Evidence Integration into Clinical Systems

Improving clinical decision support and the practice of evidence-based medicine through the integration of evidence into clinical systems has been a strong focus at the Center for Knowledge Management (CKM) for several years. Our approach includes capturing, organizing, and creating metadata schemas for local decision support within medical center systems, and connecting the knowledge built into the clinical systems and practices for current and future reuse. More

Health-Related Social Needs

Social and environmental factors greatly impact health, yet they are often not considered in medical practice. Our research has focused on evaluating questionnaires for systematically collecting information about health-related social needs in clinical settings. We have also developed a database to help connect patients with resources to help address unmet needs. More

Consumer Health Informatics

A lack of access to easy-to-understand health information can hinder patients from becoming true partners in their care and detrimentally affect health outcomes.  Through a series of studies, CKM found that tailoring information to health literacy level and learning style preferences enhances patient understanding of health information. Recently, CKM developed and tested a strategy for creating lay-level content about genetics and precision medicine using health literacy and learning style principles. More

Precision Medicine

The overall goal of precision medicine is to integrate molecular, clinical and environmental data to improve patient outcomes and reduce potential adverse side effects and costs.  CKM contributes to both institutional and national precision medicine initiatives.  More

Recruitment in Clinical Trials

One of the challenges in clinical trials is ensuring study participants represent all populations, so that results can be generalizable. In collaboration with VUMC’s Recruitment Innovation Center, CKM information scientists evaluate evidence related to recruitment and retention in clinical trials. More