Amy K. Rosen, PhD – Research Career Scientist

Amy K. Rosen, PhD
VA Medical Center, Jamaica Plain Campus
Boston, MA 

Amy Rosen, PhD, is a health services researcher and HSR&D Senior Research Career Scientist Awardee based at the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research (CHOIR) at VA Boston Healthcare System. She also holds an appointment as Professor of Surgery at the Boston University School of Medicine. She has a BA in political science from Boston University and a PhD in sociology from the University of Maryland. Her research interests include risk adjustment, quality of care, patient safety, surgical quality, and community care.

Dr. Rosen has served as Principal Investigator and co-Principal Investigator on numerous federally funded projects. She is a national expert in risk adjustment, and was the first researcher to apply leading commercial risk-adjustment systems to national VA data to measure disease burden. She also developed a risk-adjustment model to predict decline in functional status in long-term care facilities, which has been used as a marker of quality in numerous studies. She led the development of a diagnosis-based psychiatric case-mix measure specifically for VA patients with mental health and substance abuse disorders that has been updated with ICD-10 codes and incorporated into the VA Nosos risk adjustment model. She has also become a national expert in the use and application of the Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs), developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and has helped AHRQ revise their indicator definitions based on findings using VA clinical data. These measures serve as screens for potential patient safety events and are currently reported on CMS Hospital Compare. In addition to assessing and measuring patient safety, she was co-Principal Investigator on a study examining the variation in safety culture across VA hospitals. This study examined the relationship between safety culture and safety outcomes, including the PSIs. She also served as a co-Principal Investigator on a study examining the effect of the change in resident work hours on quality and patient safety in VA hospitals. Dr. Rosen collaborates on several projects that need risk-adjustment consultation, methodological expertise, that have a safety-related or surgical quality component, and that involve comparisons of VA care to Community-based Care. She is mPI of a current study developing accurate risk adjustment methods in order to compare Veterans who receive VA care vs. those who go out to receive VA-purchased care in the community.

Dr. Rosen is the author of over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and serves as a reviewer for many journals, including Medical Care, Health Services Research, JAMA, and Journal of General Internal Medicine. She is a Deputy Editor for Medical Care. She is an ad-hoc member of the HSR&D Scientific Merit Review Board, Chair of the HERC Steering Committee, and serves as a senior mentor for fellows, junior faculty, and VA career development awardees.

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