Dr. Thomas Houston directs national research initiative

Health care is a relatively new frontier for electronic communication, but that is changing with impetus from the country’s largest integrated health system—the one run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 

Recognizing the enormous and as-yet untapped potential for information and communication technologies to improve health care access and quality for tens of thousands of veterans, in 2011 the Health Services Research & Development (HSR&D) Service of the VA established the eHealth Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI). And in a highly competitive process, the VA chose Thomas Houston, MD, MPH, professor of quantitative health sciences and medicine, to direct this national research center. A recognized leader in patient–provider communication and health IT research, Dr. Houston is chief of the Division of Health Informatics and Implementation Science in the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences.