Rodger Kessler is a Health Psychologist practicing in Family Medicine for over 25 years. He is Chair of Research and Evaluation in the Doctor of Behavioral Health program and is Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Arizona State University. He is co-Principal Investigator on the Integrated Behavioral Health in Primary Care (IBH-PC) Comparative Effectiveness Trial supported through PCORI, to evaluate the outcomes of co-located and integrated models of behavioral care as part of primary care. He also leads a national expert team, funded by the Sunflower Foundation, to identify core clinical process and financial metrics for integrated care.
He has designed, implemented, and evaluated the effectiveness of many integration projects in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, OB-GYN, Neurology, Gastroenterology, Surgery and Anesthesiology, as well as three integrated Vermont Fletcher Allen Health Care Patient Centered Medical Home Integration Pilots. He was Principal Investigator of a SAMHSA funded multi department initiative training medical residents, nurses and social work students in team based integrated care.
In his research career, he is Director of the Collaborative Care Research Network (CCRN), a sub network of the National Research Network (NRN), and Senior Scientist of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He was Principal Investigator of an NIH research project to develop a toolkit to assist practices the implement behavioral health and health behavior care in primary care. He leads a national team of investigators that developed the Practice Integration Profile, an electronic practice level self-report identifying level of Primary Care Behavioral Health.
He has edited, Collaborative Medicine Case Studies: Evidence in Practice with Dale Stafford, M.D. and with Christine and Chris Hunter, the Handbook of Clinical Health Psychology both published by Springer Publishers. His next Springer book, in 2018, with CR Macchi and colleagues from the Arizona State Doctor of Behavioral Health program, is a guide for training faculty who are training clinicians in integrated behavioral health. He has over 50 other refereed publications.