Conceptualization seeks to map a short text (i.e., a word or a phrase) to a set of concepts as a mechanism of understanding text. Most of prior research in conceptualization uses human-crafted knowledge bases that map instances to concepts. Such approaches to conceptualization have the limitation that the mappings are not context sensitive. To overcome this limitation, we propose a framework in...

Comprehensive case conceptualization is central to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT; A. T. Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979). Despite the importance attributed to case conceptualization there is limited empirical support for the utility of case conceptualization in CBT. In particular, there is limited research on the relationship between therapist competence in case conceptualization, in-sessi...

There is broad consensus among medical workforce analysts that the demand for physician assistants (PAs), physicians, nurses, allied health, and other medical providers has substantially increased since the late 1990s. While researchers tend to examine the deployment of various providers in private medical offices, they often overlook federally-employed PAs. Since the late 1980s, the Department...

In response to veterans' needs in the context of recent deployments, the Veterans Affairs (VA) health system has increased the number of its facilities and caregivers and has pioneered changes in policy and programs. We review significant recent initiatives to improve access to behavioral health services in the VA health system.

1Lipid Research Laboratory, VA Medical Center, 50 Irving Street NW, Washington, DC 20422, USA 2Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, The George Washington University, 2300 I Street NW, Suite 530, Washington, DC 20037, USA 3Laboratory of Experimental Hepatology, Department of Pharmacology, Cinvestav-IPN, Av. Instituto Politécnico Nacional 2508, Col. San Pedro Zacatenco, 07360, Apart...

An estimated 1.2 million HIV patients live in the United States. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the largest provider of HIV care in the country, with approximately 26,000 Veterans in care in 2013. As HIV treatments have become more effective, persons with HIV infection are living longer. As a result, the population of HIV patients is increas...

As the recent collection of papers from the Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) Series indicates, knowledge is leading to considerable action in the United States (U.S.) Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The QUERI Series offers clinical researchers, implementation scientists, health systems, and health research funders from around the globe a unique window into the both the pract...

BACKGROUND Comparing quality of care between large health care systems is important for health systems management. This study used measures of the quality of pharmacotherapy for patients with schizophrenia and compared these measures across a sample of patients from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the private sector. METHODS A random sample of all patients diagnosed with schizophr...

Few oral antibiotics exist for the empirical treatment of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) urinary tract infections (UTI). In this study, we sought to determine the activity of fosfomycin against ESBL-producing uropathogens from patients at 3 Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities between 2010 and 2013. Among the ESBL uropathogens, 19.9% were fosfomycin resistant. Klebsiella species were more lik...