AHRQ News and Notes

AHRQ names Helen Burstin director of primary care research

John M. Eisenberg, M.D., Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, recently announced the appointment of Helen Burstin, M.D., M.P.H., as the new Director of AHRQ's Center for Primary Care Research (CPCR). She comes to this position from the Brigham and Women's Hospital, where she served as Director of Quality Measurement and had an active primary care practice.

Dr. Burstin is a graduate of the State University of New York Health Science Center at Syracuse and the Harvard School of Public Health. After a primary care residency in internal medicine at Boston City Hospital, she was an Agency-funded postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. Her research has focused on such primary care topics as communication, access, quality, screening, and patient satisfaction.

Dr. Burstin has served as regional co-chair of the Society for General Internal Medicine and currently is President of the Board of Directors of the American Medical Student Foundation; formerly she was AMSA's national president. For 10 years she has been a staff physician at a hospital-based practice as well as at a neighborhood health center in Boston. In addition, she has been Medical Director of the Partners in Health Program in Honduras.

As Director of CPCR, Dr. Burstin will lead AHRQ's efforts to stimulate high-quality research in the primary care setting, including evaluations of the quality, cost, and effectiveness of primary care services, rural health care services and systems, and primary care for special populations.

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