Annette Totten, PhD, Associate Professor in the OHSU Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology and OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, has been named ORPRN’s first Core Investigator.

ORPRN Core Investigators are OHSU faculty or research scientists who are external to ORPRN but partner with ORPRN faculty and staff to lead research or quality improvement grants and contracts within ORPRN. These investigators are crucially important to ORPRN’s success; in order to recognize these relationships, ORPRN has created the honorific title of ORPRN Core Investigator.

Being named an ORPRN Core Investigator is a public acknowledgement of an investigator’s interest in and experience with practice-based research, and their commitment to ORPRN’s mission to improve health outcomes and equity for all Oregonians.

Dr. Totten holds a PhD in Health Services Research from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, an MPA in Health Policy from the Robert Wagner School of Public Service at New York University and an MA in Modern Languages from Middlebury College. She is a health services researcher and gerontologist, and her research focuses on aging, chronic illness, shared decision making, evidence-based practice and research methodology.

Currently, Dr. Totten is the principal investigator of a large PCORI-funded trial within ORPRN of advance care planning in primary care, involving practice-based research networks (PBRNs) in five US states and two Canadian provinces. She also leads an NIA-funded pilot project testing approaches to advance care planning in primary care for patients and families living with dementia.

Dr. Totten is also active in Meta-LARC, a consortium of eight PBRNs across North America. She is committed to improving health outcomes and equity for primary care patients, and ORPRN is thrilled she partners with us regularly in her research. Congratulations, Annette, on becoming ORPRN’s first Core Investigator.