Advancing the Science of Patient Safety
This article describes findings from a group of experts assembled to help improve the science of patient safety.
Gery Ryan is a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and an adjunct senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation. Trained as a medical anthropologist, Ryan has conducted research on decisionmaking processes, ethnographies of health care, and the integration of qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
As a methodologist, Ryan specializes in applying systemic methods to qualitative research and designing tools for formative, process, and summative evaluations. He has taught graduate courses in advanced ethnographic methods and text analysis at UCLA, RAND, and the University of Missouri; has run qualitative workshops sponsored by NSF, NIH, CDC and WHO; and has published widely on qualitative methods. He has over 20 years of experience conducting and analyzing qualitative data and running methods seminars in the United States and abroad.
Ryan's work and collaboration with others cuts across mental and physical health and he has done research on HIV/AIDS, depression, serious mental illness, childhood diarrhea and acute respiratory illnesses, obesity and complementary and alternative medicine to name a few areas. He has worked extensively in Latin America and Africa on health-related issues and helped redesign and implement a large-scale education reform in Qatar. In addition to his administrative duties at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, he teaches courses in policy analysis and methods and mentors graduate students. He holds and M.A. and Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Florida.
Education
Ph.D. and M.A. in cultural anthropology, University of Florida
Concurrent Non-RAND Positions
Professor, Department of Health System Sciences, Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine
Selected Work
- Ryan, G. W. et al., "Data-driven decision-making tools to improve public resource allocation for care and prevention of HIV/AIDS," Health Affairs, 33(3), 2014
- Sayles, J.N., G. Ryan, J.S. Silver, W.E. Cunningham, "Experiences of social stigma and implications for healthcare among a diverse population of HIV positive adults," Journal of Urban Health, 84(6), 2007
- G. W. Ryan and G. J. Wagner, "Pill Taking 'Routinization': A Critical Factor to Understanding Episodic Medication Adherence," AIDS Care, 15(6), 2003
- Gery W. Ryan and H. Russell Bernard, "Techniques to Identify Themes," Field Methods, 15(1), 2003
- Hsiao AF, G.W. Ryan, R.D. Hays, I.D. Coulter, R.M. Andersen, N.S. Wenger, "Variations in provider conceptions of integrative medicine," Social Science & Medicine, 62(12), 206
- Gery W. Ryan, Carrie M. Farmer, David M. Adamson, Robin M. Weinick., A Program Manager's Guide for Program Improvement in Ongoing Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury Programs. The RAND Toolkit, Volume 4, RAND Corporation (RR-487/4), 2014
- Dominic J. Brewer et al., Education for a New Era: Design and Implementation of K–12 Education Reform in Qatar, RAND Corporation (MG-548), 2007
- Bernard, H. Russe, Amber Wutichl and Gery Ryan, Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches, Sage Publications (forthcoming)