Gabriel J. Escobar, MD, is a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research; director of the Division of Research Systems Research Initiative (a research program focusing on adult hospital processes and outcomes); and Regional Director for Hospital Operations Research for Kaiser Permanente Northern California, in which capacity he works to improve Kaiser Permanente's internal reporting and quality measurement. Dr. Escobar received his medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine; completed his pediatrics residency at University of California, San Francisco; and was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Dr. Escobar's research now focuses on the processes and outcomes in the care of hospitalized adults. His interests include risk adjustment, predictive modeling, severity-of-illness scoring, the use of comprehensive inpatient and outpatient electronic medical records for health services research, and the use of real-time decision support tools that are embedded in the electronic record. Between 1991 and 2001, Dr. Escobar developed a research program in neonatology for Kaiser Permanente Northern California. In 2001, he began development of his current research program, and in 2009 he turned over the neonatology research program to Dr. Michael Kuzniewicz at the Division of Research so that he could focus his work on adult hospital research. Dr. Escobar also practices at the Kaiser Permanente Medical centers in Walnut Creek and Antioch, where he works in the neonatal intensive care nursery and as a hospital-based pediatrician.