Brystana Kaufman, PhD, MSPH
 Dr. Kaufman is a Health Research Scientist at the Durham VA. Dr. Kaufman is also Assistant Professor in Population Health Sciences at Duke University, with a joint appointment at the Duke-Margolis Center. Her research objective is to improve the value of care for older Veterans, particularly those with multiple chronic conditions. Dr. Kaufman’s current work focuses on improving access to team-based palliative care and integrated care models earlier in the disease trajectory to improve quality of life and prevent unnecessary hospitalizations. Balancing the costs, risks and benefits of interventions becomes more challenging as goals for care shift and costs escalate in the later stages of life. Her research evaluates patient outcomes and cost-effectiveness of value-based payment models and novel care strategies that impact seriously ill adults and their caregivers. Her expertise in quasi-experimental study designs and decision modeling are useful to mitigate selection bias in administrative data sources and to characterize uncertainty and heterogeneous effects in primary data. Dr. Kaufman received her Master of Science in Public Health and PhD in Health Policy and Management from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Prior to joining the Department of Population Health Sciences, she completed a pre-doctoral fellowship at the Duke Clinical Research Institute and post-doctoral fellowship at the Margolis Center for Health Policy. |
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WHY VA? |
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I am dedicated to improving Veterans’ health and quality of life by generating knowledge to support VA decision-making as both purchaser and provider of care. The VA is the largest integrated health system in the United States, and this setting provides a unique opportunity to collaborate with clinical partners to conduct research that directly informs practice and improves care for Veterans. |
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Brystana Kaufman on Twitter
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