Westergaard Research
Dr. Sara Westergaard is a hospital medicine physician and health services researcher. Her research focuses on enhancing team-based models of care to improve patient outcomes and promote workforce well-being and retention.
Optimizing Hospitalist Work Design
Dr. Westergaard’s research focuses on improving care delivery through innovative, team-based models. She uses data to identify hospitalist staffing and team structures that enhance patient outcomes, support provider well-being, and promote workforce retention, helping to build more sustainable and effective health systems.
Active Projects
- Implementation of a Primary Hospitalist Provider Team to Enhance the Care for High-Need High-Complexity Patients Requiring Hospitalization
The overarching goal of this study is to reduce inpatient care fragmentation for high-need, high-complexity patients and improve outcomes by implementing a primary hospital provider (PHP) team. In this study, we will specifically evaluate the feasibility of implementation of this team as well as workforce and operational acceptance.
- Validation of Fragmentation Measures in Hospital Medicine
The proposed study aims to validate a measure of fragmentation among hospital medicine clinicians that can be used both within single episodes of care and between subsequent episodes of care (i.e., hospital readmissions) for individual patients. The results produced from this research will be foundational for future research into the impacts of fragmentation on patient and provider processes and outcomes.
Funding Support
The project described was supported by the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, through the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), grant UL1TR002373. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. Dr. Westergaard’s research is also supported by UW Health and the Department of Medicine Critical Experiment Pilot Award.
News and Media
Learning Health Systems Project Grant Awarded to Effort to Improve Care for High-Need, High-Complexity Patients (UW ICTR news article, 2024)
