08 Jan Highlighting the Impactful Research of EMPH Program Director Dr. Isomi Miake-Lye
The UCLA Executive Programs in Health Policy and Management is proud to celebrate the recent academic contributions of Dr. Isomi Miake-Lye, Director of the Executive MPH (EMPH) program. Dr. Miake-Lye’s work bridges the gap between research principles and practical application within complex health systems. Her recent first-authored publications reflect the very principles of rigorous evaluation and evidence-based management that she imparts to our EMPH students.
An Adjunct Assistant Professor for over six years in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Dr. Miake-Lye teaches the “Practices of Evaluation in Health Services: Theory and Methodology” course both in the EMPH program and the day MPH program.
Dr. Miake-Lye’s latest research spans several critical areas of healthcare delivery, organizational learning, and clinician wellbeing:
Evidence Synthesis and Methodology: In the article “Using Google to search for evidence: how much is enough? One center’s experience,” published in Systematic Reviews, Dr. Miake-Lye explores the efficiency and depth of digital search strategies—a vital skill for any healthcare leader tasked with making evidence-based decisions.
Clinician Wellbeing: Addressing the modern crisis of provider overload, her work in Human Factors and Ergonomics titled “Collecting User Experience Data from Clinicians Without Increasing Burnout: Lessons Learned from the Department of Veterans Affairs” provides a roadmap for gathering essential data without adding to the administrative burden of frontline staff.
Workforce Development: Her research into the nursing pipeline, “A Landscape of Evidence on RN Transition to Practice Programs,” offers a comprehensive look at how structured support systems can improve retention and competency for new nurses. We are proud to note that EMPH Graduate Jessica Thies (Class of 2022), Regional Nursing Director at City of Hope, contributed as a co-author on this publication, demonstrating the opportunities for students to engage in high-level research during and after their time in the program.
Learning Health Systems: Perhaps most emblematic of her work in evaluation is the descriptive analysis titled “How an evidence synthesis program’s growth has supported research use and learning community partnership networks within a learning health system.” This study utilizes social network analysis to demonstrate how evidence synthesis builds stronger, more collaborative healthcare organizations.
For students in the EMPH program, Dr. Miake-Lye’s research serves as a living laboratory. The methodologies explored in her work—ranging from evidence synthesis to organizational evaluation—are the same tools she teaches in her “Practices of Evaluation” course. This ensures that our students are not just learning from textbooks, but from the experts who are actively shaping the future of health systems through peer-reviewed discovery.
We congratulate Dr. Miake-Lye on these achievements and thank her for her continued dedication to advancing health policy and management through both scholarship and mentorship.
To read Dr. Miake-Lye’s full articles, please visit the links below:
- A Landscape of Evidence on RN Transition to Practice Programs
- Collecting User Experience Data from Clinicians Without Increasing Burnout
- Using Google to search for evidence: how much is enough?
- How an evidence synthesis program’s growth has supported research use
Dr. Miake-Lye has devoted the last 15+ years to research at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. She is currently Co-Director of the VA Greater Los Angeles Evidence Synthesis Program and Core Investigator and Assistant Director of Communications for the VA Health Services Research Center of Innovation (VA HSR COIN) Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation and Policy. She has expertise in evidence synthesis, mixed methods research, implementation science, and organizational behavior. Her work focuses on how the organization of health systems affects the use of evidence and evidence-based practices.