Building a Culture of Inquiry
At the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine (KPSOM), our goal is to foster collaborative inquiry that generates evidence for clinicians and health systems, guides health policy and medical education practices, and, above all, advances health and health equity for patients and communities.
Our faculty and students pursue a wide range of innovative scholarly work, much of it focused on the relationship of social determinants to health outcomes. We connect our students with mentored research opportunities that build on our curriculum to help them both critically assess and produce the evidence that informs healthcare. Our research leverages the health plan members that Kaiser Permanente serves, while forging partnerships with our communities and external collaborations with researchers in Southern California and beyond.
We invite you to learn more about the work of our faculty and student researchers!
Our Researchers
KPSOM faculty members are actively making research contributions focused on clinical care, reducing inequities in health and healthcare, innovating in medical education, and more. They include faculty based at the school, clinicians conducting research and quality improvement activities in the Kaiser Permanente clinical delivery system, and investigators within Kaiser Permanente’s eight regional research units.
The large and diverse patient population of Kaiser Permanente’s healthcare system offers opportunities for our faculty to test innovative strategies and technologies for treatment of illness, disease prevention, and health promotion. In addition, our faculty conduct research with national scope to understand the factors underlying the health of individuals and populations and the most effective healthcare and policy interventions that will enable them to thrive. Together, our faculty published over 700 articles and were awarded approximately $70 million in federal research grants in 2022.
Empowering Student Researchers
We believe that the best physicians are compassionate caregivers informed by the rapidly developing evidence underlying medical care. Through our curriculum, including a required mentored Scholarly Project, we encourage students to develop humility about what we think we know, and to explore areas of uncertainty by framing questions that they themselves can answer. Equipped with skills to both assess and create evidence, our students are well positioned to make meaningful contributions to the scientific literature, the lives of their future patients, and the communities they serve.
Our student researchers utilize the electronic healthcare data of the delivery system, collaborate in ongoing funded research of their mentors, and have access to other data resources and analytic support from the school. Those interested in laboratory-based research can leverage KPSOM’s partnerships with local research institutions. The school encourages and supports students to present at national professional conferences and to publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals. An annual Student Scholarship Symposium allows students to showcase their work for the entire KPSOM community.
Kaiser Permanente Research
As one of the nation’s largest integrated healthcare systems, Kaiser Permanente is uniquely positioned to conduct research that directly impacts healthcare delivery. A large, diverse population of more than 12 million health plan members spanning 8 states and the District of Columbia in combination with state-of-the-art data systems allow studies of major significance for physicians, health plans, and policy makers. Areas of focus within the eight Kaiser Permanente research units include cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, infectious diseases and immunization, behavioral health, substance use disorders, and more.
The Office of Research and Scholarship
The Office of Research and Scholarship (ORS) is a dynamic hub committed to supporting the research of students and faculty at KPSOM.