Associate Chief of Staff
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Dr. Liza Weavind received her medical degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She completed her training in Anesthesia and Critical Care in Houston at the University of Texas Health Science Center. She went on to further her education in hospital administration by completing her Masters in Management of Health Care (MMHC) at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Nashville. She recently completed a physician leadership course with the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) as she works toward becoming a fellow of the ACHE. In 2003, she led the inception and implementation of the third virtual Tele-ICU in the country, the eICU for the Memorial Hermann Hospital System in Houston. She is advancing the opportunity and the future potential of AI and deep learning to utilize technology to improve resource utilization at the bedside while enhancing patient safety. She currently works at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she holds academic and administrative leadership positions. She is the medical director of both the Surgical and the Burn ICUs. She developed and currently leads a Critical Care Outreach Team, which has avoided inappropriate use of ICU beds and a decreased length of stay for patients whose clinical condition deteriorates while on the wards. Her research focus is the change management for both nursing and physicians around implementing predictive alerting to identify and intervene on patients at risk for poor outcomes. She is an active participant in the national societies, is a fellow of Critical Care Medicine. She is an associate Chief-of-Staff for VUMC with strategic and operational responsibilities to manage patient safety, physician quality, and efficient patient throughput for the adult hospital. She is active on the VUMC COVID-19 Task Force and has been instrumental in developing hospital policies pertaining to the pandemic.