Dr. Dawes Receives KL-2 Award

Dr. Aaron Dawes has received a KL-2 Mentored Career Development Award from NIH. The award supports faculty for activities related to the development of a successful clinical and translational research career. Dr. Dawes's KL2 will provide him with protected time to work on his project entitled, “The Effect of Managed Care on Access and Quality for Medicaid Patients with Colon Cancer.”

"When California expanded Medicaid to childless adults as a part of the Affordable Care Act in 2014, it also transitioned nearly all patients from fee-for-service plan into health maintenance organizations (HMOs," said Dawes. "We are hoping to describe how Medicaid patients with colon cancer access specialty care in California and then to determine whether mandatory enrollment into HMOs has effected markers of access or quality of care."

Dr. Dawes's mentor is S-SPIRE Professor Dr. Todd Wagner. Dawes says eventually he would like to identify patients who are most at risk for developing gaps in their care so that "we can design targeted interventions to close them."