Clarissa Hsu, PhD
“I want to empower individuals and communities by ensuring they have the information and support from health care systems to make decisions and take action to improve their health and well-being. This means directly involving them in the design and testing of health care processes and interventions.”
Clarissa Hsu, PhD
Associate Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Clarissa.W.Hsu@kp.org
206-287-4276
Biography
Medical anthropologist Clarissa Hsu, PhD, has been doing Kaiser Permanente research since 2001, and became an official member of the faculty in 2011. She conducts research using a holistic approach that unites the cultural, social, and political factors that shape health and health care. Dr. Hsu was one of the first researchers to receive funding from the national Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), which supports studies on issues that are a high priority for patients, caregivers, and clinicians. PCORI-funded research follows an innovative model, including patient input at all steps in the research process. Dr. Hsu and her team christened her PCORI project LINCC: Learning to Integrate Neighborhoods and Clinical Care.
The LINCC project designed, piloted, and evaluated a new primary care role: connecting patients to community resources. This new community resource specialist role was spread throughout Kaiser Permanente Washington, with a robust evaluation and implementation support co-led by Dr. Hsu through KPWHRI’s Center for Accelerating Care Transformation. LINCC also resulted in the creation of valuable health care resources, including an article on having patients as co-investigators, as well as a guide and set of care-design templates for engaging a cohort of patients in co-designing care.
Dr. Hsu is also at the forefront of other prevalent health issues, working to document, design, evaluate, and disseminate new approaches and best practices. She seeks to help chronic pain patients taper off and find alternatives to opioids. She also works to improve how care delivery systems interact with patients and family members around sensitive and complex topics such as dementia diagnoses, use of antipsychotics in youth, blood pressure diagnosis and control, cannabis use, and childhood vaccinations.
Dr. Hsu is an affiliate professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health.
Research interests and experience
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Clinical Quality Improvement
Primary care; ambulatory care; preventive medicine; health care design and workforce issues; addressing social determinants of health -
Patient-Centered Outcomes Research/Patient-Centered Care
Patient engagement and partnership; shared decision making -
Chronic Pain
Using safe and effective methods to treat pain, supporting patients to minimize opioid use, cannabis use, communication about pain -
Addressing Social Risks in Clinical Settings
Screening and providing support for patients with social needs -
Complementary & Integrative Health
Patient experiences with complementary and alternative medicine
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Evaluation Science and Implementation and Dissemination Science
Qualitative and mixed-methods approaches
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Healthy Communities
Clinic-community linkages; preventive medicine; addressing social determinants of health
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Addictions
Prevention and treatment
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Social Determinants of Health
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Chronic Illness Management
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Vaccines & Infectious Diseases
Recent publications
Hsu C, Hansell L, Ehrlich K, Munson S, Anderson M, Margolis KL, McClure JB, Hall YN, Thompson M, Joseph D, Green BB Primary care physician beliefs and practices regarding blood pressure measurement: results from BP-CHECK qualitative interviews 2023 Jan 25;24(1):30. doi: 10.1186/s12875-022-01950-1. Epub 2023-01-25. PubMed
Hsu C, Evers S, Ibrahim A, Patricia M, Throne P, Melton M, Marcuse EK, Ali A, Dunn J, Hofstetter AM Sometimes Your Heart Says 'I Don't Know': Insights from Parents of Undervaccinated Children 2023 Jan;23(1):57-67. doi: 10.1016/j.acap.2022.10.002. Epub 2022-10-10. PubMed
Green BB, Anderson ML, Cook AJ, Ehrlich K, Hall YN, Hsu C, Joseph D, Klasnja P, Margolis KL, McClure JB, Munson SA, Thompson MJ Clinic, Home, and Kiosk Blood Pressure Measurements for Diagnosing Hypertension: a Randomized Diagnostic Study 2022 Sep;37(12):2948-2956. doi: 10.1007/s11606-022-07400-z. Epub 2022-03-03. PubMed
Lapham GT, Matson TE, Carrell DS, Bobb JF, Luce C, Oliver MM, Ghitza UE, Hsu C, Browne KC, Binswanger IA, Campbell CI, Saxon AJ, Vandrey R, Schauer GL, Pacula RL, Horberg MA, Bailey SR, McClure EA, Bradley KA Comparison of Medical Cannabis Use Reported on a Confidential Survey vs Documented in the Electronic Health Record Among Primary Care Patients 2022 May 2;5(5):e2211677. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.11677. Epub 2022-05-02. PubMed
Green BB, Anderson ML, Ehrlich K, Hall YN, Hansell LD, Hsu C, Joseph D, Margolis KL, McClure JB, Munson SA, Thompson MJ Blood Pressure Checks for Diagnosing Hypertension: Health Professionals' Knowledge, Beliefs, and Practices 2022 Mar;35(2):310-319. doi: 10.3122/jabfm.2022.02.210318. PubMed
Carrell DS, Cronkite DJ, Shea M, Oliver M, Luce C, Matson TE, Bobb JF, Hsu C, Binswanger IA, Browne KC, Saxon AJ, McCormack J, Jelstrom E, Ghitza UE, Campbell CI, Bradley KA, Lapham GT Clinical documentation of patient-reported medical cannabis use in primary care: Toward scalable extraction using natural language processing methods 2022 Jan;43(1):917-924. doi: 10.1080/08897077.2021.1986767. PubMed
Coleman KF, Krakauer C, Anderson M, Michaels L, Dorr DA, Fagnan LJ, Hsu C, Parchman ML Improving Quality Improvement Capacity and Clinical Performance in Small Primary Care Practices 2021 Nov;19(6):499-506. doi: 10.1370/afm.2733. PubMed
Palazzo L, Hsu C, Barnes DE, Gray MF, Greenwood-Hickman MA, Larson EB, Dublin S Patient and caregiver perspectives on a tool to increase recognition of undiagnosed dementia: a qualitative study 2021 Oct 26;21(1):604. doi: 10.1186/s12877-021-02523-0. Epub 2021-10-26. PubMed
Placzek H, Cruz S, Chapdelaine M, Carl M, Levin S, Hsu C Intersecting systemic and personal barriers to accessing social services: qualitative interviews in northern California 2021 Oct 24;21(1):1933. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-11981-5. Epub 2021-10-24. PubMed
Hofstetter AM, Opel DJ, Stockwell MS, Hsu C, Zhou C, Mangione-Smith RM, Englund JA Associations between Healthcare Professional Communication Practices and Influenza Vaccination of Hospitalized Children: Influenza vaccine communication during hospitalization 2021 Sep;21(7):1142-1150. doi: 10.1016/j.acap.2021.06.014. Epub 2021-07-02. PubMed
ENSPIRE Codesign Playbook
Develop a codesign project and process with insights from the ENSPIRE study.
Healthy findings blog
Accelerating qualitative research with Rap-GAP
Clarissa Hsu and Jess Mogk share a new way to fast-track insights from qualitative data.
Research roundup
What's new in cannabis use research?
Use in pregnancy and screening in primary care studied by KPWHRI’s Kiel, Matson, and Lapham.
research
LINCC-ing patients with community resources
Study ends but benefits for Kaiser Permanente members continue — thanks to a new support role in the regions’ clinics, writes Dr. Clarissa Hsu.
Resources
Partnering with Patients as Equals in Co-Designing Primary Care: Examples and Tools from the LINCC Project
New findings
Overcoming undervaccination
Clarissa Hsu, PhD, asked parents why they decline or delay vaccinating their children to explore ways to overcome barriers to getting vaccinated.
Land Acknowledgment
Our Seattle offices sit on the occupied land of the Duwamish and by the shared waters of the Coast Salish people, who have been here thousands of years and remain. Learn about practicing land acknowledgment.