Karl Lorenz

Biography

Karl Lorenz, an affiliated adjunct staff member at the RAND Corporation, is a general practitioner and palliative consultant at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Lorenz is a former VA Health Services Research and Development career development awardee and a Commonwealth Packer Health Policy Fellow (2007–2008). He serves as director of the VA Quality Improvement Resource Center's Comprehensive End-of-Life Care (CELC) initiative, which develops provider-facing software tools for use with the Department of Veteran Affairs' electronic medical record system to improve the delivery of palliative care throughout the VA system. His research encompasses implementing and interpreting routine pain and symptoms measures in general practice and specialty settings; literature synthesis and the development of standards, including guidelines and process quality indicators for symptom management and information and care planning; and methods for the development, implementation, and use of clinical informatics tools to improve the quality of palliative care practice. Lorenz received his M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia and his M.S. in health services from the UCLA School of Public Health.