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Under the VA National Researchers in Residence Program, HSR&D has funded five VA researchers to spend time in clinical program or VISN offices to help with analysis and to bring research knowledge to policy and program planning. Program or operations offices will benefit from advanced analytic expertise and access to a network of research knowledge. HSR&D researchers will benefit by increasing their understanding of national policy and operations questions that need to be answered, with access to the operational data available to answer them.
The following HSR&D researchers were selected from a pool of highly competitive applications:
Erica Abel, PhD, will work with the VHA Integrated Care Coordination Initiative/Office of Nursing Services (ONS) on analyzing nursing and social work case management activity, workload, care coordination, and access to case management services. Dr. Abel is a clinical psychologist, researcher, and informatician affiliated with HSR&D’s Pain, Research, Informatics, Multi-morbidities, and Education (PRIME) Center at the West Haven VA Medical Center.
Megan Adams, MD, MSc, will work with Clinical Integration/VA Office of Community Care (OCC) on an evaluation of community care utilization. Dr. Adams is a gastroenterologist, attorney, and investigator with the Center for Clinical Management Research (CCMR) at the Ann Arbor VA Medical Center.
Paul Dennis, PhD, will work with Tobacco & Health: Policy and Programs/Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (OMHSP) on an evaluation of the pilot implementation of provider referral to the Quitline with proactive contact by Quitline counselors. Dr. Dennis is a quantitative psychologist and statistician working closely with the Traumatic Stress and Health Research Laboratory at the Durham VA Medical Center. He has collaborated with other VA teams to analyze administrative data from national smoking-cessation programs, including the Smoking Quitline and Smokefree VET.
Peter Britton, PhD, will work with the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) on an analysis of the Crisis Line and associated outcomes. Dr. Britton is a clinical researcher at the Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention at the Canandaigua VA Medical Center. He has conducted large-scale epidemiological analyses in settings that treat high-risk Veterans using data from VCL, the Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW), and the VA/DoD Suicide Data Repository (SDR).
Ralph Ward, PhD, will work with the VISN 7 Pain Management program on an evaluation of the impact of the Empower Veterans Program (EVP) and Atlanta VAMC Substance Abuse Treatment Program (SATP) in the treatment and prevention of opioid use disorder. Dr. Ward is a biostatistician at HSR&D’s Health Equity and Rural Outreach Innovation Center (HEROIC) at the Charleston VA Medical Center.
