Our Team

Education & Training

• PhD, Texas A&M University, School of Public Health
• MBA, The Citadel - The Military College of South Carolina
• BS, University of Missouri-Columbia

Bita A. Kash, PhD, MBA, FACHE, is the Director of The Center for Outcomes Research at Houston Methodist, which is a partnership with Texas A&M University School of Public Health. The center drives fundamental improvements in patient outcomes for patients treated in acute-care settings and throughout the cycle of their care in the ambulatory setting and their communities. Key areas of research include health services research, health economics, industrial and systems engineering, and health care management.  Dr. Bita Kash received her PhD in Health Services Research from Texas A&M University in 2007.

Dr. Kash is also the director of an eight-university National Science Foundation (NSF) industry/university cooperative research center – the Center for Health Organization Transformation (CHOT) – anchored at Texas A&M University. As director and principal investigator of the NSF Center for Health Organization Transformation (CHOT), Dr. Kash conducts research to support the implementation of evidence-based transformational strategies within healthcare organizations. In addition, Dr. Kash is an associate professor at Texas A&M University School of Public Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management. She joined the department in September 2007. She currently teaches healthcare strategic planning in the Masters for Health Administration program, the Architecture for Health Lecture Series in the College of Architecture, and serves on multiple PhD student committees at the Health Science Center and College of Architecture.

Dr. Kash’s research model relies on the knowledge and experience of healthcare leaders to guide academic research. Her cooperative and multi-disciplinary research model has resulted in over $8 million in external research funding from the NSF, industry and other sources. Dr. Kash also serves as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Healthcare Management, a peer-reviewed research journal of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). She has published over 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals. She is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and received the ACHE Service Award in 2015.

Dr. Kash's time and effort has been funded through external research grants at 55 to 60 percent time and effort yearly. In terms of published research productivity, Dr. Kash authored over 65 research papers and editorials published in peer-reviewed journals since 2005, and involved students as co-authors on more than half of these publications. Furthermore, her papers are published in leading health policy and management journals, such as Milbank Quarterly, The Gerontologist, Healthcare Management Review, and The Journal of Applied Gerontology. The Milbank Quarterly, at 4.644 impact factor in 2014, was ranked #1 in the journal categories of Health Policy & Services and Health Care Sciences & Services, the same year her first paper was published in this journal. Kash's research in the areas of perioperative care coordination and the effective use of health information exchanges has resulted in several publications in top-tier health services and policy journals, recently featured in the NSF’s “Industry-Nominated Technology Breakthroughs of NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC)” 2016 report, as well as Politico and other media. Finally, as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Healthcare Management (JHM), Kash lead a peer-reviewed journal in the field of healthcare management that incorporates a practitioner application for every research article published from 2014-2017. Total subscriptions for the JHM reach over 43,000 and include healthcare executives, practitioners, researchers, and students. 

In 2013, Kash started conducting a first-of-its-kind large-scale study of the Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) concept. The major implication from this study is the potential for cost savings and quality improvement in surgical care. Results of this study were published in the Milbank Quarterly in 2014. Since publication in 2014, the PSH paper has been featured in Becker's Hospital Review, eMedEvents, American Journal of Managed Care, Science Daily, and other outlets. Implications for medical residency training were recently published in a top-tier medical specialty journal, Anesthesia & Analgesia. According to the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), the ASA’s efforts to help implement the PSH nationally were enhanced as a result of Kash's research and publications. 

Faculty & Staff

• Bita Kash, PhD, MBA, FACHE, Director
• Terri Menser, PhD, MBA, Scientist
• Farzan Sasangohar, PhD, Scientist
• Ohbet Cheon, PhD, MPSA, Postdoctoral Fellow
• Jacob Kolman, Senior Research Assistant
• Stephen Jones, MD, Health Informatics Chief
• Charlie Nicolas, Senior Applications Analyst
• Leif Peterson, PhD, Biostatistics Chief
• Jaya Paranilam, PhD, Biostatistician
• Susan Xu, PhD, Biostatistician
• Carol Ashton, MD, MPH, Emeritus
• Nelda Wray, MD, MPH, Emeritus

Affiliate Faculty & Staff

• Randa El-Zein, MBChB, PhD
• Edward A. Graviss, PhD, MPH 
• Linda Moore, RD
• Raj Satkunasivam, MD, MS, FRCSC
• Joshua T. Swan, PharmD, MPH, BCPS
• Nabil Tariq, MD
• Stephanie Yi, MD
• Stephanie Zajac, PhD

Administrative staff

• Jennifer Taylor, Operations Manager
• Megan Taubert, MHA, Senior Academic Coordinator

Center leadership

• Robert A. Phillips, MD, PhD, FACC
• Mauro Ferrari, PhD
• Barbara Bass, MD
• Jenny Chang, MD
• William Zoghbi, MD, FASE, FAHA, MACC
• A. Osama Gaber, MD, FACS
• Jay Maddock, PhD, FAAHB