The Clinical Informatics Center at UT Southwestern hosts the Clinical Informatics Research Colloquium to highlight the outstanding work done at UT Southwestern and partnering organizations in the clinical informatics space. This is part of our effort to bring clinical informatics, research informatics, and other data and informatics scientists together at UT Southwestern to foster exchange of ideas, collaboration, and development of grants, papers, and novel projects.  

We are very pleased that our June Colloquium will feature Adam Wright, Ph.D., Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Director of the Vanderbilt Clinical Informatics Center and Bryan Steitz, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Wright will present his talk “Measuring and Monitoring Clinical Decision Support Using Audit Log Data”. Dr. Steitz will present his talk “Evaluating the Work of Managing Clinical Messages Using EHR Access Logs”. 

Dr. Wright’s Abstract: Clinical decision support (CDS) has been shown to improve quality and safety when used effectively.  However, effective CDS is challenging, and users often report poor utility of CDS interventions and alert fatigue and proving that CDS has an impact on clinical outcomes has been difficult. EHRs frequently log a large amount of data about CDS firing and performance, but this data is not consistently used or monitored. In this talk, I will present recent research on measurement and monitoring of CDS systems, with a focus on detecting malfunctions, improving CDS and monitoring user feedback. 

Dr. Steitz’s Abstract: Electronic health record (EHR)-based asynchronous communication, also known as inbasket messaging, is essential to support clinical practice. Despite the utility, a high volume of messages and the time necessary to manage one’s inbox have been identified as major contributors to job dissatisfaction. Message volume, however, presents a simplified view of the wider task of managing these communications. The breadth of data collected during routine EHR use offers critical insight into the articulation work surrounding clinical messages such that we can improve the task of inbasket management. In this talk, I will present ongoing research using EHR access logs to investigate the articulation work of managing clinical messages, with a particular focus on task interruption and information seeking. 

The colloquium will be hosted on and recorded by Zoom. The date and time is Tuesday, June 29, 2021, 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.