Background: Healthcare organizational factors influence the environment within which providers practice and patients experience care, and as a result, have substantial influence on quality of care and implementation of evidence-based practice and policy. Integration of knowledge of the organizational factors that promote quality with advanced implementation strategies and multilevel stakeholder engagement may increase research impacts and promote learning healthcare system principles. Objectives: Dr. Yano's research, mentorship and VA service have focused on: (1) evaluating multilevel determinants of VA care quality and patient experience, with an emphasis on primary care and women's health care delivery models; (2) advancing the scientific evidence base needed to systematically improve women Veterans' health and health care; and (3) accelerating impacts of research through implementation science and advances in multilevel stakeholder engagement of operations/policy partners, providers/teams, and Veterans. Methods: Dr. Yano is Director/PI of the recently renewed VA Los Angeles HSR&D Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation & Policy, Director of the Women Veterans' Healthcare CREATE Initiative, PI of the VA Women's Health Research Network, and PI of the Women's Health Services/QUERI Partnered Evaluation Initiative. She is PI and Co-PI of two of five component CREATE studies, including a cluster randomized trial of an evidence-based quality improvement (EBQI) approach to tailoring PACT to meet women Veterans' needs and an evaluation of impacts of national variations in comprehensive care on women Veterans' care quality and experience. With her emphasis on partnered, high-value evaluation/research, Dr. Yano has also led an array of operations-funded projects over the past decade from different national VA program offices. In the past 10 years, she has been PI/Co-PI of 33 projects totaling $39 million, published (or has in press) 151 papers (69 of which were first or senior authored), and delivered/coauthored over 350 scientific presentations, national cyberseminars, methods workshops, and briefings within and outside VA. In the past 10 years, she also mentored nearly 50 unique career development applicants/awardees, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and mid-career faculty, among others, with 24 mentees over the past three years, all of whom are on VA career tracks. She has served on a wide array of VA HSR&D, QUERI, and Program Office and non-VA scientific committees, boards, and panels, focused chiefly on research dissemination and implementation science advances and impacts, with 35 national roles in the last three calendar years. Dr. Yano received the VA Under Secretary for Health Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Health Services Research (2012), the Breslow Lifetime Achievement Award at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health Alumni Hall of Fame (2017), and a Special Recognition Award from Disabled American Veterans for her women Veterans' research (2018), in addition to being recognized as one of 50 Women of Impact in Health Care in the U.S. (2018). Status: Ongoing, with new grants under review and in preparation, multiple mentees preparing career awards, and continuing and new national service roles within and outside VA. Impact: Dr. Yano's contributions have continued to inform evidence-based practice and policy within and outside the VA, with particular impacts in primary care and women's health and contributions to implementation science. She has changed the landscape of VA women's health research and care delivery, and advanced partnered research tenets.
This career award focuses on partnered research and multilevel stakeholder engagement to accelerate implementation of evidence-based practice and policy, with a focus on primary care and women's health care delivery in the VA. The current and planned research portfolio focuses on transforming Veterans' quality and experiences of care through testing and implementing new care models that meet their needs in ways that will improve patient-centered outcomes and reduce disparities through enhanced Veteran and employee engagement. The career award also enables mentorship of a national cadre of both trainees and established researchers in the design, conduct and dissemination of high-impact research with the goal of advancing the implementation, spread, scale-up and sustainability of effective healthcare innovations in service of VA care improvements that matter to Veterans and their families, as well as VA policymakers. 1
