Featured Image of Top News Story: Five questions for … Dr. Michael Kanter

Five questions for … Dr. Michael Kanter

Dr. Michael Kanter is an associate investigator with the Department of Research & Evaluation and the chair of Clinical Science and a professor for the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. He has been a quality care leader for Kaiser Permanente at both the regional and national ...

  • Maternal diabetes and risk for children

    August 2, 2019
    One way researchers at Kaiser Permanente work to make our next generation healthier is by studying children’s environments before birth. Recently several researchers looked at how mothers’ bodies manage sugar—including the type of diabetes that develops in pregnancy, called gestational diabetes—affected their children’s risk for diabetes, overweight/obesity, and cognitive impairment. Researchers at the Department of Research & ...
    Read more...
  • End-of-life: Researchers seek to learn needs of sickest patients

    August 2, 2019
    Researchers at the Department of Research & Evaluation are working to make the final life transitions better for patients and their families. Using analytical analysis, interviews, data queries and more, they aim to find out what people want in their final months and days, and how to improve care during that time. “The goal of medicine ...
    Read more...
  • Tackling a deadly regional disease: Valley fever

    August 2, 2019
    Over the years, the Department of Research & Evaluation’s Division of Clinical Trials Research has tackled some of the most serious infectious diseases facing Americans, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. Recently, the clinical trials team and epidemiologists targeted a deadly regional disease: Valley fever. Also known as coccidioidomycosis, Valley fever is a respiratory disease caused by ...
    Read more...
  • Addressing the social needs of patients

    August 2, 2019
    There is a growing awareness in the health care community that treating a patient’s medical symptoms may not be enough. Their social situation may be the true impediment to a cure. But how does a doctor house the homeless veteran, feed the hungry child, or end loneliness for the aging widower? Right now, investigators at Kaiser Permanente ...
    Read more...
  • Researchers and physicians work together to stem the opioid crisis

    August 2, 2019
    Research is integral to Kaiser Permanente Southern California’s robust program to reduce opioid prescriptions and overdoses. In fact, scientists in 2 of the Department of Research & Evaluation’s scientific divisions are separately pursuing active studies with multiple clinical partners. “We are working to provide evidence to … identify the best strategies to tackle this epidemic,” said ...
    Read more...
  • Researchers seek to reduce heart disease at home and abroad

    August 2, 2019
    Reducing heart disease and one of its major risk factors, high blood pressure, has long been a focus for Kaiser Permanente Southern California’s Department of Research & Evaluation. The work currently in progress will affect lives locally and globally. Several recent studies delved into aspects of blood pressure because high blood pressure is a major risk ...
    Read more...
  • Grant funds work to predict early-stage pancreatic cancer

    August 1, 2019
    The National Institutes of Health has awarded Kaiser Permanente a grant to find a way to predict early-stage pancreatic cancer. Leading the project is principal investigator Bechien Wu, MD, MPH, a clinician investigator with the Department of Research & Evaluation and a gastroenterologist with the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center. “Pancreatic cancer is the fourth ...
    Read more...
  • Research: RSV infection can be deadlier than flu in adults

    August 1, 2019
    In many ways, the initial symptoms of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus are indistinguishable. But, research published in Clinical Infectious Diseases last month showed that RSV infection may be even more dangerous than the flu in older adults. The Kaiser Permanente Southern California study of hospitalized adults revealed that RSV infection, a highly contagious respiratory virus ...
    Read more...
  • Mom’s diabetes could influence child’s risk of autism or ADHD

    August 1, 2019
    Since publishing in JAMA about strong associations between a mother’s diabetes and autism in 2015, Anny Xiang, PhD, a researcher with the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation, expanded that work to consider other neurological development disorders to find more nuances with the association,  including one published just last month. A study published ...
    Read more...
  • 5 questions for Dr. Bobeck S. Modjtahedi

    August 1, 2019
    Bobeck Modjtahedi, MD,  is 1 of 4 physicians appointed to the 2018 Southern California Permanente Medical Group Clinician Investigator Program. The program gives clinician researchers protected time in their schedule to conduct innovative research and use what they learn to transform medical practice. His research involves creating models that can predict a patient’s risk of ...
    Read more...