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Health Services Research & Development

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Veteran Access Research Consortium (VARC)

Michael Ho, MD

Michael Ho, MD

Principal Investigators for this CORE include: Michael Ho, MD, core investigator with HSR&D’s Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care (Denver); Stephanie Shimada, PhD, core investigator with HSR&D’s Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research (CHOIR) (Boston); Sameer Saini, MD, Acting Director of HSR&D’s Center for Clinical Management Research (CCMR) (Ann Arbor); and Peter Kaboli, MD, core investigator with HSR&D’s Center for Access & Delivery Research and Evaluation (CADRE) (Iowa City).

Goals/Themes

Stephanie Shimada, PhD

Stephanie Shimada, PhD

The overall goal is to leverage the learning healthcare system (LHS) framework to accelerate access-related health services research and build a community of researchers with the goal of improving access to care for Veterans. The CORE will create four cross-cutting workgroups: 1) portfolio review; 2) metrics; 3) research community; and 4) stakeholder engagement. The workgroups will align to develop an access research roadmap and identify high priority access research questions for potential funding by HSR&D and/or operational partners. Specific goals include the following:


    Sameer Saini, MD,

    Sameer Saini, MD

  • Build and support a VA-wide Access Research Consortium Network (ARC Network) of researchers with interest and expertise in various domains of access, and leverage the ARC Network to guide impactful access-related research and evaluation work.
  • Conduct a review of and synthesize recent or ongoing VA evaluation and research projects, federally-funded research, and VA operational initiatives.
  • Develop a compendium of access metrics and a Research User Guide for access metrics.
  • Create an access research roadmap and identify high priority access research and access metric research questions.
Peter Kaboli, MD

Peter Kaboli, MD

Partnerships

The VARC will work closely with the Office of Veterans Access to Care (OVAC) as its primary operational partner. Given the cross-cutting importance of access, and the collaborative nature of many existing operational initiatives, the CORE will also seek guidance from other operational partners as appropriate (e.g., the Office of Community Care, Office of Connected Care) as part of its Expert Panel.

Drs. Shimada, Kaboli, Saini, and I are excited by the opportunity to lead the VARC to identify high-priority and high-impact access related research questions. We hope to build a collaborative community of access researchers who will conduct high quality access research that directly impacts clinical care for our Veterans. We look forward to working closely with our operational partners and the VA research community in this critically important effort.” – PI, Michael Ho, MD



For more information, email accessresearch@va.gov.


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