Kisha J. Ali, PhD, MS, is an expert in health services research and policy, patient safety, quality improvement, and rural health. She specializes in implementation science, mixed-methods evaluation, qualitative methodology, content development, and training clinical teams in hospitals with a wide range of resources, and heterogeneity in setting. Her experience includes designing, implementing, and sustaining patient safety and quality improvement interventions in collaboration with U.S. Hospital Associations nationally, and internationally with organizations such as the CDC and PEPFAR. 

Dr. Ali’s focus is on improving U.S. rural healthcare. Her doctoral research examined the variation among U.S. rural hospitals that opt in or out of reporting national quality measures of clinical outcomes, patient safety, and patient-centered care. She identified barriers to reporting, proposed solutions, and investigated policy recommendations from stakeholders to establish viable mechanisms for facilitating rural quality improvement. No existing studies address this gap. 

Dr. Ali is a Research Scientist at the MedStar Health Research Institute working on several initiatives, such as a NIH pragmatic clinical trial to reduce chronic lower back pain and opioid use among rural patients in Maryland. She helped develop the AHRQ Diagnostic Safety and Quality Resources that are publicly available to help decrease diagnostic errors. She further led the psychometric evaluation of a new diagnostic patient safety culture improvement tool for the TeamSTEPPS for Improving Diagnosis resource, developing the first valid and reliable instrument to measure diagnostic-specific teamwork and communication. Dr. Ali is also an Associate Faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, co-teaching two foundational graduate courses on patient safety. 

She holds a BS degree in Chemistry with Honors from the City University of New York, a MS degree in Biotechnology from the Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, a PhD degree in Health Services Research and Policy from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and has been the recipient of 12 professional awards.