Robert Penfold, PhD, is a health services research and health policy expert whose work focuses on developing and testing strategies to optimize behavioral health care delivery and patient outcomes—particularly in children and adolescents. His research addresses practical issues, such as how to reduce unnecessary use of antipsychotic medications in youth. He also studies the effects of cost-control policies on how clinicians deliver care, how people use care, and how those changes can promote or worsen their health.
Dr. Penfold is a co-investigator in the Mental Health Research Network (MHRN), a resource for studies on mental health conditions ranging from autism to postnatal depression. He leads the MHRN’s child and adolescent scientific interest group. He is also investigating reasons why similar patients receive different mental health treatment, such as different medications, depending on where they live or receive care.
His other recent and ongoing projects include:
Dr. Penfold has extensive experience gathering and analyzing information from large health databases, including those of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Health Care Systems Research Network’s Virtual Data Warehouse. These data and analyses allow rapid information sharing among Kaiser Permanente Washington and participating sites, which improves patient safety and timely access to effective, cutting-edge therapies.
He has also conducted several novel pragmatic clinical trials using the Epic electronic health record system.
Before joining KPWHRI in 2010, Dr. Penfold held research and teaching positions at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio; the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority; the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy; and most recently, at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Population Medicine and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute.
Children and adolescents; anti-psychotics and anti-depressants; bipolar disorder, and depression
Comparative effectiveness; consumer-directed health plans; patient outcomes; costs of chronic illnesses; Medicare and Medicaid
Space-time surveillance; interrupted time series analysis
Schoenfelder Gonzalez E, Myers K, Thompson EE, King DA, Glass AM, Penfold RB. Developing home-based telemental health services for youth: Practices from the SUAY Study. J Telemed Telecare. 2021 Feb;27(2):110-115. doi: 10.1177/1357633X19863208. Epub 2019 Jul 25. PubMed
Hartzler AL, Ralston JD, Hannan TA, Kelleher KJ, Penfold RB. Designing safer use of antipsychotics among youths: a human-centered approach to an algorithm-based solution. Psychiatr Serv. 2019 Jul 16:appips201800390. doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.201800390. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Parchman ML, Penfold RB, Ike B, Tauben D, Von Korff M, Stephens M, Stephens KA, Baldwin LM. Team-based clinic redesign of opioid medication management in primary care: effect on opioid prescribing. Ann Fam Med. 2019 Jul;17(4):319-325. doi: 10.1370/afm.2390. PubMed
Simon GE, Shortreed SM, Coley RY, Penfold RB, Rossom RC, Waitzfelder BE, Sanchez K, Lynch FL. Assessing and minimizing re-identification risk in research data derived from health care records. eGEMS (Wash DC). 2019;7(1):6. doi: 10.5334/egems.270. PubMed
Simon GE, Johnson E, Lawrence JM, Rossom RC, Ahmedani B, Lynch FL, Beck A, Waitzfelder B, Ziebell R, Penfold RB, Shortreed SM. Predicting suicide attempts and suicide deaths following outpatient visits using electronic health records. Am J Psychiatry. 2018 May 24:appiajp201817101167. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.17101167. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Maggie Ramirez, PhD, and Robert Penfold, PhD, culturally adapt an online program.
KPWHRI researchers are contributing to better mental health care for people nationwide.
Models that are easier to explain, use could have better uptake in health care settings.
The HCSRN conference is a venue for collaborative work to improve health and health care.