Recognition August/September 2022


Hoopes and Sucato selected as top doctors

Every year, Seattle Met magazine names the region's top physicians. Selection into the list is based on a survey of other area health care practitioners. We're pleased to announce that, for 2022, Seattle Met chose KPWHRI Acting Assistant Investigator and Washington Permanente Medical Group adolescent health physician Annie (Andrea) Hoopes, MD, MPH, as a Top Physician in Adolescent Medicine based on recommendations and high rankings by her peers. KPWHRI Adjunct Researcher Gina Sucato, MD, MPH, was also recognized in this category.

KPWHRI welcomes Ruben Martinez, PhD

Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) is pleased to announce that Ruben Martinez, PhD, has joined as a collaborative scientist. Martinez is a clinical psychologist with a degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and postdoctoral work and a clinical psychology residency at UCLA. At KPWHRI, Martinez is a co-investigator of the IMPACT Center, a KPWHRI-University of Washington collaboration to improve mental health care for youth, and a researcher at the Center for Accelerating Care Transformation, working to implement cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic pain.

Richards presents to Permanente leaders

Senior Collaborative Scientist Julie Richards, PhD, MPH, presented on gun violence and how Kaiser Permanente is responding to it at the Washington Permanente Medical Group's Accountable Leaders meeting in July. More than 150+ leaders from the organization participated. Richards' presentation was part of the "Public Policy Update" section of the meeting. 

Hsu and Tufte speak to primary care organization

In July, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute Associate Investigator Clarissa Hsu, PhD, spoke to the Primary Care Collaborative about developing the Community Resource Specialist (CRS) role that was integrated into primary care at all Kaiser Permanente Washington clinics. Also presenting was Janice Tufte, a patient co-investigator on the work. Hsu and Tufte discussed their article about the project that developed and implemented the CRS role.  

Brown featured at Modern Healthcare Symposium

In August, KPWHRI Collaborative Scientist Meagan Brown, PhD, spoke with Kaiser Permanente Vice President of Social Health Anand Shah, MD, MS, for the closing keynote session of Modern Healthcare's 2022 Social Determinants of Health Symposium. Brown and Shah spoke on "Social Health for Everyone." Shah is the executive sponsor of Social Needs Network for Evaluation and Translation (SONNET), a national network of applied researchers improving Kaiser Permanente member health through social health interventions, and Brown is a member of the SONNET Evaluation and Research Committee.

Cruz presents at national statistical meeting

In Washington, D.C., in August, Assistant Investigator Maricela Cruz, PhD, organized and spoke at a session of the annual Joint Statistical Meetings for the American Statistical Association. Her presentation was on one of her fields of expertise, interrupted time series models for assessing complex health care interventions. The session was about "New Models, Diagnostics, and Considerations in Evaluating Intervention and Policy Effects." 

Coley speaks at Alzheimer's conference

KPWHRI Assistant Investigator Yates Coley, PhD, was invited to speak at the Alzheimer's Association conference in August about eRADAR, a prediction model for undiagnosed dementia. Coley presented results on the external validation of the eRADAR risk score in two health care systems, at Kaiser Permanente Washington and the University of California San Francisco. The study results were recently published in Journal of General Internal Medicine. 

KPWHRI represented at SIRC

KPWHRI was well represented at the 2022 Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) Conference in San Diego in September. Senior Collaborative Scientist Julie Richards, PhD, MPH, spoke on implementing and evaluating Lock2Live, a decision aid about firearm access for people with suicide risk. This work was supported by KPWHRI scientists Elena Noon Kuo, Christine Stewart, and Greg Simon, MD, MPH, among other collaborators.

Collaborative Scientist Rosemary Meza, PhD, MS, presented on understanding the multilevel nature of implementation, including recommendations and applications of multilevel theory and research. KPWHRI co-authors on this presentation included Cara Lewis, PhD, and affiliate investigators Predrag Klasnja, PhD, and Bryan Weiner, PhD.

Cara Lewis also led a preconference workshop on using causal pathway diagrams to understand implementation mechanisms. Also presenting at the workshop were Rosemary Meza, Predrag Klasnja, and Bryan Weiner. Meza is scheduled to co-lead a similar workshop on practical applications of causal pathway diagrams at the North American Primary Care Research Group meeting in November. 

Green speaks at hypertension conference

In early September, KPWHRI Senior Investigator Beverly B. Green, MD, MPH gave an oral presentation at the Hypertension 2022 conference from the American Heart Association in San Diego. Green's talk was titled, "Blood Pressure Control and Clinician Diagnosis of Hypertension in a Hypertension Diagnostic Study."