Administration and Fiscal Overview
Administration and Fiscal Overview: 2008 Research Activities
The Division of Research (DOR) is home to 41 investigators and 10 staff scientists who served as principal investigators or co-investigators on 353 research projects in 2008. In addition, DOR Administration provides support to 28 adjunct investigators from other academic institutions and to 35 clinician investigators from The Permanente Medical Group. The DOR was awarded 56 new grants and contracts in 2008. Extramural funding for research activities in 2008 totaled $58.3 million, an increase of 18.2 percent from fiscal year 2007.
DOR research projects include epidemiologic and health services studies, clinical trials, and program evaluations covering a wide range of topics, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, substance abuse, mental health, maternal and child health, women's health, drug safety, health care policy and health services, health and health care disparities, and genetic influences on health and illness.
DOR researchers contributed nearly 200 scientific articles to the medical and public health literature in 2008.
The majority of DOR studies involve collaborations with researchers from other regions of Kaiser Permanente, and from other health plan-based centers affiliated with the HMO Research Network. We also collaborate with academic institutions across the country. Of particular note are our rich collaborative relationships with academic centers in the Bay Area, including the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Stanford University School of Medicine, and the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. The DOR is a founding partner with UCSF of its Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
The DOR Administration team provides a wide range of services that include:
- Grants and contracts (pre-award support)
- Fiscal operations (post-award services)
- Human resources
- Communications/public affairs
- Research compliance (Institutional Review Board)
- Facility operations
DOR Administration also oversees medical records analysis, data entry services, administrative assistance, and the Morris F. Collen Research Library at the DOR.
DOR's IT services, led by Joseph F. Terdiman, MD, PhD, provides comprehensive computing and informatics support to DOR investigators and staff. The strategic programming group, led by Jamila Gul, maintains many of the DOR's key databases and supports training and career development for more than 70 programmers/analysts at the division.
Dedicated to Barry Miller, PhD
The DOR lost a colleague and dear friend in 2008. We want to acknowledge the work over the past 14 years of Dr. Barry Miller, who joined The Permanente Medical Group in 1994 and became the DOR's administrative director in 2003.
Barry died suddenly in October. He brought a level of energy, an exemplary professionalism, a sense of humor, and a passion for living that enriched all of us. We will deeply miss Barry and have named a conference room after him to keep his memory alive.
The administration team is being led on an interim basis by Elize Brown, DrPH, JD, acting administrative director and Alison Truman, MHA, associate administrative director.