Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion

Profile

Dr. Kutney-Lee is a health services researcher and Core Investigator in the Center for Health Equity and Research Promotion (CHERP) at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center (CMCVAMC) in Philadelphia. She serves as the Associate Director of Analytics & Methods at the national Veteran Experience Center (VEC). In her role at the VEC, she closely works with VA operational partners, VEC staff, and collaborators across the country, to measure, monitor, and improve the quality of end-of-life (EOL) care delivered to Veterans.  Dr. Kutney-Lee is also an adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and a core faculty member of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research. 

Dr. Kutney-Lee’s scholarship is focused on identifying structures and processes associated with quality outcomes for Veterans with serious, life-limiting illness - including those at EOL and their families, and to identify and address disparities in EOL quality outcomes for patients from socially and economically disadvantaged communities.  Dr. Kutney-Lee also has a program of research focused on the effects of nursing care organization, including nurse staffing, educational levels, and work environments, on patient and clinician outcomes and works to identify how systems can be redesigned to provide equitable and high-quality patient care.  While her training and methodological expertise is primarily in the utilization and quantitative analysis of large survey and administrative patient datasets, she frequently applies quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches in her work. Dr. Kutney-Lee leads and collaborates on high-impact research and quality improvement projects supported by VA, the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ), and the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR).  Dr. Kutney-Lee serves as a mentor to pre- and post-doctoral trainees as well as early- and mid-career investigators within and outside VA, and regularly serves as a reviewer on VA Health Services Research Scientific Merit Review Boards. She received her BSN from the University of Scranton and her MSN in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania.  Dr. Kutney-Lee completed her PhD and post-doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing as a NINR T-32 fellow in the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research.