HSR&D Senior Research Career Scientist Award

Portland Va Medical Center, Portland OR

Investigators

Abstract

This application for a Senior Research Career Scientist Award will provide new support for Dr. Denise M Hynes' research and mentoring program that focuses on the quality and value of healthcare for chronic disease management and using complex health data. Currently based at the Portland VA Healthcare System and with joint faculty appointments at Oregon State University (OSU) College of Public Health and Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU) School of Nursing, Dr. Hynes is an exceptional and widely renowned health services researcher. She has more than twenty years of experience applying her health services research and nursing expertise to chronic disease management for the Veteran population. Her work is cross cutting and vital to the VA and the health services community. Dr. Hynes' current research includes leading a high-profile multisite project with the VA Office of Community Care to plan and evaluate expansion of VA community care services for Veterans across the US. This work culminated in a new project in 2018 that she is leading focused on patient care coordination and outcomes resulting from VA community care changes. She also partners with the VA Survey of Health Experiences of Patients Program. Dr. Hynes is also continuing health data methods work with VA and university colleagues. Current work includes transforming health and healthcare claims data to standardized formats to promote research that requires multiple health system data. Dr. Hynes' experience with electronic health records data has resulted in invitations for workshops, advisory committees, and peer review committees. Notably, she served on the VA Office for Electronic Health Record Modernization Research Workgroup in 2017. Her research using VA and Medicare data has been highly cited nationally and internationally. She co-edited a journal supplement for Health Services Research highlighting research that uses linked VA and non-VA data (2018). Dr. Hynes is currently mentoring clinician and non-clinician scientists in health services research and methods at the Portland VA, OSU and OHSU. She has led training programs in the past. She has built connections between the Portland VA and OSU training programs focused on long term effects of military service on Oregon Veteran health and well-being. Dr. Hynes held a Research Career Scientist Award from 2006-2017. In further recognition of Dr. Hynes' accomplishments and leadership, she was awarded and completed a prestigious Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) fellowship in 2014. This award expanded her leadership skills leading the Health Informatics Core at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the VA Information Resource Center through early 2018. At OSU she leads the Health Data and Informatics Program and is building critical connections with the VA HSR&D Center to Improve Veterans Involvement in Care (CIVIC). In summary, Dr. Hynes' research contributions, mentoring and training, publishing, and service contributions are highly relevant to the VA, the Veteran population, and has had clear and positive impacts. Dr. Hynes' reputation for collaboration and sharing research knowledge is well known and valued by her colleagues across the US within and beyond the VA. A new VA Senior Research Career Scientist award would enable her to advance her important research and mentoring focused on improving the quality and value of healthcare for Veterans.