Senior Investigator Paula Lozano, MD, MPH, is a practicing pediatrician and associate medical director for research and translation in the Washington Permanente Medical Group. Her work focuses on developing innovations and strategies for performance improvement and helping Kaiser Permanente Washington succeed as a learning health system, where research influences practice and practice influences research.

Dr. Lozano is co-leading the organization’s new Learning Health System Program, which launched in June 2017. The program will help Kaiser Permanente Washington clinical teams continually learn and improve care by tapping into the expertise of frontline clinicians and the advanced scientific methods available at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI).

Dr. Lozano's other research interests include health behavior-change (motivational interviewing), obesity treatment, self-management of chronic conditions, and asthma care disparities. She is collaborating with KPWHRI Senior Investigator Kathy Bradley on a project to integrate behavioral health into primary care. She is also a co-investigator on “Moving to Health,” a newly funded project led by KPWHRI Senior Investigator David Arterburn that will examine the relationships between neighborhood food and physical activity characteristics and development of overweight and obesity.

Dr. Lozano has conducted research on the care of children with asthma, ADHD, and other chronic conditions, and the delivery of health care services to disadvantaged children. Her work has focused on improving health care quality through changing the delivery system, supporting clinical decision-making by providers, and supporting patients and parents in health behavior change. She has also served as an investigator for several U.S. Preventive Services Task Force evidence reviews conducted by the Kaiser Permanente Research Affiliates Evidence-based Practice Center.

While on the faculty at the University of Washington (UW) Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Lozano practiced general pediatrics at Harborview Children and Teens Clinic, the Harborview Medical Center pediatric burn/trauma service, and the inpatient service at Seattle Children's Hospital. She taught residents and medical students, designing and leading a communication-skills training program for residents. Dr. Lozano also served as director of the UW Primary Care Research Fellowship, funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), to provide research training in the primary care disciplines of internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics.

Dr. Lozano is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, and completed her residency in pediatrics at UW. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at UW, where she also earned her master's in Public Health.