Dr. William Towner named 2022 SCPMG Physician Researcher of the Year
William J. Towner, MD, FACP, FIDSA, physician director of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Clinical Trials Program, has been named the 2022 Southern California Permanente Medical Group Physician Researcher of the Year. The award has been given each year since 2007 to recognize a physician ...
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Original COVID-19 vaccine booster effect wanes against BA.4 and BA.5
A Kaiser Permanente study published January 12, 2023, in Nature Communications shows that third and fourth doses of the monovalent Moderna mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine lose protection against infection ...
5 questions for … Dr. Hung Fu Tseng
Hung Fu Tseng, PhD, MPH, is a senior scientist in the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation and a professor at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of ...
Quality improvement reduces blood pressure control disparities
A Kaiser Permanente Southern California quality improvement program, which harnessed clinical and culturally responsive care strategies, nearly halved the racial disparities previously seen in blood ...
Shoulder pain rare after vaccination
March 21, 2022Shoulder pain and injury are extremely rare after any type of vaccination in the upper arm, according to pre-pandemic Kaiser Permanente research published March 22, 2022, in Annals of Internal Medicine. Conducted from April 2016 through December 2017, the study found fewer than 1 in 10,000 people reported shoulder injuries in the more than 2.2 million ...Read more...3 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine highly effective against hospitalization from omicron or delta.
February 21, 2022Kaiser Permanente research published Feb. 21, 2022, in Nature Medicine shows that while Moderna COVID-19 vaccine protection is strong against coronavirus infection by the delta variant, it is not as strong against infection from the omicron variant. Three doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine were highly effective against hospitalization caused by infection from either the omicron ...Read more...Vaccine study looks to prevent E. coli sepsis
February 21, 2022Kaiser Permanente Southern California is participating in a clinical trial of a novel vaccine against invasive E. coli infections in older adults. William Towner, MD, the principal investigator for Kaiser Permanente Southern California, said, “I’m enthusiastic about this cutting-edge research because it has the potential, if successful, to reduce morbidity and mortality from a very common ...Read more...3 doses of Pfizer–BioNTech COVID vaccine better than 2
February 14, 2022A Kaiser Permanente study published February 14, 2022, in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas found that 1 month after a third dose, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness is higher for preventing infection and hospitalization than 2 doses of the vaccine after 1 month. “When we looked at the effectiveness of the 2 doses of Pfizer–BioNTech ...Read more...Five questions for … Dr. Amandeep Sahota
January 31, 2022Amandeep Sahota, MD, directs the Department of Hepatology at the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center. She is also assistant medical director of Transplant Services for Kaiser Permanente Southern California. In this role, she promotes clinical quality programs, implementation of virtual medicine, and data analytics on chronic diseases outcomes. Her efforts have improved patient access ...Read more...Hospitalized or not, COVID-19 patients put high demands on health system
January 7, 2022A study of Kaiser Permanente Southern California members diagnosed with COVID-19 found that they had frequent health care visits during the month after their diagnosis—whether or not they stayed overnight in the hospital. As reported in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, the average number of visits over 30 days was nearly 7 for patients who ...Read more...Depression screening improves care for patients with cancer
January 4, 2022Kaiser Permanente research published January 4, 2022, in JAMA showed depression screening for patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer was highly effective at identifying patients in need of behavioral health care, and the new screening initiative was subsequently and successfully built into the patient care and daily workflow of medical oncology teams at Kaiser Permanente in Southern ...Read more...Shingles vaccine linked to lower risk of COVID-19
December 28, 2021People who were vaccinated for shingles had a lower risk of COVID-19 diagnosis or hospitalization, according to a Kaiser Permanente study of people ages 50 and older. The research was published December 28 in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. “Our findings add to a compelling body of evidence that some vaccines may provide some protection against ...Read more...Dr. Nguyen named 2021 Physician Researcher of the Year
December 28, 2021John K. Nguyen, MD, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center, has been named the 2021 Southern California Permanente Medical Group Physician Researcher of the Year. The award has been given each year since 2007 to recognize a physician or surgeon for his or her outstanding contributions to the research community. Dr. Nguyen is the ...Read more...Moderna COVID-19 vaccine effective against virus variants
December 16, 2021Kaiser Permanente research published on December 15, 2021 in The British Medical Journal showed 2 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine were highly effective against all SARS-CoV-2 variants. However, vaccine effectiveness against the delta variant moderately declined with increasing time after vaccination. “We conducted a previous study that showed the high effectiveness of the 2-dose Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, ...Read more...