Durham Center of Innovation to ADAPT

Dr. Lewinski is a health services researcher with a focus on eHealth interventions and chronic illness self-management. Her work sits at the intersection of precision medicine and population health. Dr. Lewinski’s interest in health services and nursing research, specifically in developing and implementing sustainable interventions to improve health outcomes, is an extension of her experiences in public health and nursing. Dr. Lewinski aims to develop meaningful interventions that are relevant, appropriate, and can be implemented in real-world clinical settings with interdisciplinary collaborators. Her use of mixed methods enables her to understand how individuals engage with healthcare teams, how best to support behavior change in diverse populations and with varying disease states, and how to foster stronger engagement with the healthcare system. Additionally, Dr. Lewinski is interested in examining intervention implementation and adaptation as a means to understand how, why, when, and for what populations and settings interventions work. Dr. Lewinski’s career development award examines the association of diabetes distress and related factors using quantitative and qualitative methods in order to develop a novel, nurse-led intervention to improve self-management in Veterans with type 2 diabetes. Dr. Lewinski completed her postdoctoral fellowship in health services research at the Durham Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation at the Durham VA. She completed her PhD in Nursing at Duke University School of Nursing, a Master of Public Health in Health Behavior and Health Education at University of Michigan, a Bachelor of Science in Zoology at Michigan State University, and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Maryville University in St. Louis.

WHY VA?

My interest in health services research and nursing research, specifically in developing and implementing sustainable interventions to improve health outcomes, is an extension of my experiences in public health and nursing. I aim to develop meaningful interventions that are relevant, appropriate, and can be implemented in real-world clinical settings with interdisciplinary collaborators. My career development award examines the association of diabetes distress and related factors using quantitative and qualitative methods in order to develop a novel, nurse-led intervention to improve self-management in Veterans with type 2 diabetes. I chose to work at VA because as an integrated healthcare system with high quality healthcare and support services, VA is an ideal setting to address the psychosocial factors that influence self-management and subsequently health outcomes for Veterans with chronic illness. 

EDUCATION:

• PhD, Duke University, 2017
• MPH, University of Michigan, 2005

VA RESEARCH INTERESTS:

• Designing and testing research studies that are grounded in evidence-based, behavioral theory principles to improve self-management and health outcomes in Veterans with chronic illness.
• Expanding the use of virtual care (mHealth, telehealth) to improve access to clinical care and self-management support for Veterans with chronic illness.
• Using existing, and developing new when necessary, rigorous qualitative and mixed methods approaches to ensure that the Veteran’s voice and perspectives are accurately captured and then incorporated throughout the research design, implementation, and evaluation processes.