Dr. Patricia Prusaczyk joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of General Medical Sciences in August, 2019.
Dr. Prusaczyk is trained in medical informatics and in dissemination and implementation research. She has joined the Institute for Informatics and the Division of GMS as a junior faculty member working with Randi Foraker. Dr. Prusaczyk will be working with the interface of informatics and dissemination/implementation research to study how changes in guidelines or other interventions to improve health actually play out in health care quality, and the barriers and facilitators for the diffusion of best practices or new innovations in health care. Dr. Prusaczyk is an implementation scientist who specializes in improving healthcare for older adults and other vulnerable populations by understanding how to better implement existing research findings into real-world practice and policy through the use of healthcare data and systems and team science. Her research interests include strategies to improve the implementation of evidence-based practices for older adults in the healthcare system, including the effect of interpersonal team dynamics on the implementation process and the use of existing healthcare data and system science methods such as social network analysis to inform and speed the implementation process.
Dr. Prusaczyk completed her postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She received her PhD and MSW from the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Prusaczyk received her undergraduate degree in journalism from Webster University. She also served as a 2018-2019 Health and Aging Policy Fellow and as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow working with Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), Ranking Member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging.