Welcome to Collective Conversations, a series of discussions aimed at highlighting people and groups working to improve health through better health care systems. I’m your host, Joy Lee, a program manager for the Value and Systems Science Lab led by Dr. Joshua Liao who is a physician and Associate Chair for Health Systems in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington.

In today's conversation you'll hear from Dr. Kari Nelson. 

Karin (“Kari”) Nelson, MD, MSHS, is a general internist and health services researcher at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System.  She is a Professor of Medicine in the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine, Adjunct Professor in the UW School of Public Health and core investigator at the Seattle Health Services Research & Development (HSR&D) Center of Innovation (COIN).  Dr. Nelson is the director of the Primary Care Analytics Team (PCAT) for the VHA’s Office of Primary Care. She won the 2015 VHA HSR&D’s Best Research Paper of the Year Award for Nelson, et al. “Implementation of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA)” published in JAMA Internal Medicine.  She actively mentors many junior faculty and is past Co-Director for the MD fellowship program in the Seattle HSR&D COIN. She is a primary care physician at the VA Puget Sound.