Profile

Kari A Stephens
Associate Professor
Research
kstephen@uw.edu

Biography

Kari A. Stephens, PhD is the Helen D. Cohen Endowed Professor, Research Section Head, Director of Clinical Research Informatics, and Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Stephens is a practicing clinical psychologist and biomedical informaticist with an adjunct appointment in Biomedical Informatics & Medical Education. Dr. Stephens current research focuses on electronic health record data sharing / integration to improve population health in primary care and dissemination of behavioral treatments into integrated primary care settings, particularly among disadvantaged populations. She holds leadership roles locally and nationally in efforts pursuing use of tools and methods that leverage electronic health data in research, particularly in primary care to improve health, including leading regional informatics for the UW Institute of Translational Health Sciences, data science fellow with the UW eScience Institute, and Associate Director of the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center. Dr. Stephens has been funded by NIH, PCORI, AHRQ, SAHMSA, DoD, CDC, private agencies / foundations, and local and state government agencies. She has conducted clinical research in medical settings examining service utilization and disease disparities, posttraumatic stress disorder, chronic pain, substance use, COVID-19, and dementia particularly in integrated care contexts. She directs a regional electronic health record (EHR) data sharing research network, Data QUEST, which harmonizes EHR data across multiple health care institutions in the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho five-state region. Data QUEST is a data sharing resource for researchers interested in improving health through primary care.