She has previously held research positions with the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and Uninsured (Washington, DC), the Institute for Health and Aging (UCSF) and the Physician Payment Review Commission (Washington, DC). Dr. Hoffman is also serving as adjunct faculty at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing where she lectures in health policy.
She has focused her own health research on access to care among the low-income population, racial and ethnic minorities, and those living with chronic health conditions; publishing in Health Affairs, JAMA, Medical Care Research and Review, and the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, among other journals.
Dr. Hoffman spent much of her earlier career as a cardiac clinical nurse specialist providing intensive, acute, and rehabilitative care of persons with heart disease. She has also held nursing faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Arizona State University.
Dr. Hoffman is a past president of the Napa County Children's Health Initiative, a non-profit organization providing health insurance coverage to low-income children who do not quality for existing public programs. She has been awarded for this and her other volunteer work, including being named Clinical Nurse Specialist of the Year by the American Nurses' Association. She will be inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 2010. She is currently on the membership committee for AcademyHealth, and has helped organize, lead panels, and review papers for the Annual Research Meeting.
She received a doctoral degree in health policy and management from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and a master's degree in nursing from the University of Washington-Seattle.