VA Offi ce of Research and Development, Health Services Research and Development Service 1

2006 Translating 

Research

into Practice

Vol. 4, No. 2 July 2006

Health Services 

Research Update

HSR&D was pleased to have received 

so many high quality proposals for the 

March merit review. Out of the 145 

Investigator-Initiated Research (IIR) 

proposals reviewed, HSR&D hopes to 

fund as many as 37 by fi scal year 2007, 

depending on conditional approvals. 

This would bring the funding average 

over the last three review cycles up to 

approximately 22%. Priority was given to 

outstanding proposals that were responsive 

to HSR&D and Offi ce of Research and 

Development solicitations, including 

projects focused on issues critical to 

veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) 

and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). 

Other highly scored proposals will be 

funded in priority score order as funds are 

available (anticipated by January 2007), 

and as applicants complete any approval 

conditions such as institutional review 

board documentation. 

Also in March, reviewers scored 24 

career development proposals and HSR&D 

hopes to fund six of them, including two 

advancing and four new awards. 

Looking ahead, plans are underway for 

a State-of-the-Art (SOTA) Conference on 

Managing Complexity in Chronic Care. 

Planned for early September in Washington, 

DC, the invitational conference will explore 

issues around managing complex chronic 

care, defi ning best practices, and identifying 

gaps in knowledge that might form the basis 

of a research agenda. Look for additional 

information on the SOTA in coming months.

VA HSR&D’s Quality Enhancement 

Research Initiative (QUERI) is continuing 

to actively work toward innovative 

approaches to translate research into 

practice. See updated QUERI fact sheets 

at www.hsrd.research.va.gov/queri/

factsheets.cfm

HSR&D is also actively recruiting for 

a new HSR&D director and is accepting 

applications through July 14, 2006. 

National Meeting Roundup

HSR&D’s 24th National Meeting, 

“Implementing Equity: Making Research 

Work for Diverse Veteran Populations,” 

was held in February in Arlington, VA. This 

national forum provided an opportunity 

for discussion, collaboration, and the 

development of strategies to improve the 

care of our diverse veteran population. 

The meeting was attended by 

approximately 550 researchers, clinicians, and policy makers and included 

185 peer reviewed workshops, papers, 

and posters that represented a wide range 

of work by VA HSR&D investigators.

VHA Chief of Staff Arthur 

Hamerschlag addressed the meeting 

and urged researchers to continue to 

tackle issues relevant to veterans and, in 

particular, the important and emerging 

service-related health care issues of our 

OIF and OEF veterans.

At the meeting, Mr. Hamerschlag 

presented the 2006 Under Secretary’s 

Award for Outstanding Achievement 

in Health Services Research to Eugene 

Oddone, MD. Dr. Oddone, Director 

of HSR&D’s Center for Health Services 

Research in Primary Care in Durham, 

NC, has focused his research on 

examining racial disparities in health 

care, evaluating the effectiveness and 

delivery of primary care, and improving 

the quality of care for veterans with 

chronic illnesses.

Plans are already underway for the next 

HSR&D National Meeting, on “Managing 

Recovery and Health through the 

Continuum of Care.” Check www.hsrd.

research.va.gov/about/national_meeting/

for details.

In This Issue

Health Services Research 

Update Page 1

National Meeting Roundup Page 1

HSR&D Cyber Seminars 

Program Announces QUERI 

Sessions Page 2

HSR&D Investigators 

Receive SGIM Awards Page 2

Special Supplements on 

Women’s Health and 

Implementation Page 2

New Career Development 

Awardees Page 3

Newly Funded Research 

Projects Page 3

VA HSR&D Research Briefs is a 

biannual publication of the Offi ce of 

Research and Development’s Health 

Services Research and Development Service. Each issue will provide 

summary information about recently 

completed research projects and 

publications, as well as descriptions 

of new initiatives, solicitations, newly 

funded studies and other items of 

interest to a broad VA audience. For 

more information or to provide us 

with your questions or suggestions, 

please contact:

Geraldine McGlynn, Director

Center for Information Dissemination 

and Education Resources 

VA Boston Healthcare System

150 S. Huntington Avenue (152-C)

Boston, MA 02130-4893

Phone: (857) 364-6073

Fax: (857) 364-4511 

Email: geraldine.mcglynn@va.gov

VA HSR&D Research Briefs is available at www.hsrd.research.va.gov or 

Intranet at vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov
2 VA Offi ce of Research and Development, Health Services Research and Development Service

JULY

HSR&D Cyber Seminars 

Program Announces 

QUERI Sessions

Over the next several months, HSR&D’s 

Cyber Seminars program will host a series 

of sessions about implementation science 

featuring presenters from VA HSR&D’s 

Quality Enhancement Research Initiative 

(QUERI). Implementation science focuses 

on research that examines methods to 

accelerate the implementation of evidencebased clinical practices in routine health 

care settings. Faculty will share information 

about QUERI implementation processes, 

methods, and lessons learned. 

The fi rst session, titled “Role of 

Formative Evaluation in Implementation 

Research: Overview and Introduction to 

a Cyber Seminar Series,” was held in May 

and is archived on the HSR&D website. 

Presenters were Jeff Smith, PhD candidate, 

Implementation Research Coordinator for 

Mental Health QUERI, and Hildi Hagedorn, 

PhD, Implementation Research Coordinator 

for Substance Use Disorders QUERI. 

Other QUERI sessions include: 

• Methods and Tools for Formative 

Evaluation in QUERI Implementation 

Research (Archived); Presenters–

Louise Parker, PhD, and JoAnn 

Kirchner, MD (Mental Health 

QUERI), Teresa Damush, PhD, and 

Laurie Plue, MS (Stroke QUERI), and 

Anne Sales, PhD (IHD QUERI), and

• Findings and Lessons Learned from 

Formative Evaluation in QUERI 

Implementation Research (scheduled 

for Friday, July 21, 2006, 12:00-

1:00 pm EST); Presenters–Louise 

Parker, PhD, and JoAnn Kirchner, 

MD (Mental Health QUERI), Teresa 

Damush, PhD, and Laurie Plue, MS 

(Stroke QUERI), and Anne Sales, 

PhD (IHD QUERI).

Those who may benefi t from attending 

these sessions include clinicians, 

researchers, administrators, and 

policymakers interested in learning more 

about implementation science and the 

tools needed to promote evidence-based 

medicine. Additional sessions in the 

QUERI series will be scheduled for the fall. 

These QUERI sessions are in addition to 

the Resource Center Cyber Seminar Program.

To register for any upcoming sessions, 

access archived sessions, or learn more 

about the Cyber Seminar program, please 

visit www.hsrd.research.va.gov/for_

researchers/cyber_seminars/. 

VA Women’s Health 

LISTSERV

VA’s Offi ce of Research and 

Development recently established 

a VA Women’s Health Research 

LISTSERV that is available to VA 

women’s health researchers only, with 

the goal of fostering communication, 

dialogue, collaboration, and 

coordination among researchers 

interested in women’s health research. 

The subscription-only discussion 

list puts an emphasis on enhancing 

the conduct of high-quality research 

of relevance to women veterans 

and/or of direct applicability to the 

improvement of women veterans’ 

health and health care. VA women’s 

health researchers can visit www.

va.gov/resdev/programs/womens_

health/listserv.cfm for additional 

information. 

HSR&D Investigators Receive 

SGIM Awards 

HSR&D investigators Drs. Stephan 

Fihn and Kevin Volpp recently received 

prestigious awards from the Society of 

General Internal Medicine (SGIM), an 

international organization of more than 

2,800 physicians and others dedicated 

to improving patient care, education, 

and research in primary care and general 

internal medicine.

Stephan D. Fihn, MD, MPH, FACP, 

received the Elnora M. Rhodes SGIM 

Service Award for outstanding service 

to SGIM and its mission. Dr. Fihn is 

a general internist and health services 

researcher at the VA Puget Sound 

Health Care System and the University 

of Washington in Seattle and directs 

HSR&D’s Northwest Center for Outcomes 

Research in Older Adults, also located 

in Seattle. Additionally, he serves as 

research coordinator for VA HSR&D’s 

Ischemic Heart Disease Quality 

Enhancement Research Initiative. 

Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, an HSR&D Career 

Development awardee, received SGIM’s 

Outstanding Junior Investigator of the Year 

Award, which provides national recognition 

to a junior investigator whose early career 

achievements and overall body of work 

have made a national impact on generalist 

research. Dr. Volpp is part of HSR&D’s 

Center for Health Equity Research and 

Promotion (CHERP) located in Philadelphia, 

is affi liated with the Philadelphia VA Medical 

Center, and is an Assistant Professor of 

Medicine at the Wharton School, University 

of Pennsylvania. 

VA has Strong Presence at 

AcademyHealth Meeting 

This year’s AcademyHealth meeting held in 

June in Seattle, featured over 50 VA-affi liated 

session chairs and panelists. HSR&D also 

sponsored four sessions, including an interest 

group meeting, and special sessions on the 

impact of global confl icts on the VA health 

care system, managing chronic disease within 

the system, and lessons from implementation 

of an electronic health record. 

Special Supplements on Women’s 

Health and Implementation

In March, the Journal of General Internal 

Medicine published a special Supplement on 

VA research on women’s health. The articles 

in this Supplement present information on 

the health and health care delivery issues 

affecting women veterans, and highlight VA 

organizational changes to improve access to 

and quality of VA women’s health care. Many 

HSR&D investigators contributed articles to 

this important Supplement, including Drs. 

Donna Washington and Elizabeth Yano, who 

also served as guest editors. 

Additionally, “Implementing Evidence 

into Practice: Proceedings from the State of 

the Art VA Conference” was published as a 

special Supplement to the February issue of 

the Journal of General Internal Medicine. It 

focuses on connecting research and clinical 

practice to improve health care quality and 

patient outcomes. The Supplement was 

the result of a VA HSR&D-sponsored Stateof-the-Art (SOTA) Conference in 2004 that 

assessed current knowledge about moving 

evidence into practice and identifying ways 

to accelerate the process. Drs. Catarina Kiefe 

and Anne Sales served as guest editors.
VA Offi ce of Research and Development, Health Services Research and Development Service 3

2006

Newly Funded Research Projects

HSR&D continues to have a strong merit review program and focus on the needs of veterans. Listed below are newly funded HSR&D 

research projects. (Only projects with funding start dates that have been confi rmed since the last issue of Research Briefs are listed here. 

For all other HSR&D funded projects, see the web study section at www.hsrd.research.va.gov/research).

INVESTIGATOR-INITIATED RESEARCH

Judith Babcock-Parziale, PhD Southern Arizona VA Health Care System Advancing Outcomes Measurement and Micro-Costing in Blind 

Rehabilitation

Charles Bennett, MD, PhD, MPP VA Chicago Health Care System PSA Failure: A Rising Concern for Prostate Failure

Katharine Bradley, MD, MPH VA Puget Sound Health Care System AUDIT-C Scores as a Marker for Health Outcomes

Mary-Margaret Chren, MD San Francisco VAMC Recurrence after Treatments for Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer

Paul Conlin, MD VA Boston Health Care System Clinical and Cost-Effectiveness of Screening for Diabetic Retinopathy Using 

Tele-Ophthalmology

Kelli Dominick, PhD Durham VAMC Self-Management of Osteoarthritis: A Tailored, Telephone-Based 

Intervention

David Edelman, MD Durham VAMC Can Group Visits Improve Outcomes of Veterans with Diabetes?

Aaron Fink, MD Atlanta VAMC Benefi ts of ‘Repeat Back’ Protocols within a Computer-Based Informed 

Consent Program

Joan Griffi n, PhD Minneapolis VAMC Use of Telehealth In-Home Messaging to Improve GI Endoscopy 

Completion Rates

Chuan-Fen Liu, PhD VA Puget Sound Health Care System Cost of Acute Inpatient Nursing Services in VA

Polly Hitchcock Noel, PhD VA South Texas Health Care System Obesity Care Practices in the Veterans Health Administration

Rachel Kimerling, PhD VA Palo Alto Health Care System Evaluation of Military Sexual Trauma Screening and Treatment

Samuel Kuna, MD Philadelphia VAMC Cost-Effective Strategy to Evaluate Veterans with Sleep Apnea

Matthew Maciejewski, PhD VA Puget Sound Health Care System Dual Use, Continuity of Care, and Duplication in VA and Medicare

Sundar Natarajan, MD VA New York Harbor Health Care System A Behavioral Intervention to Improve Hypertension Control in Veterans

Laura Petersen, MD, MPH Houston VAMC RCT of Financial Incentives to Translate ALLHAT into Practice

John Piette, PhD VA Ann Arbor Health Care System Improving Insulin Therapy with Enhanced Care Management and Peer 

Support

Thomas Rector, PharmD, PhD Minneapolis VAMC Carvedilol or Controlled-Release Metoprolol for Heart Failure

Merit Review Entry Program

Laurel Copeland, PhD VA South Texas Health Care System Patterns of Late-Life Healthcare Among VA Patients with Schizophrenia

Mark Ilgen, PhD VA Palo Alto Health Care System Enhancing Dual Diagnosis in Patients’ Involvement in Continuing Care

George Jackson, PhD, MHA Durham VAMC Extending the Chronic Care Model to Diabetes Care in the VA

Larissa Myaskovsky, PhD VA Pittsburgh Health Care System Understanding and Reducing Racial Disparities in Renal Transplantation

Alexander Sox-Harris, PhD VA Palo Alto Health Care System Clinicians’ Responses to Positive Alcohol Screening Results in Primary Care

Research Career Development

Aaron Murray-Swank, PhD VA Maryland Health Care System Enhancing Implementation of Family Psychoeducation for Schizophrenia

Paul Pirraglia, MD, MPH Providence VAMC Depression and Anxiety in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Amy Wallace, MD White River Junction VAMC Use of Distance Technology to Enhance Rural Veterans’ Mental Health Care

New Career Development Awardees

Congratulations to the most recent awardees, listed below along with their location and areas of research interests to be pursued through 

their awards. This year, VA’s Offi ce of Research and Development (ORD) restructured the career development program to streamline 

research career development opportunities for clinicians and non-clinicians under one ORD-wide program. This program will not 

replace the Research Career Scientist Awards for VA’s most accomplished non-clinicians who have achieved independence and national/

international stature; however, it does address the needs of early-career, non-clinician research scientists previously served by the Merit 

Review Entry and Associate Investigator Programs. For more information about HSR&D Career Development, visit the ORD website at 

www.research.va.gov/funding/cdp.cfm or contact Robert Small at robert.small@va.gov.
4 VA Offi ce of Research and Development, Health Services Research and Development Service

JULY

CIDER (152-C) 

VA Boston Healthcare System

150 So. Huntington Avenue

Boston, MA 02130-4893

Sylvia Rosas, MD Philadelphia VAMC Novel Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Renal Insuffi ciency

Craig Rosen, PhD VA Palo Alto Health Care System Telephone Case Monitoring for Veterans with PTSD

James Rothendler, MD VA New England Health Care System Medication Adherence: Implications of Measures Using Administrative Data

Monika Safford, MD Birmingham VAMC Why Are Intermediate Outcomes in Diabetic Veterans Still Sub-Optimal?

Nina Sayer, PhD Minneapolis VAMC Barriers and Facilitators to Treatment-Seeking for PTSD

Kris Siddharthan, MS, PhD Tampa VAMC Treatment and Costs of Blast Related Injuries in the VA

Brenda Sirovich, MD, MS White River Junction VAMC Clinical Practice Intensity: Comparing VA to Private Sector Providers

Christine Timko, PhD VA Palo Alto Health Care System Dual Diagnosis Self-Help Group Referral: Outcomes and Services Use

Jodie Trafton, PhD VA Palo Alto Health Care System Effectiveness of Screening and Treatment for PTSD in SUD Patients

Joel Tsevat, MD, MPH Cincinnati VAMC Implementing Symptoms Assessment into Clinical HIV Care

Louise Walter, MD San Francisco VAMC Impact of Health Status on Colorectal Cancer Screening in Older Adults

John Williams, MD, MHS Durham VAMC Dementia in Primary Care: Setting the Stage for Quality Improvement

William Yancy, MD, MHS Durham VAMC Obesity and Utilization of Clinical Preventive Services

Bevan Yueh, MD VA Puget Sound Health Care System Hearing Aid Effectiveness after Aural Rehabilitation (HEAR) Trial

Carolyn Zhu, PhD Bronx VAMC Formal and Informal Costs of Veterans with Dementia: A Longitudinal Study

NURSING RESEARCH INITIATIVE

Mary Ellen Dellefi eld, PhD, MS, RN VA San Diego Health Care System Improving Quality: Registered Nurse Work Activities in VA Sponsored 

Nursing Homes

Maude Rittman, RN, PhD North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Informal Caregivers of Veterans Post Stroke

 Health System

Martha Shively, PhD, RN VA San Diego Health Care System Heart PACT: Patient Activation in High-Risk Patients with Heart Failure

Susan Thomason, MSN, RN Tampa VAMC Monitoring Pressure Ulcer Healing in Persons with Spinal Cord Impairment

SERVICE-DIRECTED PROJECTS

Matthew Goetz, MD VA Greater Los Angeles Health Care System Implementation and Evaluation of a VISN-based Program to Improve HIV 

Screening and Testing

Dawn Provenzale, MD Durham VAMC Colorectal Cancer Care - A Quality Measurement Partnership

Jeff Pyne, MD Central Arkansas Veterans Health Care System HIV Translating Initiatives for Depression into Effective Solutions 

Alexander Young, MD VA Greater Los Angeles Health Care System Implementing Effective, Collaborative Care for Schizophrenia

SERVICE-DIRECTED RESEARCH

Frances Weaver, PhD Hines VAMC Characterizing Variability in Respiratory Care in SCI&D