Focus Feature

Launching a clinical trial in the midst of a pandemic

In early March 2020, as it became clear the novel coronavirus was closing in on Southern California, clinical trials leaders from the Department of Research & Evaluation began assessing options for an investigational treatment that could be studied through clinical trials. And so began one of the largest clinical trials in Kaiser Permanente history.

R&E News and Features

  • Dr. William Towner and Dr. Jim Nomura

    Video: Clinical trials

    In this video, the first of a series, William J. Towner, MD, FACP, FIDSA, regional physician director for clinical trials at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, describes how clinical trials at Kaiser Permanente contribute to the development of more effective and safer treatments for diseases such as HIV, hepatitis C, cancer, and more.

  • Stroke program integrates clinical trials

    At Kaiser Permanente Southern California, physicians and researchers have been transforming stroke care, from simply treating patients to also enrolling those not helped by the standard care into a clinical trials program, expanding their treatment options.

  • English and non-English speakers get equal treatment in emergency departments

    Kaiser Permanente Southern California researchers set out to understand the importance of emergency department patients and physicians speaking the same language by looking at the health outcomes and quality of care for patients with chest pain. They hypothesized that patients speaking a different language than their physician may have worse outcomes. They were happy to find their hypothesis was wrong.

  • Declines in heart attacks greater among men than women

    In a recently published study, Kaiser Permanente research scientists found a steady decline in heart attacks for both men and women enrolled in the health system from 2000 to 2014, although that rate of decline slowed among women in the last 5 years of the study.

In the News

Five questions...

for Dr. Deborah Cohen

Deborah A. Cohen, MD, MPH, an international expert on the health benefits of parks, is the newest scientist at the Department of Research & Evaluation. She began working in the department’s Division of Behavioral Research in January.