Seiko Izumi, PhD

Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing Dr. Izumi is an Associate Professor at Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing. She is a palliative care and health service researcher with expertise in qualitative and mixed methods research. Her work has focused on improving the quality of care for patients living with serious illnesses through funding from NIH, PCORI, AHRQ, and various foundation grants and internal funding. Her early studies identified and described gaps in the care for patients with serious illness (e.g., the lack of early recognition of the end-of-life period, missed opportunity for families to make end-of-life decisions, and fragmentation of the healthcare system to provide patient-centered care). These findings led to the development and testing of models to improve care quality for this population. Dr. Izumi was involved in a large international clinical trial funded by PCORI as a co-investigator testing implementation and effectiveness of advance care planning in practices. With a goal to develop care models that have clinical significance and contribute to practice improvement, Dr. Izumi looks forward to expanding her research approach to conduct pragmatic trials and target population to include patients and their family care partners living with dementia with high needs for quality palliative care.