View: Recent Awards || All Awards

June 15, 2015

Under Secretary's Award in Health Services Research to Dr. Dan Berlowitz

Dan R. Berlowitz, MD, MPH, received VA's 2015 Under Secretary's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research. The award is the highest honor for a VA health services researcher. Given annually by VA Health Services Research and Development (HSR&D), the award recognizes exceptional achievement in improving the health and quality of care of Veterans, inspiring and training the next generation of health services researchers, and enhancing the visibility and recognition of VA research nationally.

Berlowitz is the former co-director of HSR&D's Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research (CHOIR), and the former director of HSR&D's Center for Health Quality, Outcomes and Economic Research. Since 2012, he has served as acting chief of staff for the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial VA Hospital in Bedford.

A former HSR&D Career Development awardee, Berlowitz is recognized for his expertise in quality assessment, risk adjustment, and the use of large databases. His work focuses on assessing and improving the quality of health care for Veterans, with particular emphasis on ambulatory and long-term care settings.

His studies on Veterans with hypertension led to a reevaluation of how clinicians think about the problem of uncontrolled hypertension. VA responded with a quality-improvement initiative. Hypertension control rates are now well over 70 percent in VA, in large part due to reducing what Berlowitz termed "clinical inertia."

In addition, Berlowitz has worked with more than 20 fellows and Career Development awardees on diverse projects, and mentored other trainees and junior investigators at various VA sites.