? On this episode, we sat down with the University of Pennsylvania's Desmond Upton Patton to discuss his research on social media and adolescence. We talk about the many roles social media has for young people and how they have taken advantage of social media as a storytelling mechanism and…

Is every clinical trial created equal? In this episode, we learn some shocking information about the proportions of populations normally included in clinical trials. We specifically cover recent treatments for Alzheimer’s disease to discuss how we may have failed to consider minority populations in our research and how we can use precision medicine…

In this episode, we tackle an all-too-familiar topic: misinformation. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen how technology and social media can be used to both spread health information awareness and popularize misinformation. The question remains: in the age of technology, how can we be sure about the validity of the information we are receivi…

In this episode, we look at the genetic basis for different psychiatric disorders, the interconnectedness of psychological and physical symptoms, and how they apply to our ongoing conversation regarding health equity. For this episode, we welcomed back some of our previous guests: Lea Davis Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Division of Genetic…

In this episode, we talk a bit about the recent advances in large language models, also known as GPT/ChatGPT. We have two wonderful guests: Christoph U. Lehmann, M.D., is a Professor of Pediatrics, Population and Data Sciences, and Bioinformatics at UT Southwestern, where he directs the Clinical Informatics Center. In addition, Chris was the first …

This episode is going to introduce the concepts of health equity and biomedical informatics. We'll revisit this theme multiple times in 2023 but ST and I wanted to kick off the year with this overview that will also serve to provide a framework for some of what we will be discussing as we revisit this theme. We are really lucky to have two guests, …

This episode, ST and I cover one of the hottest non-COVID topics in healthcare today. We strike at the heart of clinician burnout and in particular issues related to unnecessary documentation. Our guests today were discovered by Sam Butler from Epic, who invited them to present their incredible work at a national meeting where I was an attendee. I …

This promises to be an incredibly informative podcast for most of us., If there was anything learned from the pandemic, it was the importance of data and helping most of us track SARS CoV2 prevalence wherever we traveled when we traveled, as well as to manage vaccine compliance within specific regions or states. Health information exchange was vita…

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! The overturning of Roe v. Wade has had a sign…

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 …

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 Endowme…

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…

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! ------------------- In this episode of Informatics in the Round, we get …

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…

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…

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 …

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 informatio…

Our second episode of this year is fascinating. What do phenotypes, COVID, Cancer, Spiderman, and Jurassic Park have in common? Well, we talk about almost all of this in the episode, but I bring up Spiderman now, and the Peter Parker principle (With great power comes great responsibility....) We welcome back Shannon Rich (@richones1), a regular on …

Season 2 is here! Our first episode of this year should have the theme, meeting guests where they are. We welcome back Sarah Bland who is a regular on the podcast, for which I’m very thankful. Sarah is a leading project manager in our biomedical informatics department, and is extremely knowledgeable about informatics and precision medicine, very fu…

We conclude the 2020 year with an episode that straddles informatics education and social issues. Oliver Bear Don’t Walk is a PhD candidate doing informatics research in the Columbia University Department of Biomedical Informatics. He’s joined by Suzanne B. Bakken, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, FACMI, one of the world’s most prominent figures in informatics, an…

This episode includes a number of people who’ve become regulars of late: Shannon Rich is funny, irreverent, but also at times seriously frustrated, and all that comes out in the hour plus of this discussion. Jane Bach, one of the world’s well-known songwriters, returns and also has a lot to say. Dax Westerman, an incredibly thoughtful and articulat…

I’m Dr. Kevin Johnson, physician and informatics chair at Vanderbilt. @kbjvanderbilt on Twitter. This episode covers the most requested topic we have had so far. We have two of the world’s experts on the topic of data privacy on the show today: Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton and Dr. Brad Malin. They were incredibly generous with their time and had a lot …

This episode focuses on the challenge of software deployment from the perspective of two completely different industries that share more in common than we realized. Oh, and of course, because this is Informatics IN THE ROUND, we get into music. But not into country music, AT ALL. We discover a connection between music and the environment that may s…

This episode focuses on the issues surrounding George Floyd and anti-black racism, and what we in informatics can do to combat this issue that's finally been thrust into the light where enough Americans can see it that they are calling for action. (Thank you, America. Better late than never.) Special thanks to our guests! Dr. Arie Nettles is Profes…

This episode we talk about one of the hottest areas of research in the field of informatics: Precision Medicine. Precision medicine is the culmination of years of work collecting health care data about every individual and putting it into a computable form in an electronic health record. The holy grail of informatics was the idea that we could reus…

This episode of Informatics in the Round includes a number of fantastic guests. Josh Peterson (heard first after my introduction to the episode, but not formally introduced in the audio) is an internist, a brilliant informatician, and an expert in precision medicine here. Josh received his M.D. through the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine i…

We decided to publish this episode before one that was recorded earlier, because the theme of this episode was simply too important to NOT publish now, given all that we are facing with tornados and COVID-19. This was a remarkable episode, and one that I think should help many people understand what role biomedical informatics can play and is playi…

Thanks to my guests: Michael Matheny, MD, MS, MPH, co-author of a recent report on AI from the National Academy of Medicine; Tom Lasko, MD, PhD, specialist in deep learning in medicine, Freneka Minter, PhD, Ms, MCHES, PMP, Senior Research Specialist, Vanderbilt University Medical Center Elyse Adler, Assistant Director for Education and Literacy, Na…

Thanks to my guests! Jane Bach (songwriter and educator) (https://www.janebach.com/) her husband Gary, Daniel Fabbri (informatics) and Shannon Rich (twitter star!) This episode, we get into the opportunities and challenges that arise when a computer scientist wants to change health care using machine learning, novel technologies, and "obvious" impr…

Thanks to my guests! Rhett McDaniel (songwriter), Adam Wright (informatics) and Shannon Rich (twitter star!) This episode covers an essential topic that I'm sure is on everyone's mind: What exactly is biomedical informatics? We had a good time discussing it, and hopefully cleared it up a little for some of you. Let us know what you think!…

Bonus Episode! Ever wonder what goes into picking a podcast title? No? Then you're not quite as obsessive as a typical person doing biomedical informatics! Take a listen to some of the potential titles for this podcast, and meet a couple of people who do work in the field, with a few laughs along the way (at least I laughed!) Thanks to Scott Nelson…