by Madison Agee
As the newly named chief medical information officer for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Dara Mize, MD, MS, assumes a critical role for the health system. She will serve on the HealthIT executive team as the primary liaison to clinical leadership across VUMC. Mize will lead the team of clinical directors who have extensive expertise in clinical informatics. These clinical directors work with HealthIT experts to analyze, develop and implement solutions that optimize the use of technology and its impact on caring for VUMC’s patients and families.
Mize has been with VUMC since 2012, when she joined the health system to complete a fellowship in endocrinology. She began working with HealthIT in 2016 during the early stages of the EpicLeap project, helping design and implement how clinicians would be trained to use the newly implemented electronic health record, eStar. After that project went live, she then created the eStar Clinician Champion model, which engages clinicians across VUMC to serve as ambassadors and experts for the use of eStar in their areas. Mize continues to provide leadership for this program.
In addition to her work on implementing eStar, Mize has led and participated in a wide array of informatics-related projects at VUMC. She is particularly proud of her work in switching VUMC’s newly acquired regional hospitals from their legacy clinical systems to those used throughout VUMC. According to Chief Information Officer Neal Patel, MD, MPH, “Dara was an essential clinical informatics leader for these IT transitions. Her skill at navigating a multitude of stakeholders and partnering with technical experts was key to these projects’ success.”
Mize’s engineering background helped stimulate her interest in informatics—she passionately advocates for structured processes, thoughtful design, and an unwavering consideration for the experience of the end users of technology, especially VUMC’s patients and families.
Chief Medical Officer Paul Sternberg Jr., MD, has worked with Mize for many years. He noted, “Dara is the consummate leader in matching informatics expertise with a deep understanding of clinical practice. Dating back to EpicLeap, I have had the privilege to partner with Dara on a number of critical initiatives and implementations and have found her indispensable to the success of the project.”
On Mize’s immediate radar are several critical and transformative efforts, including ongoing consideration for reducing the burden of clinicians, nurses and other staff using VUMC’s technology (which will hopefully address one root cause of burnout among health care teams). Another upcoming focus for Mize will be continuing efforts to address capacity issues and improve efficiency and throughput within VUMC’s hospitals.
“VUMC is so fortunate to have someone as talented and skilled as Dr. Mize to assume the role of CMIO,” explained Patty Wright, MD, Chief of Staff for Adult Ambulatory Clinics, Davidson County. “She excels at bridging the worlds of clinical care and technology and is respected across the institution for her ability to find HealthIT solutions for complex clinical care issues.”
