Dr. Bokhour is Professor of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at University of Massachusetts Chan School of Medicine, and the Director of the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research at the VA Bedford Healthcare System. Her primary areas of expertise are patient-centered care research and qualitative research methods for health services research. Dr. Bokhour received her PhD in psychology and medical discourse studies from Clark University and joined the CHOIR faculty in 1998. Since 2012, she has been the Director and Principal Investigator of the Center for Evaluating Patient-Centered Care in VA (EPCC-VA), an evaluation center jointly funded by VA Office of Patient-Centered Care and Cultural Transformation and VA Quality Enhancement Research Initiative. The primary aim of the PEI is to evaluate the impact of implementation of the Whole Health System of Care at 18 flagship medical centers across the nation. Whole Health System of Care is defined as an approach to health care that empowers and equips people to take charge of their health and well-being and is based on patient-centered care where patients’ goals and priorities are primary. Dr. Bokhour is also a leading expert in the use of qualitative methods for health services research, extending a wide range of methods to problems of patient perceptions of illness, patient-provider communication, and implementation research. She has been a principal investigator on research grants from NIH and VA focusing on improving patient-centered care including understanding patient perspectives on health, illness and healthcare, and patient-provider communication – all in the interest of optimizing the provision of patient-centered care in VA and other healthcare systems. With expertise in implementation science research, she examines how patient-centered care can be implemented in a wide range of care settings. Her work has focused on care for individuals with a range of chronic illness, including hypertension, HIV and asthma. With the lens of patient-centered care and communication she has also studied the role culture, race and ethnicity plays in patient-provider communication. She holds a PhD in psychology and discourse studies from Clark University.