Adam Wright, PhD, FACMI, FAMIA, FIAHSI

🧬 About Me

Hi, I’m Adam Wright — a professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the director of the Vanderbilt Clinical Informatics Center, or VCLIC. My work focuses on designing, evaluating, and implementing tools that help clinicians make better decisions, reduce errors, and ultimately deliver safer, smarter care.

I got my start at Stanford (BS in Mathematical and Computational Sciences) and later completed my PhD in Medical Informatics at Oregon Health & Science University. Before moving to Vanderbilt, I spent over a decade on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and worked on clinical decision support and innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Mass General Brigham.

I’m especially interested in how artificial intelligence — and increasingly, large language models — can be used in ways that are safe, transparent, and trustworthy in clinical settings. I’ve led NIH- and AHRQ-funded research into CDS safety, alert fatigue, adverse event detection, and national sharing of decision support content. I also teach, mentor, and serve on editorial boards, and I’m active in organizations like AMIA.

When I’m not teaching or writing code, you can find me hanging out with my family in Franklin, TN or thinking about the next research question that bridges technology, AI and clinical care.

🏥 VCLIC

VCLIC — the Vanderbilt Clinical Informatics Center — is where our research meets reality. It's a hub of innovation, operations, and training, bringing together faculty, students, and clinicians to address some of the most complex challenges in modern healthcare. We develop and evaluate tools like intelligent clinical decision support systems, predictive algorithms, and alert optimization strategies — all embedded in real clinical workflows.

We host the VCLIC Seminar Series, mentor residents and fellows, and collaborate with clinical and operational leaders across Vanderbilt. We also support Vanderbilt’s EHR innovation work and maintain a close partnership with AVAIL (the Advanced Vanderbilt AI Lab).

We're especially focused on safety and usability. Our projects include explainable AI for CDS alerts, large-scale monitoring for alert fatigue, and improving transparency in LLM-based systems.

🔬 Research

Explainable AI in healthcare
Clinical decision support reliability and safety
Machine learning for adverse event detection
Human-centered design for alert systems
Patient safety and healthcare quality

🎓 Teaching & Mentoring

I teach courses in clinical decision support and health IT, and I’ve mentored many students, fellows, and junior faculty. I'm committed to helping future informatics leaders develop practical and ethical approaches to data and technology in medicine.

📚 Publications

I’ve authored over 200 peer-reviewed articles on clinical informatics. My work has been published in journals like JAMIA, NEJM, and Applied Clinical Informatics.

View Google Scholar Profile

✉️ Contact

Email: adam@vumc.org

Twitter: @adamatw

Location: Nashville, TN