New Director of Clinical Research - Dr. Valerie Vaughn
Valerie Vaughn, MD, MS, SFHM, FACP, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of Hospital Medicine Research in the Division of General Internal Medicine, has been appointed Director of Clinical Research for the Department of Internal Medicine and will officially start on August 1, 2024.
As director of Clinical Research, Dr. Vaughn will promote clinical research and support the department’s Tenure-Line and Career-Line faculty and trainees interested in clinical research, including patient-oriented research, epidemiologic and behavioral studies, outcomes, clinical trials, and health services research. Dr. Vaughn will advise department and division leadership on clinical research support services, mentoring opportunities, and strategic planning. In particular, Dr. Vaughn aims to grow clinical research mentorship opportunities for faculty and our pragmatic clinical trials infrastructure.
Dr. Vaughn’s research focuses on improving the safety of hospitalized patients with common infections, particularly pneumonia and urinary tract infection, through high-quality multi-center observational studies, implementation science, and clinical trials. She has focused on combating diagnostic error and overuse, particularly antibiotic overuse at care transitions. She has received funding from AHRQ, CDC, NIH, the National Academy of Medicine, and multiple foundations. She has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers in prestigious journals, including JAMA, BMJ, JAMA Internal Medicine, and Annals of Internal Medicine. She also serves as Deputy Editor for The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety and as Chair of the Society of Hospital Medicine Research Committee.
As Director of Hospital Medicine Research for the Division of General Internal Medicine, Dr. Vaughn leads the Utah Quality Advancement Laboratory (UQuAL), a multi-disciplinary program focused on improving healthcare delivery quality, safety, and equity across contexts. She also created and co-directs UQuAL Scholars, a mentorship program that has successfully mentored 11 clinical-track faculty in conducting and publishing clinical research, and the UQuAL Hospitalist team, a patient safety learning laboratory where an embedded nurse researcher works to integrate clinical care, education, and clinical research.