Nunzia B. Giuse, M.D., M.L.S., A.H.I.P.

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Knowledge Management
Director of the Eskind Biomedical Library
Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
Professor, Department of Medicine

Full CV

Nunzia B. Giuse, M.D., M.L.S., A.H.I.P., is Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and in the Department of Medicine, Director of the Eskind Biomedical Library (EBL), and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Knowledge Management at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Prior to coming to Vanderbilt in 1994, Dr. Giuse established herself as an independent researcher in the area of multi-center medical knowledge base acquisition strategies while at the University of Pittsburgh. From 1988-1995 she conducted a systematic sequence of investigations of medical knowledge base methodologies that represented a significant contribution to the emerging field of medical informatics. This work has been described in a series of publications in the Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care Proceedings, Methods of Information in Medicine, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, and the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA). While at the University of Pittsburgh, she was Co-Principal Investigator, Project Director, or Principal Investigator on a number of research grants sponsored by the National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM) and by the Computer Assisted Medical Diagnosis and Therapy Foundation. Since coming to Vanderbilt, Dr. Giuse has served as Principal Investigator for the NLM-funded grant projects "Integrating Health Science Librarians into Biomedicine" (1995-1996), "AIDS Information Outreach Project" (1995), "Information Access for Public Health Professionals" (1999-2001) and "A Scalable Model to Empower Digital Library Users" (2002-2003). Dr. Giuse was also an active participant in Vanderbilt's Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems activities (1995-2000).

Dr. Giuse plays a central role in the Informatics Center's information outreach activities and has developed initiatives that integrate the library more centrally in the VUMC's clinical and research activities. Members of her staff developed and continue to coordinate the medical center's portal to electronic information, the EBL Digital Library. She is very active in organizing the continuing training and professional development of the Eskind Biomedical Library professional and paraprofessional staff, pioneering the application of models from the adult learning research literature. To develop and evaluate an educational pathway drawing on the EBL's librarian intern training program as well as on a partnership with a long-distance degree-granting program, the Institute of Museum and Library Services has funded a three year grant titled "A Health Sciences Librarian Pre-Professional Integrated Learning Model" (2003-2006), for which Dr. Giuse was the Principal Investigator.

She has also pioneered the idea of actively involving EBL librarians in VUMC clinical activities, initiating the Clinical Informatics Consult Service (CICS) concept at Vanderbilt, and has gained international recognition for this work. To evaluate the success of this model, NIH/NLM funded a three-year, RO1 grant, "The Clinical Informationist: Does the Model Work?" (2003-2006) for which Dr. Giuse served as Principal Investigator. To further investigate the role of the informationist, EBL was awarded an 18-month contract in March 2004 from the Medical Library Association (MLA) to develop a report detailing roles, skills, required education and practice parameters for individuals acting as Informationists or Information Specialists in Context (ISIC). In addition to EBL's well-recognized clinical informationist program, Dr. Giuse is also actively pursuing initiatives to integrate library-provided evidence within informatics tools. Dr. Giuse was also co-investigator on the Vanderbilt Reynolds Geriatrics Education Center (VRGEC) grant, a five-year project funded by the Donald W. Reynold's Foundation (2006-2010).

In recognition of her distinguished record of accomplishment and innovative approaches to libraries and information provision, Dr. Giuse was asked by the leadership of the Meharry Medical College (MMC) to orchestrate the transformation of the MMC Library from a traditional service model to a leading-edge information center. Dr. Giuse and the EBL team accordingly developed a comprehensive management plan focusing on integrating electronic information resources into MMC's infrastructure, developing staff skills and advanced information services, and showcasing Meharry's rich archival history. Upon completion of the core objectives of this plan, EBL has transitioned to a long-term consulting model with the MMC Library and continues to provide advanced staff training and digital library and collection development advice. To recognize Dr. Giuse's and the EBL team's efforts at MMC, Dr. Giuse was awarded (Fall 2007) MMC's President's Meritorious Service Award.

More recently Dr. Giuse has leveraged the EBL / Knowledge Management Team’s expertise for the medical center’s personalized medicine efforts. EBL/KM team members, under Dr. Giuse’s direction, provide expertise in pharmacogenetics and expert searching and filtering to a variety of teams involved in laboratory test interpretations (Diagnostic Management Teams), integration of genetic information into the EMR (CTSA), and personalized cancer decision support (My Cancer Genome). For more information, please see http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/km/kmsynopsis.html.

Dr. Giuse has also led the Knowledge Management Team's research initiatives in personalized health education strategies, as Principal Investigator of an Institute of Museum and Library Services-funded grant "Using Patient Literacy Levels and Learning Style Preferences to Optimize the Delivery of Health Information." This two-year project created a model to integrate health literacy and learning style preferences into condition-specific patient health information with outcomes demonstrating this combined approach improves patients' ability to learn and retain their knowledge about their conditions.

Dr. Giuse's accomplishments are celebrated in the National Library of Medicine's exhibit on women in medicine titled "Changing the Face of Medicine." She was also named Fellow of the Medical Library Association in 2006 in recognition of her advancements in the health sciences librarianship field.

Selected Presentations at Meetings

  • Invited presentation delivered during the Information Specialist in Context Open Forum at the MLA Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX, May 2005: Diversifying Our Roles: From Clinical Librarian to Information Specialist in Context
  • Quality Filtering: Critical Appraisal and Synthesis of the Biomedical Literature. Continuing Education Course offered at the MLA Annual Meeting, Dallas, TX, May 2002; San Diego, CA, May 2003; Philadelphia, PA, May 2007.
  • MLA Informationist Conference: April 2002 (invited speaker)
  • Invited speaker at UK Clinical Librarian Conference, University Hospitals of Leicester National Health Service Trust, March 2002: Partners in Patient Care: Librarians as Members of Multidisciplinary Teams in Support of Evidence-Based Learning
  • NLM Woods Hole Informatics Course, 2000: Knowledge Acquisition and Filtering, 2000: Information Resources to Support Practice
  • Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care (SCAMC): 1989-1990
  • National Symposium on Computers in Medical Education: 1989-1990

Contributions to Meetings

  • Chair, Local Arrangements Committee for the Southern Chapter of the Medical Library Association (SCMLA) Annual Meeting, October 2002
  • Session Chair, American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Fall Symposium, 1997
  • Area Chair, Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care, 1990
  • Local Arrangements Committee, Annual American Society for Information Science Meeting, 1992

Committee Memberships:

  • Editor-in-Chief, Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA): 2006-2008
  • Member, Scientific Program Committee for the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Fall Symposium, 2006
  • Fellow, American College of Medical Informatics: awarded 2002
  • Fellow, Medical Library Association: Awarded 2006
  • Member, National Library of Medicine Planning Panel on NLM Resources & Infrastructure for the 21st Century, 2005-2006
  • Member, Board of Scientific Counselors, Lister Hill Center, NIH/NLM: 2002-2006
  • Editorial Board, JAMIA: 2002-2007
  • Reviewer, JAMIA: 1994-Present
  • Member, Awards Committee for the MLA Research Section: 2002-2003
  • Chair, Medical Informatics Section, MLA: 2002-2003
  • Distinguished member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals (AHIP):  April 1, 2001 -  March 31, 2006
  • Chair, Medical Informatics Section/ MLA Career Development Grant Jury: 1999-2000
  • Institute for Scientific Information/Frank Bradway Rogers Information Advancement Award Jury: 2000
  • MLA Task Force on the Books Publishing Program: 2000-2001
  • American Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries Directors: 1997-Present
  • Editorial Board, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association: 1997-2000
  • Regional Advisory Council, National Network of Libraries of Medicine: 1996-1999
  • Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Reviewer: Yearbook of Medical Informatics: 1996-1999
  • Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care: 1989-1993

Recent Publications