Penn PORTAL: University of Pennsylvania Patient-Oriented Research and Training to Accelerate Learning

Penn PORTAL is funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to accelerate progress toward an integrated Learning Health System (LHS) at Penn and in the wider Philadelphia region. The program is a collaborative effort across many centers including the Palliative and Advanced Illness Research (PAIR) Center, the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit, the Penn Implementation Science Center (PISCE), the Center for Healthcare Improvement and Patient Safety (CHIPS), the Penn Center for Health Equity Advancement (CHEA), and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI).

Renee Betancourt, MD

Dr. Betancourt is the Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health; she is also the Faculty Director of the Health Equity Curriculum at Perelman School of Medicine. With an overarching goal of working to eliminate health inequity, Dr. Betancourt’s LHS quality improvement project will focus on patients with chronic kidney disease at Penn Family Care and is titled, “Streamlining evidence-based chronic kidney disease primary care to improve care and health equity.”

Eric Bressman, MD, MSHP

Dr. Bressman is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine and is strongly interested in promoting safe transitions of care after hospital discharge. Dr. Bressman’s LHS research project, titled “Mobility-informed dynamic risk monitoring to guide transitional care support for older adults,” will focus on the building blocks for improving transitioning older adults from the hospital to their home.

Kyra O’Brien, MD

Dr. O’Brien is an Assistant Professor of Neurology and an MSHP candidate; her research interests are in improving and transforming care delivery for people with dementia. Starting with Penn Medicine primary care, Dr. O’Brien’s LHS research project is designed to develop an effective and equitable pathway for early detection of cognitive impairment. Her project is titled, “Evaluating strategies to improve cognitive assessments in primary care.”

Denise Xu, MD

Dr. Xu is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurology, the Assistant Program Director for the Neurology Residency, and Director for the Neurology Sub-Internship at the Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Xu is interested in delirium prevention and in improving sleep quality for patients admitted to a Penn Medicine hospital. Her LHS quality improvement project is titled, “Restoring Sleep for Inpatients.”

Penn PORTAL has three integrated cores, an equity and community engagement unit led by the Penn Center for Health Equity Advancement (CHEA), a steering committee, internal and external advisory boards, and governmental, community, and health system partnerships across Philadelphia.