Ben Tyndall

Ben Tyndall, PhD, is an expert in public health data analysis, visualization, and modernization who focuses on developing novel approaches to using administrative health data for public health practice, including modeling and visualization. Dr. Tyndall has done extensive work integrating and harmonizing disparate sources of public health and health care data, including vital records, hospital discharge and billing, prescription drug monitoring program, and electronic health record data.

He works closely with health informatics experts to make data more accessible for research analytics, decision support tools, and dissemination. Dr. Tyndall is an experienced team leader, managing projects to design and implement data and surveillance systems, research reports, and data visualization tools. He also has experience with many statistical software packages and modeling techniques. Dr. Tyndall has a background in work focused on substance use and misuse, including public health surveillance of drug overdose and controlled substance prescribing.

As a Research Scientist at RTI, he is focused on developing and leading projects that use advanced analytic and informatics techniques to maximize the utility of public health and health care data. Dr. Tyndall leads clinical data harmonization efforts on projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), using real world claims and electronic health record data to improve patient outcomes. He is the project director for Community Benefit Insight, a website that provides transparency into non-profit hospital community benefit spending. In addition, he works on a variety of other research and public health data modernization projects at the intersection of informatics and analytics.

Previously, Dr. Tyndall served as Director of Advanced Analytics and Visualization at the Tennessee Department of Health where he led the department’s overdose surveillance program. In the position, he oversaw the development of an integrated data system in which multiple data sources were combined daily to generate actionable knowledge.