Dr. Kahwati is a senior research scientist and program manager at RTI International. She is a primary care physician with more than 20 years of experience developing, identifying, implementing, and evaluating programs, interventions, and policies in healthcare settings to improve the delivery of health care and patient health outcomes. Dr. Kahwati is board certified in family medicine and in general preventive medicine/public health and has additional training in epidemiology and health services research. Her substantive areas of expertise include clinical preventive services, chronic disease management, and the organization of primary care services.
Dr. Kahwati is a lead investigator with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)-funded RTI-University of North Carolina Evidence-based Practice Center and has conducted systematic reviews in support of the US Preventive Services Task Force, the AHRQ Effective Health Care Program, and the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Kahwati is pioneering the application of qualitative comparative analytic methods to systematic reviews and more broadly to mixed methods health services research and evaluations to better understand what works and under what conditions. She co-directs the Consortium for Implementation Science, a collaboration between RTI and the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before joining RTI in 2012, Dr. Kahwati served as the Deputy Chief Consultant for Preventive Medicine within the Veterans Health Administration, where she still maintains an active clinical practice within the Durham VAMC Women’s Health Clinic.