Andrew Auerbach, MD, MPH

Dr. Auerbach's research at UCSF has primarily focused on assessments of patient outcomes in different systems of care, with a special interest in the hospitalist model; Dr. Auerbach is the UCSF PI for a multicenter study of hospitalist systems. Most recently, he has been developing research programs in perioperative medicine, with a special focus on methods to predict and prevent perioperative medical complications, and novel approaches for translating empiric research into clinical practice.

Rachelle Bernacki, MD

A new member of the group, Dr. Bernacki recently completed her Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program at the University of Chicago.  A trained geriatrician, her interests are improving end-of-life care and outcomes of care in older inpatients.

Russell Cucina, MD, MS

Dr. Cucina's research is in clinical human-computer interaction science with an emphasis on human factors and patient safety, decision support systems and automated clinical inference, sociotechnical aspects of clinical information systems, information storage and retrieval methods, and knowledge representation and management.

Margaret Fang, MD, MPH

Dr. Fang's research interests focus on evaluating the quality, safety, and outcomes associated with anticoagulation therapy. Her long-term goal is determine how best to use anticoagulants for older adults.

Liz Goldman, MD

A recent general medicine fellowship graduate, Dr. Goldman is interested in measuring and improving the quality of hospital care, particularly for underserved populations.

Karen Hauer, MD

Dr. Hauer's research interests include mentoring, clinical skills education, and the impact of hospitalists on medical education.

Tracy Minichiello, MD

Dr. Minichiello's clinical and research interest is in thrombosis and hypercoaguability. She is the director of UCSF Anticoagulation Clinic and the Director of the Inpatient Comprehensive Hemostasis and Thrombosis Service (CHAS). Along with the other CHAS team members she has played a key role in quality improvement projects to decrease hospital-associated deep venous thrombosis and increase the safety of anticoagulation in hospitalized and ambulatory patients.

Steve Pantilat, MD

Dr. Pantilat has an active research agenda in improving end-of-life care.  He edits an ongoing case-based series on palliative care in JAMA (“Perspectives of Care at the Close of Life”), and has several ongoing research projects measuring palliative care outcomes and quality. 

Sumant Ranji, MD

Dr. Ranji is focused on the application of evidence-based medicine to quality measurement and improvement.  He has been the lead editor of several studies by the Stanford-UCSF Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) on strategies to close the chasm between evidence-based guidelines and clinical practice.

Niraj Sehgal, MD, MPH

Dr. Sehgal's research interests include patient safety and quality measurement. He's particularly focused on working to improve the collaboration among physicians with nurses, pharmacists, and administrators in designing patient safety interventions and educational methods. One of his overreaching goals is to stimulate and study organizational culture change as a means to providing safer healthcare.  He is leading the “Triad for Optimal Patient Safety” (TOPS) – a three hospital, interdisciplinary study of teamwork and communication skills training to improve safety culture.

Arpana Vidyarthi, MD

As director of quality for the hospitalist group, Dr. Vidyarthi’s research focuses on improving hand-offs, and the impact of resident duty-hours regulations on safety and education. 

Robert M. Wachter, MD

Dr. Wachter continues to be interested in organizational change, new models of clinical care (including the hospitalist model), and improving patient safety and quality.  He is collaborating with Dr. Sehgal on the TOPS projects.  He also edits the leading federal patient safety journal (AHRQ WebM&M) and portal (AHRQ PSNet), and is writing a new Lange handbook on patient safety.