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Dr. Teresa Schmidt is an investigator at OCHIN. She holds a doctorate in systems science and has over a decade of experience conducting observational research with medical record data. She studies health care utilization, health policy, and public health issues, including vaccine safety surveillance. She also publishes on validation of electronic health record data and methodological advancements in network science. Teresa is dedicated to augmenting the generalizability of health research by using OCHIN’s data on historically underserved patient populations. She is passionate about generating knowledge on the strengths and limitations of electronic health data for scientific, clinical, and public health initiatives. Teresa’s goal is to build a research program at OCHIN that integrates data science, EHR data validation, and research on health informatics and health policy. She hopes her scientific applications will help to address health disparities in the United States.
Teresa has collaborated with colleagues to examine the availability and validity of data resources, including survey and electronic health record (EHR) data, as they pertain to observational research on public health and health policy. She has led efforts to map out key data gaps and resources for research on non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids, and she has contributed to research that evaluates the validity of cancer history records, diabetes-related biomarkers, chronic conditions, tobacco use, and insurance coverage information in the EHR.
Teresa has ten years of experience applying data science methods to the social sciences, including network analysis, data mining, and system dynamics simulations. She has applied these methods to a variety of public health and human development topics, including opioid treatment of chronic pain and risk and protective factors for child maltreatment. Her dissertation work applied data mining and network analysis techniques to statistically detect changes in health care delivery after a legislative change in the state of Oregon.
Teresa has worked as a statistical analyst on studies that measure the impact of health policy on health care delivery and utilization patterns in the U.S. safety net population. Her dissertation focused on Oregon’s Coordinated Care Organization legislation in 2012, and she has since participated in a number of NIH grant projects that focus on the impact of the Affordable Care Act on diagnosis of pre-existing conditions, delivery of preventive services, rates of tobacco cessation, and cancer care.
Teresa has direct experience measuring EHR system tool utilization and data quality, including EHR tools for health insurance promotion (R01CA181452), pregnancy intention screening (R01HS025155), and tobacco use assessments (R01CA204267). She also has experience evaluating systematic variability in data capture, such as for pre-existing conditions and cancer history, as it varies by racial, ethnic, and other demographics among community health center patients.
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