VA HSR&D Podcasts

Deirdre Quinn, PhD, MSc, with the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion in Pittsburgh, PA, talks about her work supporting family planning for women Veterans receiving VA care through the expansion of access to a 12-month supply of contraceptives.

Ryan Sterling, PhD, research scientist with the Seattle-Denver Center of Innovation, discusses the impact that VA's electronic health record modernization rollout has had on burnout among VA physicians.

Omonyele Adjognon, DrPH (candidate) of the HSR Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research idiscusses her work with Drs. Christopher Miller and Kate Iverson on screening for intimate partner violence in Veterans in VA primary care.

Maren Scheuner MD, MPH, investigator and provider at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, talks with Center for Information Dissemination and Education Resources (CIDER) editor Diane Hanks at the 2023 HSR&D national meeting, about her research on integrating genetic testing in front-line healthcare practices.

Denise Hynes and Matt Maciejewski, HSR Investigators, discuss their research studying COVID-19’s effects on Veterans, with the COVID-19 Observational Research Collaboratory (CORC), and the ongoing need to study the disease in this population with CIDER writer Diane Hanks. They refer to several papers that have since been published and can be found on the CORC publications page.

Jennifer Funderburk and colleagues from the VA Center for Integrated Healthcare speak with Diane Hanks about their workshop to help researchers keep diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in mind.

Eric Apaydin, PhD, MPP, MS, talks with Center for Information Dissemination and Education Resources (CIDER) writer Karen Jamrog at the 2023 HSR&D national meeting, about his research on burnout, employee engagement, and changing organizational contexts in VA primary care during the early COVID-19 pandemic.

Steven Dobscha, MD, Director of the Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC) discusses his research investigating primary care patient perspectives on VA's population-based suicide risk screening program (Risk ID), and other related items of interest with Diane Hanks of the Center for Information Dissemination and Education Resources (CIDER).

Cindie Slightam, MPH, Senior Project Manager at the Center for Innovation to Implementation (Ci2i) discusses her project creating a paid internship for Community College students from historically excluded groups. The program sought to introduce research as a career option, and present VA as a place for that career, to students who might normally not be exposed to it.

Drs. Goldsmith and Danan discuss the workshop on why and how to address sex and gender in VA research that they designed and subsequently led at the 2023 HSR&D National Meeting.

Megan Shepherd-Banigan, PhD, MPH, of the Durham Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT) discusses her CDA project seeking to induce family-involved initiation and completion of psychotherapy for Veterans living with PTSD.

Director Amy Kilbourne discusses the origin, milestones, current events, and future directions of the Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) program.

Guneet Jasuja, PhD, MPH, of the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research (CHOIR) discusses her work researching social stressors and health issues among older transgender and gender diverse Veterans.

Craig Rosen, PhD, of the Center for Innovation to Implementation (Ci2i) discusses his work researching burnout among VA clinicians, previous research that his most recent study was built on, and related topics of interest.

Dr. Black discusses her experience in the CONDUIT QUERI Eval, and working with Veterans in VA. CONDUIT's objective was to unite 6 inter-related Partnered Implementation projects to improve access to medications for Opioid Use Disorder.

Jacqueline Ferguson, PhD, MS, of the VA Palo Alto Center for Innovation to Implementation (Ci2i) discusses her research into variations in patterns, by chronic conditions, for Veterans receiving primary care via telehealth as well as in-person.

Lynn Garvin, PhD, MBA, of the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research (CHOIR) discusses her peer-led intervention to provide VA Video Connect (VVC) telehealth to Veterans experiencing Homelessness and Substance Use Disorder.

VA telehealth programming had focused largely on rural populations where disparities in health care access and telehealth use existed, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced an expansion to offer telehealth more broadly. Lucinda Leung, MD, PhD, MPH, discusses rural-urban differences in VA telehealth use nationally before and after pandemic onset.

Joel Boggan, MD, MPH, of the Durham VA Medical Center talks about his experience with the Evidence Synthesis Program at VA, working with Veteran populations, and how quality improvement methodologies can be used to improve health services in Primary Care settings.

David Chan, MD, PhD, of the HSR&D Center of Innovation to Implementation in Palo Alto, CA, discusses his work understanding how ambulance visits to VA hospitals act as an indicator of care quality.

Sam Edwards, MD, MPH, of the Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC) in Portland OR, talks about his research studying care fragmentation among Veterans receiving home based primary care (HBPC). Care fragmentation - the dispersion of a patient’s care across clinicians and healthcare settings - is associated with increased Emergency Department visits and hospital admissions among medically complex patients.

Hildi Hagedorn, PhD, investigator with the Center for Care Delivery and Outcomes Research CCDOR in Minneapolis, MN, talks about her research focused on implementation of best-practice recommendations for the identification and treatment of substance use disorders (SUD). Dr. Hagedorn was the recipient of the 2020 HSR&D Health System Impact Award for her career-long body of work focused on increasing system-wide implementation of evidence-based treatments for Veterans with SUD.

Seppo Rinne, MD, PhD, BS of the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research (CHOIR) talks about his work with the EMPIRIC QUERI partnered evaluation. The mission of EMPIRIC QUERI is to improve VA’s electronic health record modernization (EHRM) by ensuring that it is informed by frontline clinician and staff experiences. EMPIRIC is identifying challenges and best practices to support clinicians and inform the nationwide Cerner rollout.

Heather Gilmartin, PhD, NP, investigator and nurse scientist at the Denver/Seattle Center of Innovation in Denver, Colorado discusses her HSR&D Career Development Award program work, which is focused on building supportive learning environments  VA’s cardiac catheter labs.

Dr. Kristin Mattocks conducts a wide-ranging interview with her friend and HSR&D colleague, Dr. Rani Elwy. Dr. Elwy shares insights into her long-running VA HSR&D research career, discusses turning failure into success, and looks at the two-way relationship between mentors and mentees. Kristin Mattocks, PhD, MPH, is an investigator and Associate Chief of Staff for Research at the VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System, Director of the HSR&D-funded Community Care Research, Evaluation, and Knowledge Center, and the Associate Dean for Veterans Affairs at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Rani Elwy, PhD, MS, is an investigator with the HSR&D-funded Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, and Director of the Implementation Science Core at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University.

Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) dissemination coordinator Diane Hanks talks with Dr. Joe Geraci, investigator and clinical psychologist at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center, Bronx, New York. In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Geraci is the co-Director of the Transitioning Servicemember/Veteran Suicide and Prevention Center, which is a joint effort between VISN 2 and VISN 17. Recently, Dr. Geraci partnered with QUERI to evaluate the effectiveness of the Transitioning Servicemember/Veteran Sponsorship initiative. Dr. Geraci is a retired U.S. Army Infantry Lieutenant Colonel, having served for 20 years and been deployed as a combat leader with elite Special Operations/Ranger, Airborne, and Infantry units to Afghanistan four times since September 11, 2001.

Bryann DeBeer, PhD, of the Seattle-Denver Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care, talks about her work using social network analysis to understand the impact that COVID-19 enforced social distancing has had on Veterans’ mental health and suicide risk.

HSR&D investigator and director of the North Florida/South Georgia Geriatrics Research, Education, and Clinical Center Ron Shorr, MD, MS, and healthcare architect Gary Fischer with VA’s Construction and Facilities Unit, discuss the value of partnered research within the context of Dr. Shorr’s HSR&D-funded project, Nursing Unit Design and Hospital Falls.

In this episode, Dr. Christopher Rentsch, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Yale University, talks about a large-scale evaluation of the effectiveness of prophylactic anticoagulant therapy for the treatment of COVID-19. Since the recording of this podcast, the largest trial to date, ACTIV-4, has found that initiating therapeutic anticoagulation compared to prophylactic anticoagulation provided additional benefit among patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Both Dr. Rentsch’s study and the ACTIV-4 study found benefit in noncritically ill patients yet not in critically ill patients.

In part one of a two-part conversation, VA geriatrician Jim Rudolph, MD, talks about his work to develop new COVID-19 safety and screening standards based on temperature readings among residents of VA Community Living Centers. In addition to his work as a VA clinician, Dr. Rudolph is the director of the HSR&D Center of Innovation for Long-term Services and Supports, in Providence, RI

In part two of a two-part conversation, VA geriatrician Jim Rudolph, MD, talks about his work to assess VA’s response to distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in VA Community Living Centers. In addition to his work as a VA clinician, Dr. Rudolph is the director of the HSR&D Center of Innovation for Long-term Services and Supports in Providence, RI.

HSR&D research content editor Maria Hecht talks with Veteran Mark Flower, co-founder of the Veteran peer support organization DryHootch America. They are discussing his involvement in VA research as part of a Veteran engagement forum.

Laurel Copeland, PhD, discusses her work on looking at the proportion of new women Veterans who access VA care vs. community care.

In part two of this two-part interview, Joe Francis, MD, Chief Improvement and Analytics Officer for VHA, talks about the necessity of taking research questions to those on the front-lines of managing clinics and healthcare networks in order to continuously improve care for Veterans.

Polly Noel, PhD, talks about her work on understanding and assessing Veterans’ experiences of healthcare system hassles with both VA care and community-based care.

Christopher J. Miller, PhD, talks about his work assessing Veterans’ and providers’ experiences of care coordination between community providers and VA providers.

Fernanda S. Rossi, PhD, shares insights gained from her work understanding women Veterans’ experiences of seeking mental health treatment in VA.

Becca Sripada, PhD, talks about her work on treating Veterans with PTSD.

Ivette (Maggie) Freytes, PhD, talks about her work developing a community-based resource guide to refer Veterans at risk for suicide to VA care.

In part one of this two-part interview, Joe Francis, MD, Chief Improvement and Analytics Officer for VHA, talks about how best to leverage healthcare data and quality measures to improve care for Veterans.

Kevin Payne, research assistant with the VA New England Healthcare System and a former Navy Veteran, shares his experiences as Veteran who both uses VA care and works in VA research.

Kevin Payne, research assistant with the VA New England Healthcare System and a former Navy Veteran, shares his experiences as Veteran who both uses VA care and works in VA research.

Audrey Jones, PhD, shares findings from her work assessing the influence of negative media coverage on Veterans’ perceptions of VA care.

Lisa McAndrew, PhD, Director of the Behavioral Health Research Lab at VA’s War Related Illness and Injury Study Center, discusses two HSR&D-funded projects that focus on different aspects of mental treamtent and Gulf War Illness.

Shannon Kehle-Forbes, PhD, shares her research as to why some Veterans complete trauma-focused PTSD therapy and yet others do not.

Bo Kim, PhD, and Keith McInnes, ScD, MS, discuss their pilot study, which looks at improving post-incarceration support for Veterans with mental health challenges and substance use disorders.

Hildi Hagedorn, PhD, talks about her recent study looking at why Veterans with opioid use disorders may or may not receive medication-assisted treatment.

Karen Seal, MD, MPH, shares insights from a recent randomized-controlled trial comparing the impact of peer coaching versus usual care to increase mental health treatment among rural-dwelling Veterans.

Allyson Varley, PhD, MPH, and Stefan Kertesz, MD, talk about their work surveying and understanding the clinical experiences of vulnerable Veterans.

Investigator and clinical psychologist Daniel Blonigen, PhD, discusses his work with treating justice-involved Veterans at risk for criminal recidivism.

Career Air Force Veteran Becca Keller shares her perspective on what it's like to be a Veteran who receives care from VA and also participates in VA research.