Medical decision making encompasses a variety of research disciplines and employs normative theory and descriptive theory. Normative theory, or “decision analysis”, is concerned with identifying the most rational decision. Descriptive theory, or “judgment and decision making psychology”, is concerned with describing the decisions that people actually make.
Faculty
Timothy Anderson, MD, MAS
Dr. Timothy Anderson is a primary care physician and health services researcher whose primary research interests are identifying strategies to improve the quality and equity of care delivered to older adults with chronic conditions and to optimize medication use for patients in the hospital and at home.
(Joyce) Chung-Chou H. Chang, PhD
Dr. Chang has a wide range of interests in theoretical and applied statistics, including time-to-event (survival) and longitudinal data analysis, missing data (competing risks and informative dropout), causal effect modeling (propensity score and marginal structural modeling), design and analysis of observational studies and clinical trials, design and analysis of studies of biomarkers in risk prediction, dynamic prediction, and machine learning techniques.
Flor de Abril Cameron, PhD, MPH
Dr. Cameron’s interests revolve around issues of health disparities as they relate to women’s health and ethnic minorities, including language equity and improvement of health programs through program monitoring and evaluation.
Janel Hanmer, MD, PhD
Dr Hanmer is an editorial board member for the Medical Decision Making journal. She has a research focus on outcomes measurement.
Paul Joudrey, MD, MPH
Dr. Joudrey implements shared decision making for methadone treatment within opioid treatment programs.
Tamar Krishnamurti, PhD
Dr. Krishnamurti studies how patients and providers make healthcare decisions and provide informed consent. She develops evidence-based communication strategies and decision support tools to support patient autonomy, while improving clinical outcomes.
Wei-Hsuan "Jenny" Lo-Ciganic, PhD, MS, MSPharm
Dr. Lo-Ciganic applies predictive analytics and pharmacoepidemiologic methods to inform clinician prescribing decisions and patient risk stratification, translating evidence into actionable, individualized care.
José Giovanni Luiggi-Hernández, PhD, MPH
Dr. Luiggi-Hernández has over a decade of research experiences contributing to projects covering psychotherapy process and outcomes for both physical and mental health conditions, clinical decision-making, digital health technologies, program evluations, pre-implementation research, health disparities, social determinants of health, substsance use, and more.
Gina Piscitello, MD, MS
Dr. Piscitello's research interests in medical decision-making include identifying and addressing variability in clinician decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment.
Kenneth J. Smith, MD, MS
Dr. Smith’s research centers on the cost-effectiveness of common medical interventions, most notably on pneumococcal, influenza, and varicella vaccination and on the impact of racial disparities in vaccination rates. He has published in many other areas, including pelvic inflammatory disease, influenza management strategies, diabetes prevention and treatment, VA formulary decisions, anticoagulation and thrombotic disorder management, and hospital-physician communication.
Katie J. Suda, PharmD, MS, FCCP
Director, VA Center for Healthcare Evaluation, Research, and Promotion
Associate Director, Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing
Dr. Suda’s area of research is pharmacoepidemiology, especially in the area of antimicrobials, and dual use of VA and non-VA health care. Currently, she is researching antibiotics and opioids in dental prescribing, including a focus on veteran health.
Kimberly A. Hochstedler Webb, PhD
Dr. Webb is interested in applied research in social determinants of health and healthcare decision-making.