Denver Health will be a national model for research in the safety net hospital system to advance quality care and service excellence.
Our vision is to create an environment that enables inclusive, inventive and high-impact research across Denver Health.
Part of Denver Health’s core mission is to engage in research for the benefit of our patients. As a learning health system, Denver Health is dedicated to research that helps meet our patients’ health care needs, improves the health of the communities that we serve and teaches the next generation of health care professionals.
The Office of Research at Denver Health offers the opportunity for new and experienced research investigators and research personnel to join together as a community that conducts high-quality, collaborative research. Led by Denver Health’s Chief Research Officer, Romana Hasnain-Wynia, PhD, the Office of Research facilitates partnerships both internally at Denver Health and between Denver Health and other organizations; provides research training and consultation, including seminars, workshops and one-on-one sessions; promotes investigator development through competitively-funded pilot study awards; and supports comprehensive research administration at all study stages from the initial idea to project completion. It is composed of an administrative core and two supporting centers: the Sponsored Program and Research Office (SPARO) for research administration and the Center for Health Systems Research (CHSR) for patient-centered outcomes research, health services research and delivery system and implementation science.
Mission & Vision
Romana Hasnain-Wynia, MS, PHD, Chief Research Officer
Romana Hasnain-Wynia is the Chief Research Officer at Denver Health where she oversees Denver Health’s research and sponsored programs through the Office of Research and represents research interests as a member of the Executive Leadership Team. She also actively mentors junior investigators at Denver Health and the University of Colorado, Denver.
Prior to joining Denver Health, Dr. Hasnain-Wynia served as the director of the Addressing Disparities program at the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute where she was responsible for providing strategic oversight and leadership for the program’s funding priorities. Prior to PCORI, she was the director of the Center for Health Care Equity and Associate Professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She spent a decade at the American Hospital Association’s Health Research and Educational Trust, where she was Vice President of Research.
She has been the principal investigator for a number of national studies focusing on advancing equity in health care with an emphasis on developing and integrating equity measurement in health systems. She uses mixed methods approaches in her research and has expertise in designing pragmatic trials in “real world settings.” Dr. Hasnain-Wynia serves on a number of committees for organizations, including the Brookings Institution, National Quality Forum, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Medicine. She currently serves on the board of trustees for the Colorado Health Institute and on the editorial boards of the journals Health Affairs and Health Services Research.