Karin

Nelson

MD

MSHS

Education & Training

• MD, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN (1991–1995)
• Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine, Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis, MN (1995–1998)
• MSHS, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA (1998–2000)

Honors

• Mentoring Award nominee, University of Washington (2015)
• VHA HSR&D’s Best Research Paper of the Year Award for Nelson, et al. Implementation of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) (2015)
• Society for General Internal Medicine Northwest Region Award for Excellence in Clinician Investigation (2015)
• Department of Medicine Distinguished Alumnus of the Year, Hennepin County Medical Center (2013)
• NRSA Research Fellowship (1998–2000)
• Primary Care Resident Award (1998)
• Cardiology Book Award (1996, 1997)
• Best Trainee Paper Award (1993)
• Sigma Xi (1989)

clinical interests

• Diabetes self-management
• Nutrition and hunger
• Patient adherence
• Patient-centered medical home

publication highlights

• Nelson KM, Brown ME, Lurie N. Hunger in an adult patient population. JAMA. 1998 Apr 15;279(15):1211–4. PMID: 9555762.
• Nelson KM, Reiber G, Boyko EJ. Diet and exercise among adults with type 2 diabetes: Findings from the third national health and nutrition examination survey (NHANES III). Diabetes Care. 2002 Oct;25(10):1722–8. PMID: 12351468.
• Nelson KM. The burden of obesity among a national probability sample of veterans. J Gen Intern Med. 2006 Sep;21(9):915–9. PMID: 16918734; PMCID: PMC1831589.
• Nelson KM, McFarland L, Reiber G. Factors influencing disease self-management among veterans with diabetes and poor glycemic control. J Gen Intern Med. 2007 Apr;22(4):442–7. PMID: 17372790; PMCID: PMC1829424.
• Nelson KM, Helfrich C, Sun H, Hebert PL, Liu CF, Dolan E, Taylor L, Wong E, Maynard C, Hernandez SE, Sanders W, Randall I, Curtis I, Schectman G, Stark R, Fihn SD. Implementation of the patient-centered medical home in the Veterans Health Administration: associations with patient satisfaction, quality of care, staff burnout, and hospital and emergency department use. JAMA Intern Med. 2014 Aug;174(8):1350–8. PMID: 25055197.

research

Primary Care Policy and Health Care Delivery: VHA Primary Care Analytics Team

Dr. Nelson is the Director of Primary Care Analytics Team (PCAT) for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Office of Primary Care (OPC). The OPC is charged with policy and planning for over 900 primary care clinics nationally to provide high-quality, accessible team-based care to over 9 million Veterans. The current mission of PCAT is to enhance the capability of the OPC to make meaningful evidenced-based clinical and policy decisions about primary care delivery through generation of new evidence and evidence synthesis. PCAT evolved from a 6-site demonstration project and evaluation of the patient centered medical home initiative, called the Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) program. This evaluation effort has been instrumental in providing evidence regarding the patient centered medical home (PCMH) model. Dr. Nelson was the lead investigator for the development of a measure of the implementation of the PCMH model in VA. Dr. Nelson was first author on a study published JAMA Internal Medicine that was selected as the 2015 VA HSR&D research paper of the year. Her current work in primary care policy includes a recently funded VA IIR focusing on Developing a New Method to Improve Primary Care Workforce Management (HSR&D IIR 20-309).

• Nelson KM, Reddy A, Stockdale S, Rose D, Fihn S, Rosland AM, Stewart G, Denietolis A, Curtis I, Mori A, Rubenstein L. The Primary Care Analytics Team: integrating research and clinical care within the Veterans Health Administration Office of Primary Care. Healthcare. 8 (2021) Jun;8 Suppl 1:100491. doi: 10.1016/j.hjdsi.2020.100491. Epub 2021 Jun 23. PMID: 34175100.

Testing Models to Improve Chronic Disease Management and Disease Prevention

Dr. Nelson’s current work is testing peer support models in the Veteran primary care population. Vet-Coach was a 4-year randomized trial tests a peer support model in the VA, where Veterans, trained as peer health coaches, work with other veterans to decrease cardiovascular risks among patients with poorly controlled hypertension [Vet COACH (Veteran peer Coaches Optimizing and Advancing Cardiac Health, (HSR&D – IIR 14-063-2)]. Utilizing geographic information systems (GIS) data, this study targets high-risk communities where veterans and their peer coaches reside. The primary results were published in JAMA Network Open. Recently funded, the VetAssist study will test a Telehealth-delivered peer support intervention on quality of life among Veterans with multimorbidity (IIR 21-100). These study is being conducted at the VHA Seattle-Denver Center of Innovation (COIN), where Dr. Nelson is a core Investigator.

• Nelson KM, Taylor L, Williams JL, Rao M, Gray KE, Kramer CB, Epler E, Fennell T. Effect of a Peer Health Coaching Intervention on Clinical Outcomes Among US Veterans With Cardiovascular Risks: The Vet-COACH Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Jun 1;6(6):e2317046. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.

Career Development and Mentorship

Dr. Nelson is past co-Director for the VA MD HSR&D fellowship. She currently serves as the primary mentor for 2 VHA Career Development (CDA) awardees and a co-mentor on a third VHA CDA award. She has provided mentorship to numerous trainees from the medical student to the PhD post-doctoral fellow and Assistant Professor level. She was nominated for the 2015 and 2020 UW Department of Medicine Mentoring Award and for the 2019 UW School of Medicine Excellence in Mentoring Women Faculty Award.