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Press Release
Durham investigator wins VA's top health services research award
For Release on February 6, 2003
Morris Weinberger, PhD, a nationally noted health-services researcher with the Durham Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center and the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, received VA's 2003 Under Secretary's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research. The award, VA's highest honor for investigators in this field, was presented Feb. 13 at the national meeting of VA health services research in Washington, DC.
Weinberger is a core investigator with VA's Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care and is the Vergil N. Slee Distinguished Professor of Healthcare Quality Management in the Department of Health Policy and Administration at UNC. A medical sociologist, he has conducted numerous studies aimed at improving care for chronic health conditions, especially those prevalent among veterans and older adults, such as arthritis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, back pain and depression. He is particularly interested in the relationship between primary care and hospital readmissions; the role of community-based pharmacists in outpatient care; and the use of patient-centered outcomes, such as satisfaction with care, to evaluate the quality of health care. Additional areas of focus for Weinberger include racial differences in cardiac care and other issues affecting socioeconomically disadvantaged patients.
Recently, Weinberger was lead investigator on a clinical trial-reported in the Oct. 2002 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)-that assessed the benefits of special pharmacy care on patients with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In 2001, he was senior author on a study published in JAMA that compared the effectiveness of three widely used antidepressants. Weinberger has also participated in studies assessing the effectiveness of telephone- and mail-based interventions-such as reminders to get flu shots-to boost the quality of primary and outpatient care.
Weinberger, a career scientist with VA's health services research program and former director of health services research at the Indianapolis VA Medical Center, has mentored many young VA health-services investigators and fostered the program's prominence nationally and abroad.
"Dr. Weinberger's distinction as a nationally and internationally esteemed leader has helped keep VA at the forefront of the health services research community," said Nelda P. Wray, MD, MPH, chief research and development officer for VA.
In addition to his VA honor, Weinberger was the 2002 recipient of the prestigious Vision Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Program on Improving Chronic Illness Care.
The VA Under Secretary's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research, presented annually since 1998, comes with a one-time monetary gift, a plaque, and $50,000 per year for up to three years in additional research funding.
The Health Services Research and Development Service (HSR&D), one of four research services within VA's Office of Research and Development, works to identify and evaluate innovative strategies that lead to accessible, high quality, cost-effective care for veterans and the nation.
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