Profiles

Catherine Sarkisian MD, MSHS is a Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Division of Geriatrics and Staff Physician at the Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System. She is a geriatrician and NIH-funded scientist with over 2 decades implementing and evaluating projects aimed at improving quality of life of vulnerable populations. These projects range from community-based theoretically grounded behavioral interventions to increase physical activity among older adults, to health-system level programs to reduce low value and potentially harmful care. She is currently PI on an NIA R01 to conduct a pragmatic trial of a behavioral economics electronic health record interventions to reduce inappropriate pre-operative testing, with a supplement to reduce inappropriate medications for patients with dementia, and a NIH/NIA Midcareer Award in Patient-Oriented Research (K24) to support her time for mentoring junior faculty and fellows. In 2018, the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA launched a new “UCLA Value-Based Care Research Consortium” (VBCRC) with her leadership; the mission of this consortium is to facilitate collaborative interaction among diverse stakeholders to improve health care value and associated meaningful patient-centered outcomes. She has several other leadership positions at UCLA including serving as Director of the Community Liaison Core of the NIH/NIA-funded UCLA Resource Center for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR/CHIME) and the Co-Director of the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute Special Populations Program. At the national level , she serves as Co-Director of Stakeholder Engagement for the U.S. Deprescribing Research Network. Dr. Sarkisian received her A.B. Degree (with Honors) in Philosophy from Princeton University, her M.D. from University of California San Francisco, and an MSHS in Health Services from the UCLA School of Public Health.