CDA Alumni Spotlight: Douglas Owens, MD, Msc
Douglas Owens, MD, Msc
Center for Health Care Evaluation
VA Palo Alto Health Care System
Award period: 10/92 - 9/99
Dr. Owens has served as a consultant for national and international healthcare agencies, including the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, and the World Health Organization. He had recently started in his position at the VA and was an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University when he received his first HSR&D Career Development Award. He has helped to train a generation of health services researchers, mentoring more than 45 trainees, with several receiving HSR&D Career Development Awards. With a dedicated commitment to research, he has been a principal or co-principal investigator on more than 35 grants/research projects, and has nearly 130 publications that include journal articles, books, and book chapters. Dr. Owens' research has been presented more than 100 times at professional and scientific meetings.
Owens spends approximately 70 to 80 percent of his time on research, much of which has focused on HIV and sudden cardiac death. This research helped determine that routine HIV screening in health care settings is cost-effective, even in relatively low-prevalence populations. Results of this research were published in The New England Journal of Medicine (February 2005) and played an important role in a revision of HIV screening recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). His research on strategies to prevent sudden cardiac death determined that the use of implantable cardioverter defibrillators is a cost-effective treatment for some patients and also identified those patients most likely to benefit from the use of these devices. In addition, Dr. Owens has made fundamental contributions to the methodology of guideline development and has shown that guidelines are more effective if patients' preferences about health-related quality of life are incorporated. Dr. Owens also conducts research in the area of biodefense, evaluating the usefulness of information and syndromic surveillance systems, and the importance of the supply chain in managing the response to bioterrorism.
In 2007, Dr. Owens received the Under Secretary's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research. This award recognizes a VA researcher whose work has led to major improvements in the quality of veterans' health care, has made key contributions to the future of health services research through excellence in training and mentorship, and has enhanced the visibility and reputation of VA research through national leadership. As an influential health services researcher and an exceptional mentor and leader, Dr. Owens exemplifies the qualities the award represents.
In addition to his outstanding contributions to health services research, Dr. Owens has been a staff physician with the Ambulatory Care Department of the VA Medical Center in Palo Alto, CA for more than 20 years, and cites "protected time to begin a research career, formal mentoring, and a great network of experts and colleagues" as key benefits to being a Career Development Awardee. His advice to other Career Development Awardees is to "make sure your work is of the highest quality scholarship", and to "choose mentors carefully, cultivate long term collaborations, try to be involved in training programs with high quality trainees."