Matthew H. Samore, MD, has earned the 2019 Under Secretary's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research—the highest honor for a VA health services researcher. Samore has met the major criteria for this award by:
- Improving our understanding of factors that affect the health of Veterans and the quality of their care,
- Contributing to the future of VA health services research by inspiring and training a new generation of investigators, and
- Enhancing the visibility of VA research through national recognition within the research community.
Samore is Director of the Informatics, Decision-Enhancement, and Analytic Sciences (IDEAS) Center, an HSR&D Center of Innovation, and is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Utah. His work has resulted in major improvements to Veterans' healthcare, including advances in electronic health record data to improve measurement of prescribing practices and patient outcomes, and system-wide shifts in VA's approach to antibiotic prescribing and antibiotic stewardship.
Throughout his career, Samore has mentored and inspired multiple generations of investigators. At VA and the University of Utah, he has served as primary or secondary mentor for more than 50 students, fellows, and junior faculty. Twenty-one of these individuals are currently affiliate or core investigators with the IDEAS Center.
Samore was the 2014 recipient of the University of Utah's H.A. and Edna Benning Presidential Endowed Chair, and has published over 300 peer-reviewed publications. He is the principal investigator on multiple grants funded by VA, the National Institutes of Health, the Agency For Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.
For an exceptional career and continued dedication to improving the health and care of Veterans, HSR&D is proud to present the Under Secretary's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research to Matthew Samore.
- Press release provided by the Veterans Administration