National health care leader joins Purdue's Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering

Robert M. Kaplan, former chief science officer at the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and associate director of the National Institutes of Health has joined Purdue's Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering as the Regenstrief Distinguished Fellow. Kaplan assumed the role on May 2.

"I am excited about working with RCHE to move health care in some creative new directions. RCHE and Purdue University are uniquely positioned to help improve health outcomes by applying established principles of systems engineering and management science," Kaplan says.

As the Regenstrief Distinguished Fellow, Kaplan will promote the activities of the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering, assess Purdue strengths in health care engineering, and assist with enhanced opportunities for growth.

Before Kaplan's service with the AHRQ and as associate director of NIH, where he led the behavioral and social sciences programs, he was a distinguished professor of health services and medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he led the UCLA/RAND AHRQ health services training program and the UCLA/RAND CDC Prevention Research Center. He was chair of the Department of Health Services from 2004 to 2009.  From 1997 to 2004, Kaplan was professor and chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.

Kaplan is a past president of several organizations, including the American Psychological Association Division of Health Psychology, Section J of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Pacific), the International Society for Quality of Life Research, the Society for Behavioral Medicine, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. Kaplan is a former editor-in-chief of Health Psychology and of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. His 18 books and over 500 articles or chapters have been cited more than 28,000 times. Kaplan is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine).

RCHE also announced that Yuehwern Yih, professor of industrial engineering and the director of the Smart Systems and Operations Laboratory, has been appointed as an associate director for RCHE. Yih brings expertise in systems process improvement through design and control.

RCHE is a designated Patient Safety Organization and is housed in Discovery Park, Purdue's complex for major interdisciplinary research activities.