The Changing Landscape of Veteran Health Care

Claire O’Hanlon is a policy researcher at RAND and co-director of the RAND Evidence-Based Practice Center. She is also an affiliated research scientist at the Veterans Affairs Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation & Policy, and a visiting scientist at Cedars-Sinai Health System.

O’Hanlon is a health services and policy researcher experienced in applied qualitative and mixed methods. She holds a doctorate in policy analysis from the RAND School of Public Policy, a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago Harris School, a certificate in Health Administration and Policy from the University of Chicago, and a B.S. in engineering from Harvey Mudd College.

Carrie M. Farmer is co-director of the RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute, director of the Health Care Quality Measurement and Improvement Program, and a senior policy researcher at RAND. Her areas of research include military and veteran health policy and quality of health care. She has led multiple studies to assess the delivery of health care to veterans and service members, including a study of behavioral health care in the Military Health System, a study of the use of measurement-based care in the treatment of behavioral health conditions in the Veterans Health Administration, and studies to assess the capacity of community providers to meet the health care needs of veterans.

Farmer was the study director for a large, comprehensive assessment of the Veterans Health Administration required by the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014. She was also the co-director for a study of innovative approaches for treating psychological health problems and traumatic brain injury in the Department of Defense, and led the largest assessment to date of care received by service members following a mild traumatic brain injury. She received her Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard University and her B.A. in psychobiology from Wellesley College.

Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH, DCM, is an internationally recognized physician executive who is widely known for his expertise in health system transformation, patient safety and quality improvement, public health, and veterans and military health issues.

Dr. Kizer has some 50 years of professional experience, including serving as a practicing emergency medicine physician and holding senior leadership positions in state and federal government, the private sector, academia, and philanthropy. He is currently a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine and a senior scholar at Stanford University’s Clinical Excellence Research Center, as well as a senior advisor to several private sector entities. Dr. Kizer is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Public Administration and served as VA’s Under Secretary for Health from 1994 to 1999, during which time he re-engineered the Veterans Health Care System in what has been described as the largest and most successful health care turnaround in U.S. history. He served as California’s top health official from 1984 to 1991 and was the founding president and CEO of the National Quality Forum in 1999.

An honors graduate of Stanford University and the UCLA Schools of Medicine and Public Health, he is board-certified in six medical specialties and/or subspecialties and a fellow or distinguished fellow of 12 professional societies. He has authored more than 500 original articles, book chapters, and other professional reports. He is a Fellow of the international Explorers Club, the architect and founding member of the international Wilderness Medical Society, and a former U.S. Navy diving medical officer and certified Navy deep-sea diver.

Derek Coy is a senior program officer at the New York Health Foundation. In this role, he focuses on expanding veterans’ access to community-based services; leveraging federal and private funds to increase the dollars available to returning veterans in New York State; and serving as a thought leader, convener, and advocate to improve the health of returning veterans and their families.

Prior to joining NYHealth, Coy served as the development manager at The Doe Fund, an organization dedicated to breaking the cycles of recidivism and homelessness, where he revamped and modernized its fundraising efforts. Before that role, Coy was the annual fund officer at the American Civil Liberties Union, helping produce STAND, the organization’s bi-annual magazine, and its annual appeals.

Coy has considerable experience working on veterans’ issues and used his role as senior development associate at Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to advocate for changes. Coy received a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Houston Clear Lake (Phi Alpha Theta) and a master's degree in Middle Eastern history from the City College of New York, where he focused on 20th-century Iranian history. He is a former U.S. Marine Corps sergeant who served a year in Iraq's Anbar Province in 2005.

Karen Ruedisueli is director of government relations for health affairs at the Military Officers Association of America, and serves as co-chair of The Military Coalition’s Health Care Committee. Ruedisueli has spent more than a decade advocating for families of the uniformed services with a focus on TRICARE and the military health system (MHS). She has testified before Congress and built relationships with Pentagon leadership to advance solutions to beneficiary challenges in the MHS and ensure transparency and accountability in policy implementation.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Ruedisueli worked as a marketing consultant before becoming an Army spouse. She served as a Family Readiness Group leader and volunteered with Blue Star Families, leading the development and analysis of their first Military Family Lifestyle Survey. Ruedisueli and her husband, MAJ G Kurt Ruedisueli (USA, Ret), currently reside in the Washington, D.C. metro area with their two children.