Informatics in the Round Kevin B. Johnson, MD, MS

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 who have found the biggest pain points in our primary healthcare system and have brainstormed ways that technology, especially emerging AI, can help address these issues. Every listener will find a way to relate to the stories shared in this episode, and we hope our discussion about the short-term and long-term goals for the application of AI in medicine makes you optimistic about the future of primary healthcare!
Trevor Martinez is a current master’s student at the University of Pennsylvania pursuing an MSE in bioengineering. He is primarily interested in the fields of biomedical data science, healthcare, and medical devices. Pavan Patel is a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania pursuing a dual MBA/MA from the Wharton School and the Lauder Institute, and he is also a computer science student at Penn Engineering. Previously, he worked in healthcare at Hazel Health and in private credit and equity at Bain Capital and CI Capital. It was great to hear what these young minds came up with, and they graciously shared some of the visuals they created to explain information silos. If you want to view the visuals along with the podcast, make sure to watch via our YouTube channel!
We also had Dr. Ross Koppel hop on this episode. Dr. Koppel is a professor of sociology and medical informatics at the University of Pennsylvania, a Senior Fellow at Penn’s Center for Public Health Initiative, and a Senior Fellow at Penn’s Institute for Biomedical Informatics. His hundreds of articles focus on the cybersecurity, usability, and ethics of healthcare information technology and has greatly impacted the field’s understanding of how we can improve human-computer interactions and better integrate HIT into hospital workflow. He was the perfect person to chime in on Trevor and Pavan’s research!
Finally, we had the great pleasure of welcoming a new co-host to our podcast! Dr. Stacy Iannone is the project manager for Dr. Johnson’s lab, which researches computationally-enhanced healthcare. She brings with her an extensive background in clinical research. We were so excited to have her share her insights and experiences on this episode! 
We really enjoyed discussing these students’ insightful research and debating how we see AI entering the conversation. We hope you enjoy listening!
 
Mentioned in this episode:
-”5 Tactics to Break Down Silos and Support Cross-Functional Collaboration” by Rhonda Stewart
 
Check out Rhett McDaniel's newest album Rhett McDaniel's Contribution to the Noise Floor
 
Make sure to follow our Instagram, Twitter, Threads, and TikTok accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd. You can also find us wherever you typically get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!
 
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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 the public. We get the inside scoop into all the administrative responsibilities of these department chairs, their favorite parts of the job, and how they hope to see the field respond to modern technological developments like AI.
We had some fantastic guests on this episode.  Dr. William (Bill) Hersh is a Professor in the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE) in the School of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Dr. Hersh served as the inaugural Chair of DMICE from its inception in 2003 through 2022. He also served as Director of OHSU's Biomedical Informatics Graduate Program, from its inception in 1996 through 2023. Dr. Hersh also conceptualized and implemented the first offering of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 10x10 ("ten by ten") program; his course has been completed by more than 3000 individuals since 2005. In addition, he serves as Editor of the textbook, Health Informatics: Practical Guide, 8th Edition. Since stepping down as department chair, Dr. Hersh has maintained his research and teaching activities, and writes the Informatics Professor blog.
Dr. George Hripcsak is the Vivian Beaumont Allen Professor at Columbia University's Department of Biomedical Informatics. He led Columbia University's informatics department for 15 years. He currently leads the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics coordinating center, which organizes the health records of almost one billion patients. He has authored over 350 scientific papers, serves as the PI for Columbia's recruitment center for the All of Us precision medicine program, and focuses his research on developing the next generation of health record systems.
Finally, our host turned guest for this episode! Dr. Kevin Johnson is the David L. Cohen University Professor of Pediatrics, Biomedical Informatics, and Science Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Before Penn, he was the Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University from 2012-2022. He currently researches how to integrate advanced technology and artificial intelligence with health documentation systems. And, of course, he loves sharing informatics with a wider audience whether through his children's books, his documentary projects, or this podcast!
Thanks to our host Harris Bland and our production assistant Ellie Shuert for leading us through this discussion. We loved reminiscing together, and we hope you enjoy getting an inside look into informatics departments!
Make sure to follow our Instagram, Twitter, Threads, and TikTok accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd and @htbland21. You can also find us wherever you typically get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!
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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 a tool for navigating safety. We discuss how social media can also be reductionist, reinforce negative stereotypes, and even perpetuate misinformation, revealing the flaws in AI and similar technologies. Desmond talks us through all these facets of social media in relation to his work and challenges us to think about what it would look like to recognize social media as increasingly integrated into our reality.
We were so excited to have Dr. Desmond Upton Patton with us for this episode. Desmond is not only a great friend, but an incredible scholar. As a social worker, researcher, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Desmond has published groundbreaking research on the linkage between grief and aggressive behavior on social media platforms, and now his research focuses on the topics such AI, social media, machine learning, empathy, and race with the goal to create unbiased and culturally conscious algorithms. In addition, he serves on the research and safety advisory boards of Twitter, Spotify, and TikTok, and he has been chosen as part of the inaugural cohort of Obama Foundation Leaders for his research. Now, he is the director for the research initiative known as SAFELab at the Annenberg School for Communication, a project we will hear more about in this episode!
We also had with us songwriters Alissa Abeler and Hannah Smith from the Americana duo The Daily Fare. They shared amazing insights not just on their own experiences with social media, but also on songwriting and the storytelling process.
We were so thankful to have this group of people in discussion with us, and we hope you enjoy the episode!
Mentioned in this episode: 
-Sing Me a Story
-AIDS Memorial Quilt
-Follow SAFELab on Twitter
Make sure to follow our Instagram, Twitter, Threads, TikTok, and Facebook accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd and @htbland21. You can also find us wherever you typically get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!
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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 to create more equitable clinical trials. We also discuss how we can redevelop trust in scientific institutions in the wake of the pandemic and how health professionals can adapt their research techniques to include data from historically underrepresented populations.
We had a wonderful cast join us for this episode. We had Stephanie Monroe, Vice President and Senior Advisor of Health Equity and Access for UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, a national advocacy group that aims to diversify the movement to cure Alzheimer’s disease. After working on Capitol Hill and holding the position of Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights for three years, Stephanie’s work has focused on raising awareness about the disparate impact of Alzheimer’s disease on communities of color and women.
We also had Consuelo Wilkins, Senior Vice President and Senior Associate Dean of Health Equity and Inclusive Excellence, and a Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and works with the All of Us Research Program, a national precision medicine project. She is also the Principal Investigator of three NIH-funded centers which aim to decrease health disparities for communities of color and create new approaches to recruiting marginalized communities for clinical trials. 
This conversation was so fun and yielded so many valuable insights regarding how we can create more equitable research for communities of color. We hope you enjoy the episode!
Interested in how misinformation circulates? Listen to our previous podcast episode with guest Evan Thornburg.
Make sure to follow our Instagram, Twitter, Threads, TikTok, and Facebook accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd and @htbland21. You can also find us wherever you typically get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!
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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 receiving online, and how can we all be vigilant against the spread of misinformation?
To help us, we had the wonderful Evan Thornburg join us for today's podcast. Evan is a bioethicist and health equity officer for the City of Pennsylvania's Department of Public Health. In the past, they've also worked in the Philadelphia Mayor's Office as Deputy Director of LGBT. After completing a Master's of Arts in Urban Bioethics at Temple University's Lewis Katz School of Medicine and writing their thesis on the spread of misinformation, Evan took to TikTok, utilizing the platform to share their knowledge about bioethics, comment on current health news, and challenge the online community to be discerning about how they absorb and converse about health information. You can find Evan on TikTok at EVN the (Bio) Ethicist.
We loved talking with Evan, and we hope you come out of this episode with some practical tools to help you filter the information you see on social media!
Learn more about ethical research conduct from government websites such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the American Psychological Association. 
Check out what the American Board of Internal Medicine has to say about the rise of misinformation:
-https://blog.abim.org/an-update-on-our-efforts-to-address-medical-misinformation/
-https://blog.abim.org/new-paper-recommends-creating-a-durably-funded-infrastructure-for-media-monitoring-and-effective-coordinated-responses-to-medical-misinformation/
Learn more about the work Desmond Upton Patton is doing with SAFELab here: https://www.asc.upenn.edu/research/centers/safe-lab
Make sure to follow our Instagram, Twitter, Threads, TikTok, and Facebook accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd and @htbland21. You can also find us wherever you typically get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!
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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 Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Her work explores the genomic architecture of complex traits, defined as the type, frequency, and function of DNA variants en masse that contribute to the genetic predisposition of a given trait.
We also welcomed back the talented Jane Bach, a successful songwriter from Nashville, to help us dissect how exactly gene inheritance works and share her stories and music with us! Ellie Shuert, our new production assistant from the University of Pennsylvania, also joined in for the discussion. They both made our conversation so lively and fun, and they really helped us dig deep into the fundamentals of genetics and the importance of listening intentionally to patients' stories and symptoms.
We have new social media pages! Make sure to follow our new Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Threads accounts so you can stay up to date on all our new content. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kbjohnsonmd and @htbland21. Thanks for listening!
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