Rose Gunn is a qualitative research scientist on the OCHIN research team. Since joining OCHIN in 2019, Rose has contributed to grants as project director, qualitative team lead, and co-investigator. She also serves as co-lead for OCHIN’s Qualitative Core for Iterative Research & Design. Drawing on her training in cultural anthropology, Rose’s research portfolio encompasses a broad range of topics, with particular emphasis on human-centered design, implementation science, health equity, and health information technology. She earned her Epic Ambulatory Proficiency Certification in 2021 and has expertise in leveraging qualitative methods to foster the impact and sustainability of evidence-based interventions and elevate voices of those providing and receiving care in community health center settings.
Rose’s research career began in 2002, traversing the intersection of education and health care research. Prior to OCHIN, she held positions at nonprofit research organizations and public institutions, most recently at Oregon Health & Science University’s Department of Family Medicine and Oregon Rural Practice-based Research Network.
Rose has been involved in many implementation science studies over the course of her career, specifically using qualitative and mixed methods to better understand how and why implementation strategies work in primary care settings. Features of the qualitative approaches used routinely in anthropology are well-suited to studying complex implementation processes and the unique contextual factors inherent in implementing interventions in the real world. Rose has led activities on a number of implementation science studies examining the implementation and supportive implementation strategies in real time or evaluating the sustained impact of implementation efforts.
Health equity and social risk are domains woven throughout much of the research Rose is involved in. Focusing specifically on care quality, access, and social needs care, Rose’s research experience has been primarily based in clinics serving patients that have been economically and socially marginalized. She has had the privilege of working closely with Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), and consumers of Medicaid and Medicare programs.
The ability to electronically document and exchange health information is a key characteristic of primary care provision but remains a source of burden and frustration for clinical staff. Designing EHR features in collaboration with users and applying implementation strategies to support adoption and sustained use of such features is paramount to delivering high-quality, patient-centered care. Rose’s research experience in this field is underscored by training and subsequent certifications in agile HIT design (Certified ScrumMaster) and EpicCare ambulatory proficiency. Rose has expertise applying these HIT learnings to qualitative and mixed methods studies by convening clinical stakeholder groups, conducting clinic observations, and interviewing clinicians and clinic staff to better understand facilitators and barriers to using EHR tools and their implementation. In many of these projects, she rapidly analyzed and shared findings to inform EHR build changes and related implementation strategies.
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