Rachel Patzer, PhD, MPH, Embarks on a New Journey

After over a decade-long career at Emory University’s School of Medicine, Rachel Patzer, PhD, MPH, has been named the new president and chief executive officer of the Regenstrief Institute Inc., effective May 1, 2023. The Regenstrief Institute was founded in 1969 by Sam Regenstrief with the goal of making healthcare more efficient and accessible for everyone. The institute has a long history of leading local, national, and global research initiatives to empower people with better information to end disease and realize true health. Dr. Patzer will also serve as the Leonard Betley Chair and will hold a faculty appointment as a professor with the Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Surgery. Dr. Patzer will have a secondary appointment at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health.

Dr. Patzer is an epidemiologist and health services researcher whose investigations focus on healthcare access, quality of healthcare delivery, and outcomes. She came to Emory in 2005 to attend graduate school at the Rollins School of Public Health, where she obtained her MPH (2007) and PhD (2011) in epidemiology. She started as a faculty member in the Department of Surgery in 2011.

Dr. Patzer has specific research interests in disparities in social determinants of health, community-based participatory research, predictive analytics, healthcare quality, mobile health technology, health systems interventions, and healthcare resource utilization.  During her tenure at Emory, Dr. Patzer led the team that developed the iChoose Kidney app, Emory University’s first researcher-led mobile iPhone and iPad app, which provides an individualized comparison of mortality risk estimates for patients on dialysis vs. living or deceased donor kidney transplantation. This clinical decision aid was evaluated in a multi-center randomized trial and found to improve patient knowledge of the survival benefit of transplantation. Dr. Patzer also conducted multiple health-system level interventions locally at Emory Transplant Center, as well as regionally and nationally among both transplant centers and dialysis facilities, to address inequities in access to healthcare for patients with kidney failure.

In partnership with community groups, patient advocacy organizations, health systems, and Emory faculty Drs. Stephen Pastan (Emory Transplant Center) and the late William M. McClellan (RSPH), Dr. Patzer co-founded the Southeastern Kidney Transplant Coalition in 2010. As the Data Chair, Dr. Patzer developed a novel surveillance data registry for kidney disease called the Early Steps to Transplant Access Registry, which includes data on transplant referral and evaluation among more than 30 transplant centers nationwide. She leads a research team that uses these data for the development of quality metrics, epidemiologic investigations of the causes of variability in access to kidney transplantation among patients with kidney failure, and the development and evaluation of pragmatic interventions to improve access to transplantation and reduce disparities. She currently serves as the United Network for Organ Sharing Data Advisory immediate past Chair, the Data Chair of the Southeastern Kidney Transplant Coalition, a member of the American Society of Nephrology Policy and Advocacy Committee, and a standing member of NIH Organization and Delivery of Health Services (ODHS) study section.

The results of Dr. Patzer’s work are often published in high-profile journals such as JAMA, Health Affairs, American Journal of Transplantation, and American Journal of Kidney Diseases. Dr. Patzer also advises students, residents, and faculty across the School of Medicine and Rollins School of Public Health on research study design and analysis. She also teaches in the Master’s in Science in Clinical Research (MSCR) Program.

As the inaugural Director of the Health Services Research (HSR) Center, a cooperative initiative of the departments of medicine and surgery of the Emory University School of Medicine created in 2018, Dr. Patzer has led the expansion, implementation, and promotion of health services research that is designed to deliver better patient outcomes and work toward making clinical care delivery perform at the highest level of quality and value. She has advanced health services research in the combined center and has nurtured collaborative efforts in health services research across the SOM, RSPH, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Grady Memorial Hospital, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the Atlanta VA Medical Center, and other related Emory departments and school areas that do similar research. Through the HSR Center, Dr. Patzer leads the data team for the metro-Atlanta hub Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) cohort study with Dr. Igho Ofotokun. In 2022, the HSR Center community of more than 200 faculty, staff, and trainees continued to lead innovative and impactful research aimed to improve access to healthcare, outcomes of care, and healthcare delivery both at Emory and beyond, as showcased in their recent 2022 Annual Report. The announcement of the new director of HSRC is still forthcoming.

We wish Dr. Patzer, an Evansville, Indiana native, all the best in her future endeavors at the Regenstrief Institute Inc. and IU’s School of Medicine. We thank her for all the wonderful work she has contributed to Emory’s HSR Center, DOM, DOS, and RSPH. She will be greatly missed.