Dr. Trout’s research interest lies at the intersection of Public Health, Health Policy, and Health Informatics to develop novel, data-driven approaches to rural health issues. Dr. Trout is a health services researcher and epidemiologist with research focusing on the utilization of Health Information Technologies (HITs) such as EHRs, Telehealth, and M-health to improve access, efficiency, safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of healthcare in the United States and internationally. Her research focuses on leveraging HITs to improve health service outcomes, access to healthcare, and improving data ecosystems with an emphasis on rural and low-resource settings. Effectively incorporating HITs at the system-level and improving the health data ecosystem will create an environment that supports utilizing big data to inform health policy and evidence-based decision making.