Madison Horton, PhD, RN
Overview
Madison D. Horton, PhD, RN, is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Reducing Health Differences Through Informatics T32 program at Columbia University School of Nursing. Her work sits at the intersection of health services research, nursing informatics, and artificial intelligence (AI). She completed an NIH T32 predoctoral fellowship in health services research methods at Columbia in 2025. Her dissertation examined the primary care nurse practitioner workforce and how work environments shape acute care outcomes for patients with language needs. Her research has since expanded as a postdoc into nursing informatics, specifically investigating how artificial intelligence systems are reshaping clinical care, patient education, and health information seeking.
Horton's research focuses on the systems, technologies, and workforce conditions that influence care quality, patient communication, and safety. Her current work examines real-world interactions between patients and generative AI tools, including how patients formulate questions to ask these tools, how models respond to unsafe or leading requests, and how evidence-informed guidance can support safer public use of AI for health information. Across her scholarship, she applies health services research and nursing informatics methods to generate evidence that informs patient-centered care delivery and the safe implementation of emerging technologies.
Horton's research focuses on the systems, technologies, and workforce conditions that influence care quality, patient communication, and safety. Her current work examines real-world interactions between patients and generative AI tools, including how patients formulate questions to ask these tools, how models respond to unsafe or leading requests, and how evidence-informed guidance can support safer public use of AI for health information. Across her scholarship, she applies health services research and nursing informatics methods to generate evidence that informs patient-centered care delivery and the safe implementation of emerging technologies.