Audrey L. Jones, Ph.D., is a health services researcher with the VA’s Informatics, Decision-Enhancement and Analytic Sciences (IDEAS) Center of Innovation at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. A key focus of her research is to design and test integrated models of primary care to improve mental health care access, quality and outcomes for Veterans from vulnerable populations. Funded by a VA HSR&D career development award, Dr. Jones’s research is identifying optimal primary care service models for Veterans experiencing homelessness. For instance, her research found the VA’s homeless-tailored medical home model (called “H-PACT”) improves Veterans’ experience with health care, is associated with reductions in problematic patterns of emergency department use, and is more effective than traditional primary care approaches at linking homeless Veterans to timely treatment for depression. Nearly 60 VAs have implemented H-PACTs across the country. Dr. Jones’ current work is focused on identifying what ingredients of the H-PACT model work in order to help the VA scale best practices and improve mental health care delivery and outcomes for other vulnerable Veteran populations.

Dr. Jones earned her Ph.D. in Health Policy and Management from the University of California-Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health where her research focused on racial and ethnic disparities in mental health services. She completed post-doctoral training in health services research at the VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) at the VA Pittsburgh Health Care System, and an advanced fellowship in medical informatics at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. Her post-doctoral research illuminated disparities in healthcare experiences in the VA, including satisfaction with care, healthcare distrust, and perceptions of unfair treatment. She published one of the first national studies of perceptions of health care among homeless Veterans – a group traditionally excluded from population-based survey research. Currently, Dr. Jones is a Research Health Scientist with the IDEAS Center at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System and Co-Director of Evaluation for the Vulnerable Veteran Innovative Patient Aligned Care Team (VIP) Initiative, a five-year clinical and research collaboration to improve health care delivery and outcomes for Veterans with clinical and social vulnerabilities. She is a Research Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Utah School of Medicine, and an Implementation Research Institute Fellow at Washington University in St Louis, Mo.