On behalf of the investigators and staff of the Northwest Center for Outcomes Research in Older Adults, I would like to welcome you to our homepage. We are a national Center of Excellence for the VA Health Services Research and Development Service (HSR&D). The Center maintains strong links with supporting community institutions, including the University of Washington and Group Health Cooperative. Our goals are to:

• Study the management of chronic disease in primary and specialty care—with a focus on heart disease, diabetes, alcohol abuse, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and cancer 
• Develop strategies to preserve independence of elderly and disabled veterans
• Create and evaluate innovative models of care 
• Develop new methods of health services research

The Center includes 22 core and 15 affiliate investigators who are supported by approximately 120 research and administrative staff. Funding to the Center has averaged nearly 10 million dollars annually for the past several years, including competitive research grants from the Department of Veterans Affairs and other federal sources as well as foundations and private industry. There are typically 100 active research projects ongoing at the Center. Investigators from the Center typically publish well in excess of 100 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals each year plus an equivalent number of editorials, books, book chapters and other publications. Over almost two decades, the Center has trained over 200 physician and PhD postdoctoral/predoctoral trainees in health services research.

I hope that you will take the time to explore this site further and learn more about the exciting research being done by investigators at the Northwest Center .

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any comments or suggestions.

Susan Hedrick, PhD

Acting Center Principal Investigator
Northwest HSR&D Center of Excellence
VA Puget Sound Health Care System