LA Net Advisory
Council Members

John A Kotick, JD (Chairman)
Family Health Care Centers of Greater Los Angeles

Mohsen Bazargan, Ph.D.
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science

Condessa Curley, MD
Eisner Pediatrics and Family Medical Center

Ignacio DeArtola , MD
Cleaver Family Wellness Center

Grace Floutsis, MD
Clinica Msr. Oscar A. Romero

Lillian Gelberg, MD, MSPH
University of California, Los Angeles

Ricardo G. Hahn, MD
University of Southern California

Sally Hur, Pharm. D.
QueensCare, Echo Park

Sarah Ingersoll, MSN, MBA, RN
American Medical Informatics Association
University of Southern California

Cristina Jose Kampher, PhD
AltaMed

June Levine. RN, MSN
Access to Care Collaborative

Carmela Lomonaco, PhD

Imelda Meza, MA
The Children’s Clinic

Kiki Nocella, PhD
University of California, Riverside

Felix Nuñez, MD, MPH
Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County

Elise Pomerance, MD
East Valley Community Health Center

Jehni Robinson, MD
The Los Angeles Free Clinic

Michael A. Rodríguez, MD, MPH
University of California, Los Angeles

Richard Seidman, MD, MPH
LA Care

Maureen Strohm, MD
California Hospital Medical Center

Ava Lenda Waldman
AIDS Research Alliance

LA Net is a primary care practice based research network located in Southern California that is focused on the study of minority health disparities within primary care. LA Net brings community providers and researchers together to study the causes of health disparities among low-income and minority populations in the Los Angeles area, and improve quality of primary health care services to all patients in Los Angeles.

The network hosts an annual forum for community providers and researchers to develop ideas for locally-relevant, high-impact studies to improve the health of California residents. Network staff provide support that enables busy community clinicians to formulate and conduct studies of immediate relevance to their practice. Network staff also provide grant writing support and statistical and database management services, and trained "practice enhancement assistants" to undertake data collection. And network staff also provide as requested, intensive 2-day training workshops for members on basic research methods.

Network studies range from quality improvement initiatives, to evaluations of interventions to improve patient outcomes, to more basic mechanistic and disease process studies. Examples of studies conducted by LA Net in the past two years include a study of pediatric obesity in immigrant families from Latin America, a pilot of the National Children's Study, and research on Complementary and Alternative Medicine use by immigrant patients.

LA Net is also one of 10 networks participating in the ePCRN project funded by the National Institutes of Health. As part of this project, 10 LA Net sites will be linked electronically through existing billing, laboratory and other data systems to establish a regional primary care patient registry that will be used to support quality improvement initiatives, and rapid translation of research into practice. Participating sites will have access to ongoing IT support for the development and maintenance of the electronic network, as well as opportunities to participate in a variety of funded national randomized clinical trials of importance to primary care.

Any member is welcome to submit ideas for research to be undertaken by the network. Outside researchers with an interest in primary care or health disparities research are also invited to put forward ideas for collaborative projects. Send these to network director, Dr. Lyndee Knox at knox@usc.edu.

Currently, there are more than 30 member practices, and over 300 provider members in LA Net, most located in underserved areas of Los Angeles. Any community provider, researcher working in primary health care or health disparities, or community organization involved in promoting the health and well-being of individuals from any ethnic or socioeconomic group are welcome to join the network.

For more information on how to become a member of LA Net, please contact Laura Myerchin, Network Coordinator at laura_myerchin@hotmail.com.