Clarissa Hsu, PhD

“I want to empower individuals and communities by ensuring they have the information and support from health care systems to make decisions and take action to improve their health and well-being. This means directly involving them in the design and testing of health care processes and interventions.”

Clarissa Hsu, PhD

Associate Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute

Clarissa.W.Hsu@kp.org
206-287-4276

Curriculum vitae (CV)

Biography

Medical anthropologist Clarissa Hsu, PhD, has been doing Kaiser Permanente research since 2001, and became an official member of the faculty in 2011. She conducts research using a holistic approach that unites the cultural, social, and political factors that shape health and health care. Dr. Hsu was one of the first researchers to receive funding from the national Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), which supports studies on issues that are a high priority for patients, caregivers, and clinicians. PCORI-funded research follows an innovative model, including patient input at all steps in the research process. Dr. Hsu and her team christened her PCORI project LINCC: Learning to Integrate Neighborhoods and Clinical Care.

The LINCC project designed, piloted, and evaluated a new primary care role: connecting patients to community resources. This new community resource specialist role was spread throughout Kaiser Permanente Washington, with a robust evaluation and implementation support co-led by Dr. Hsu through KPWHRI’s Center for Accelerating Care Transformation. LINCC also resulted in the creation of valuable health care resources, including an article on having patients as co-investigators, as well as a guide and set of care-design templates for engaging a cohort of patients in co-designing care.

Dr. Hsu is also at the forefront of other prevalent health issues, working to document, design, evaluate, and disseminate new approaches and best practices. She seeks to help chronic pain patients taper off and find alternatives to opioids. She also works to improve how care delivery systems interact with patients and family members around sensitive and complex topics such as dementia diagnoses, use of antipsychotics in youth, blood pressure diagnosis and control, cannabis use, and childhood vaccinations.

Dr. Hsu is an affiliate professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health.

Research interests and experience

Clinical Quality Improvement
Primary care; ambulatory care; preventive medicine; health care design and workforce issues; addressing social determinants of health
Patient-Centered Outcomes Research/Patient-Centered Care
Patient engagement and partnership; shared decision making
Chronic Pain
Using safe and effective methods to treat pain, supporting patients to minimize opioid use, cannabis use, communication about pain
Addressing Social Risks in Clinical Settings

Screening and providing support for patients with social needs
Complementary & Integrative Health

Patient experiences with complementary and alternative medicine
Evaluation Science and Implementation and Dissemination Science

Qualitative and mixed-methods approaches

Healthy Communities

Clinic-community linkages; preventive medicine; addressing social determinants of health
Addictions

Prevention and treatment
Social Determinants of Health
Chronic Illness Management
Vaccines & Infectious Diseases

Recent publications

Parchman M, Hsu C, Fagnan L, van Borkulo N, Tuzzio L. Building a learning health care organization: external facilitation tailors support to the learning capacity of primary care settings. J Patient Cent Res Rev. 2017;4:187. PubMed

Evers S, Hsu C, Sherman KJ, Balderson B, Hawkes R, Brewer G, La Porte AM, Yeoman J, Cherkin D. Patient perspectives on communication with primary care providers about chronic low back pain. Perm J. 2017;21. doi: 10.7812/TPP/16-177. PubMed

Schoeppe J, Cheadle A, Melton M, Faubion T, Miller C, Matthys J, Hsu C. The Immunity Community: a community engagement strategy for reducing vaccine hesitancy. Health Promot Pract. 2017 Sep;18(5):654-661. doi: 10.1177/1524839917697303. Epub 2017 Apr 11. PubMed

Flinter M, Hsu C, Cromp D, Ladden MD, Wagner EH. Registered nurses in primary care: emerging new roles and contributions to team-based care in high-performing practices. J Ambulatory Care Manage. 2017 Mar 20. doi: 10.1097/JAC.0000000000000193. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Schoeppe J, Cheadle A, Melton M, Faubion T, Miller C, Matthys J, Hsu C. The Immunity Community. Health Promot Pract. 2017 Mar 1:1524839917697303. doi: 10.1177/1524839917697303. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Wagner EH, Flinter M, Hsu C, Cromp D, Austin BT, Etz R, Crabtree BF, Ladden MD. Effective team-based primary care: observations from innovative practices. BMC Fam Pract. 2017 Feb 2;18(1):13. doi: 10.1186/s12875-017-0590-8. PubMed

Figueroa Gray M, Hsu C, Kiel L, Dublin S. "It's a very big burden on me": women's experiences using insulin for gestational diabetes. Matern Child Health J. 2017 Jan 13. doi: 10.1007/s10995-017-2261-8. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Parchman ML, Von Korff M, Baldwin LM, Stephens M, Ike B, Cromp D, Hsu C, Wagner EH. Primary care clinic re-design for prescription opioid management. J Am Board Fam Med. 2017 1/2;30(1):44-51. doi: 10.3122/jabfm.2017.01.160183. PubMed

Parchman ML, Fagnan LJ, Dorr DA, Evans P, Cook AJ, Penfold RB, Hsu C, Cheadle A, Baldwin LM, Tuzzio L. Study protocol for "Healthy Hearts Northwest": a 2 x 2 randomized factorial trial to build quality improvement capacity in primary care. Implement Sci. 2016 Oct 13;11(1):138. PubMed

Hsu C, Liss DT, Frosch DL, Westbrook EO, Arterburn D. Exploring provider reactions to decision aid distribution and shared decision making: lessons from two specialties. Med Decis Making. 2017;37(1):113-126. Epub 2016 Oct 6. PubMed