Optimizing the Equitable Deployment of Virtual Care for Women: Protocol for a Qualitative Evidence Synthesis Examining Patient and Provider Perspectives Supplemented with Primary Qualitative Data.

Dr. Goldstein's research interests include women's health, cardiovascular risk reduction, evidence synthesis methodology and peer support.

Sharron "Shari" Rushton, DNP, MS, RN, CCM, CNE joined the Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) faculty in 2011.  She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Iowa, a Master of Biomedical Science in Physiology from the Mayo Graduate School, and both an Master of Science in Nursing and Doctor of Nursing Practice from DUSON.

She has clinical experience as a staff nurse and nurse manager. Additionally, she has practiced in a broad range of clinical settings including the areas of cardiac care, critical care, float staff and post transplant care. Her care coordination experience includes discharge planning and utilization review as well as rehab admissions. 

Her scholarly interests include translation of evidence in practice, care coordination/case management, population health, interprofessional education and educational strategies. She teaches population health across graduate programs and evidence-based practice in the MSN Core.

As a nurse scientist and health services researcher, with a joint appointment between the Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) and the Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System (VHA), I have acquired expertise in the areas of diabetes distress, qualitative research methods, and virtual care (e.g., telehealth, digital health) as a method of care delivery. My research focuses on the current and potential ability of virtual care interventions to reduce distress, improve self-management, increase access to evidence-based care delivery, and improve patient and population health outcomes. My collaborative and interdisciplinary research focuses on how patient-, provider-, and system-level factors influence virtual care use and outcomes. As evidence of its growing significance and impact at DUSON and the VHA, my work has been well funded, published in high-impact journals, presented at select conferences, and used to guide health system decision-making. I am a sought-after teacher and mentor because I connect my research interests to teaching students and mentees rigorous and systematic research approaches. I am frequently asked by local and national colleagues to provide guidance on distress, qualitative research methods, and virtual care approaches used in grants, projects, and manuscripts.  

My research contributions have focused on alleviating psychosocial distress, developing and implementing multi-level virtual care interventions, and enhancing qualitative methods. As a staff nurse, I witnessed the psychosocial distress of patients who experience challenges in obtaining care which led to my interest in diabetes distress. I aspire and work to improve health outcomes for individuals with chronic illness by developing equitable and sustainable multi-level virtual care interventions and assessing their implementation and adaptation. Virtual care describes any remote interaction between a patient and/or members of their care team. To achieve these goals, I use qualitative methods and implementation science approaches to enhance alignment between patient, modality, disease state, and social and environmental context; my collective assessments address for whom and what purposes, in what situations and contexts, when in a disease course or clinical activity, and in what specific ways such interventions are effective. My focus on the uptake and adoption of virtual care to address psychosocial distress considers interactions with patients, between patients and clinicians, and within health care systems and the larger population.

Sarah Cantrell (she/her/hers) is the Associate Director for Research & Education at the Medical Center Library & Archives, and is responsible for developing, implementing, and evaluating the Library's research and education programs. She is also the liaison to the Graduate Medical Education programs. Sarah serves as a Co-Director of Duke's national Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) workshop for clinicians and librarians. Before joining Duke, she worked at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, where she established a Clinical Librarian Program and joined inpatient care teams for teaching rounds, providing real-time evidence-based decision support and teaching at the point of care. Prior to WRNMMC, she was the Education Services Coordinator and Instruction Librarian at Georgetown University Medical Center's Dahlgren Memorial Library in Washington, DC. 

• AHIP-D, Distinguished member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals
• MLIS, Library & Information Studies, University of Wisconsin Madison 
• BA, English Literature, University of Wisconsin Madison 

Leah L. Zullig, PhD, MPH is a health services researcher and an implementation scientist. She is a Professor in the Duke Department of Population Health Sciences and an investigator with the Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT) at the Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System. Dr. Zullig’s overarching research interests address three domains: improving cancer care delivery and quality; promoting cancer survivorship and chronic disease management; and improving medication adherence. Throughout these three area of foci Dr. Zullig uses an implementation science lens with the goal of providing equitable care for all by implementing evidence-based practices in a variety of health care environments. She has authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications. 

Dr. Zullig completed her BS in Health Promotion, her MPH in Public Health Administration, and her PhD in Health Policy.

Areas of expertise: Implementation Science, Health Measurement, Health Policy, Health Behavior, Telehealth, and Health Services Research

Sarah M. Wilson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Population Health Sciences and a faculty affiliation in the Duke Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research. She is a Research Investigator and Co-Lead of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Core at the Veterans Affairs Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT COIN). She also serves as the Associate Director of the Duke Center for AIDS Research Social and Behavioral Sciences Core.

Dr. Wilson's research focuses on access to care and systems-level healthcare change to improve inequities in populations who experience systemic discrimination, including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), individuals with low income, sexual and gender minorities, and specific populations of U.S. Military Veterans. Her clinical work as a licensed clinical psychologist focuses on mental health care for patients with comorbid mental health concerns and stress due to systemic discrimination, as well as training for health care professionals on LGBTQ-affirmative care.

Dr. Wilson has expertise in health equity, social determinants of health, community engagement, intervention development, and implementation science. She is a former Fellow in the Implementation Research Institute. She leads VA and NIH research studies related to implementation science and health equity in the areas of tobacco cessation, provider implicit bias, pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV, and LGBTQ-affirmative mental healthcare.

Dr. Megan Shepherd-Banigan designs research studies to improve the health, emotional well-being, and social functioning of adults with mental and physical disabilities. Her methods combine empirical approaches that address methodologically challenging research questions in health systems and policy research. Dr. Shepherd-Banigan uses large survey and administrative datasets to evaluate the impact of policies that support family members to care for adults with disabilities.  

Dr. Shepherd-Banigan won a VA Career Development Award from 2019-2024 and is studying ways to strengthen family support for veterans under-going traumatic stress treatment. She also leads a project that surveys family caregivers of Vietnam-era veterans who might be eligible for expanded support services under the VA Mission Act to evaluate program impacts. As co-investigator on an NIA-funded CARE IDEAS study (Terri Wetle, PI) , she is investigating end-of-life-care planning and well-being among dementia care dyads.  Finally, Dr. Shepherd-Banigan is leading a project in partnership with the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers to identify creative empirically-based approaches to support family caregivers. 

My interest is in improving the delivery of preventative and reproductive health care for patients with autoimmune disease. As a rheumatology fellow, I was awarded a Women’s Health Fellowship grant to expand an international pregnancy registry for women with vasculitis (VPREG) and explore their lived experiences with pregnancy and breastfeeding. Through these efforts, we collaborated with a patient partner to create patient-focused resources (handouts, videos) on pregnancy and contraception that aim to foster shared decision making and patient empowerment. After completion of my rheumatology fellowship, I was selected for a Health Systems Research fellowship at the Durham Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care System. During this fellowship, I was awarded an Internal Pilot grant to characterize pregnancy outcomes of Veterans with autoimmune disease from national Veteran data. In the second phase of this pilot, we are currently conducting interviews with women Veterans from minoritized populations to gain their perspective on preventative and reproductive health care access and facilitation of this care. Additionally, I am working with the Veterans Affairs Rheumatoid Arthritis (VARA) registry to assess completion and outcomes of cervical cancer screening in this higher risk population. During my clinical time, I have the opportunity to engage with patients in the Duke Autoimmunity in Pregnancy Clinic and VA rheumatology clinics as well as educate medical students, resident, fellows, and advanced practice providers. I am excited to continue advocating for preventative and reproductive health to improve delivery of comprehensive health care for patients with autoimmune disease.

Dr. Bosworth is a health services researcher and Deputy Director of the Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT)  at the Durham VA Medical Center. He is also Vice Chair of Education and Professor of Population Health Sciences. He is also a Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Nursing at Duke University Medical Center and Adjunct Professor in Health Policy and Administration at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests comprise three overarching areas of research: 1) clinical research that provides knowledge for improving patients’ treatment adherence and self-management in chronic care; 2) translation research to improve access to quality of care; and 3) eliminate health care disparities. 

Dr. Bosworth is the recipient of an American Heart Association established investigator award, the 2013 VA Undersecretary Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research (The annual award is the highest honor for VA health services researchers), and a VA Senior Career Scientist Award. In terms of self-management, Dr. Bosworth has expertise developing interventions to improve health behaviors related to hypertension, coronary artery disease, and depression, and has been developing and implementing tailored patient interventions to reduce the burden of other chronic diseases. These trials focus on motivating individuals to initiate health behaviors and sustaining them long term and use members of the healthcare team, particularly pharmacists and nurses. He has been the Principal Investigator of over 30 trials resulting in over 400 peer reviewed publications and four books. This work has been or is being implemented in multiple arenas including Medicaid of North Carolina, private payers, The United Kingdom National Health System Direct, Kaiser Health care system, and the Veterans Affairs.

Areas of Expertise: Health Behavior, Health Services Research, Implementation Science, Health Measurement, and Health Policy

Jennifer Gierisch, PhD,  is behavioral scientist and health services researcher. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Heath Sciences and the Department of Medicine at Duke University. She is a core investigator with the Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT)  where she serves as the leader of the Partnered Research Methods Core (PRESTO)  and Director of the VA OAA Health Services Research Postdoctoral Fellowship. Dr. Gierisch also is the Co-Director of the Evidence Synthesis Program (VA ESP) at the Durham Veteran Affairs Health Care System. She also served as a faculty director of the Duke Clinical Translational Science Institute's  Community Engaged Research Initiative (CeRi) for five years

Dr. Gierisch’s research focuses on three overarching areas: 1) behavioral research on the psychosocial factors that influence appropriate uptake and maintenance of complex health behaviors (eg., weight management, smoking cessation, cancer screening); 2) evidence synthesis on key health and healthcare topics to enhance uptake of evidence-based interventions to improve patient and health system outcomes; and 3) participatory and  community engaged research approaches.

Area of expertise: health behavior, community-engaged research, evidence synthesis, intervention development,  qualitative research