Kara Odom Walker, MD, MPH, MSHS, is the Deputy Chief Science Officer in the Office of the Chief Science Officer at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).
Before PCORI, Walker was assistant clinical professor in Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where she saw patients in a primary care setting, taught medical students and residents, and pursued health services research. Her research centered on improving healthcare delivery through integrated care, with a special interest in vulnerable populations. In particular, she developed new survey measures to assess the patient experience of integrated care while on faculty at UCSF. During her fellowship with the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at University of California, Los Angeles, she designed and conducted a survey of South Los Angeles older residents to understand the effect of closure of a large safety net hospital, and worked with community partners to provide policy recommendations to reopen the hospital. During that time, she was trained in community-based participatory research methods and obtained a MS in health services.