It is my pleasure to announce the appointment of Kathleen McTigue, MD, MPH, MS, as the Department of Medicine Vice Chair for Real World Evidence (RWE), effective March 1, 2022. In this role, she will support the use of RWE in health research by DOM faculty, by implementing and overseeing a portal to facilitate access to data, and by working with the DOM Director of Business Development to generate and nurture academic/industry partnerships that support research addressing topics of interest to Pitt/UPMC clinicians and researchers. She will also consult with faculty who are developing strategic multi-site grant proposals and are interested in integrating PCORnet resources.
Dr. McTigue earned an MD/MPH degree from the University of Connecticut and completed her Internal Medicine training at the University of Colorado. She practiced primary care medicine for a year in Colorado before moving to North Carolina for a preventive medicine residency and completion of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty in the Division of General Internal Medicine in 2000 and has since led research largely focused on topics related to the epidemiology and health implications of obesity and the integration of evidence-based lifestyle interventions into clinical care, particularly using online tools. In 2015, Dr. McTigue became the lead Principal Investigator for the PaTH Clinical Research Network (pathnetwork.org), a Partner Network in PCORnet®, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network. In concert with Dr. Michael Becich (MPI, Pitt Department of Biomedical Informatics), she oversaw the expansion of the PaTH Network (current members: Geisinger Health System, Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Health System, Penn State College of Medicine, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Temple Health System, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh, UPMC and UPMC Health Plan, The Ohio State University, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, University of Michigan, and Michigan Medicine). These PaTH/PCORnet partnerships not only enable Pitt/UPMC investigators access to EHR data, but also facilitates scaling their research beyond a single site and provides resources to support multi-site trials and observational studies. Additionally, Dr. McTigue served as Vice Chair for the national PCORnet Steering Committee from 2019-2021 and has fostered the development of a variety of academic/industry scientific work. In 2021, she founded the Trilogue Center for Real World Evidence. Dr. McTiguealso has held teaching and leadership roles focused on clinical research education in the UPMC Internal Medicine Residency program and the Institute for Clinical Research Education.
Throughout her career, Dr. McTigue has been committed to research that draws upon the experiences of patients and clinicians and is aimed at improving healthcare delivery, and we are excited for her leadership in this new position.