HSR&D Research Career Scientist Award Application

This Research Career Scientist award is for Dr. John Fortney who has spent his entire 27 year professional career working for HSR&D, and has been continuously funded as a principal investigator since 1995. His research has explored geographic barriers to VHA care, examining the benefits of Community Based Outpatient Clinics, and using emerging virtual care technologies to integrate offsite mental health specialists into primary care delivered at small rural CBOCs. In 2010, he Co-Chaired the HSR&D State of the Art (SOTA) Conference on Improving Access to VA Care, and worked with VHA leadership and HSR&D investigators to develop the SOTA access model, a re-conceptualization of access for the digital age. He is currently the principal investigator of the Virtual Specialty Care QUERI Program and a PCORI-funded large pragmatic comparative effectiveness trial. His goal is to improve rural Veteran's access to care and VHA's capacity to deliver evidence based mental health practices through mentoring, leadership, research, and implementation. This goal will be achieved with three specific aims. The first aim is to mentor graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty members in order to cultivate the next generation of researchers with the content and methodological expertise needed to maximize VHA's population health impact on rural Veteran enrollees. The second aim is to provide scientific leadership to our HSR&D Center of Innovation and QUERI Programs, and facilitate collaboration with our university affiliates, clinical programs, and operational partners. The third aim is to conduct policy relevant, clinically actionable, and methodologically rigorous research to maximize VHA's population health impact on rural Veteran enrollees. His goals and aims directly address the first of VHA's five Priorities for Strategic Action, three of HSR&D's six Cross-Cutting Priority Areas and three of the critical strategies highlighted in VHA's Blueprint for Excellence.