Sara Saif, a second-year student at Belmont University’s College of Pharmacy, accepted an internship at Vanderbilt University’s Biomedical Informatics Summer Research Program. By joining this program, Saif will actively apply the subject of informatics to address healthcare challenges.
Throughout her internship, she will be working directly under the guidance of Dr. Jeremy Warner, an associate professor of medicine and biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University. With Dr. Warner as a mentor, Saif will be able to work with data regarding the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium.
As a current student in the Belmont University College of Pharmacy, Saif not only receives a strong clinical foundation, but also valuable training on healthcare information technology and its use in the practice of pharmacy. This training in informatics has proved to be useful to her in the application process and will continue to be a valuable resource throughout her internship at Vanderbilt.
Dr. Anthony Blash, Pharm.D., BCompSc., CPHIMS, associate professor and lecturer in the College of Pharmacy’s Healthcare Informatics concentration, has created a sequence of five courses and a one-month intensive experiential rotation to prepare Belmont’s student pharmacists to become future leaders in healthcare informatics. “Nashville is considered by many to be home to the U.S. healthcare industry, with nearly 300 companies providing healthcare synergies found in few other places,” said Blash. “If your interests lie in healthcare and informatics, our program stands apart. Our students have the opportunity to develop an impressive project portfolio during their time at Belmont, working on projects such as the creation of smart pump clinical decision support, live EHR implementations, becoming Data Analysts while exploring Big Data and Analytics with Microsoft SQL and creating Artificial Intelligence Software for Amazon Alexa.”
As a HIMSS Approved Education Partner, Belmont’s College of Pharmacy is the only pharmacy school in the world with a healthcare informatics concentration leading to an internationally recognized certification in healthcare informatics, which may be obtained before experiential rotations, residency inquiries and job searches begin.
The informatics concentration at Belmont is collaborating with interested organizations to provide competent student and graduate healthcare informaticians with clinical knowledge as grad-student team members and plans to expand its program to include residents and/or fellows. This collaboration would be of no cost to the partnering organization and could help to advance Healthcare Informatics initiatives currently underway or in the planning phase. To find out more about this exciting opportunity, please contact Dr. Blash at: Anthony.Blash@belmont.edu
