Medical school names scientist-physician Nicholas Rider to its faculty
Nicholas Rider has joined the faculty at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine as a professor in the Department of Health Systems and Implementation Science.
In this role, Rider will use computational methods to help doctors and other providers facilitate diagnoses and treatment and improve patient outcomes. Rider will also serve as associate chief medical information officer over research for Carilion Clinic.
Scientist-physicians are physicians who devotes a significant amount of their professional efforts conducting research about health and the delivery of health care.
As a board-certified immunologist and clinical informaticist, Rider uses data science techniques to compile and analyze complex health care data to build tools, algorithms, and systems for advancing knowledge. His team joins clinical immunology expertise with artificial intellingence research, machine learning, and statistics to solve problems facing patients.
“In my immunology practice, I see people with immune disorders who sadly undergo long, protracted diagnostic journeys where they see multiple health care providers, are misdiagnosed, and may undergo unnecessary or even unintentional harmful procedures,” Rider said. “An example of my research is to help build systems that embed within electronic health records that are able to analyze data and produce a risk score for the likelihood that a patient might have a genetic defect causing their immune disorder. Armed with this information, their doctor can diagnose and treat the patient sooner.”
In addition to building medical students’ knowledge and skills in leadership, interprofessional teams, and health care quality, safety, and equity, the Department of Health Systems and Implementation Science (HSIS) promotes research partnerships among its faculty.
“The mindset of our HSIS department is, ‘How am I translating evidence-based best practices into the daily work of delivering health care?’” said department chair Sarah Parker. “Health systems science is an innovation in medical education, and by marrying it with the mindset of implementation science, we are exploring the system impact on patients, health care teams, and clinicians. We do this while using human-centered design methods to redesign health care delivery and improve patient health.”
Rider said the medical school's philosophy around health systems and implementation science is what attracted him to the school.
“To improve patient care by advancing interactions with health care providers and systems is very innovative,” he said. “Together, we can really improve outcomes for patients and reduce some of the challenges in health care.”
Rider received his bachelor’s degree from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and his Doctor of Osteopathy from Kansas City University of Medicine and Bioscience. He completed his residency in internal medicine-pediatrics and a fellowship in allergy-immunology at Penn State Hershey Medical Center and holds a graduate certificate in biomedical informatics from the University of Texas.
Prior to joining the medical school, Rider served on the faculty of the Baylor College of Medicine and was an associate chief medical information officer at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.
