Part of UT Health San Antonio

Part of UT Health San Antonio

You are here

Robert Ferrer | UT Health San Antonio

Contact

210-358-3985

ferrerr@uthscsa.edu

Departments & Divisions

Robert L Ferrer, M.D., M.P.H., FAAFP

Professor and Vice Chair for Research

Family Medicine Residency Program

Dr. Robert L. Ferrer is the holder of the John M. Smith, Jr. Professor and Mario Ramirez Endowments. He is also the Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the UT Health San Antonio. 

Dr. Ferrer is a practicing family physician with research interests at the interface of primary care and public health, including primary care transformation and quality improvement, social determinants of health, and applications of complexity science to health and health care. He has been the principal investigator on grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, as well as other state and local funders. 

Currently, he also serves as Director of Community Engagement for UT Health San Antonio's Clinical Translational Science Award. Since 2009, he has been an associate editor for the Annals of Family Medicine. In 2002, he received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar award. From 2007-09 he served on the AHRQ Innovations Exchange initial Expert Panel. 

He is active in community health initiatives, serving as chair of the leadership team for San Antonio’s Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant from the CDC and also as a member of the core group for the Bexar County Health Collaborative’s Community Health Improvement Plan.Dr. Ferrer is dedicated to providing excellent primary care, including adult medicine, obstetrical care and delivery for low-risk pregnancies, and inpatient hospital care of adults and newborns.

An ongoing line of investigation has examined the delivery of primary care from both a theoretical and empirical perspective, the latter examining processes and outcomes in the primary care medical home. These publications have advanced our understanding of the role of primary care in a complex health system managing complex populations, as well as documented important principles of changing primary care practices to be more responsive to the needs of their practice population. The empirical papers also established a set of commonly used methodologies for measuring practice improvement in primary care. 

The second line of investigation has focused on health behavior change in primary care, applying human development models that examine behavior as a function of human agency and available opportunity. The work operationalizes the Capability Approach in health care and public health. “Capabilities” are practical opportunities for individuals to realize the goals they value. Starting with qualitative work in a disadvantaged community, our group developed measures of feasible opportunities for a healthy diet and physical activity and then demonstrated that the measures meaningfully predict behavioral intentions for diet and activity, as well as achieved diet, activity, and BMI. 

  • Professional Background

    Education

    • 1991 - Postdoctoral Fellowship - Family Medicine - University of Washington School of Medicine
    • 1991 - MPH - Health Services - University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine
    • 1989 - Residency - Family Practice - Duke University Medical Center
    • 1986 - MD - Medicine - Hahnemann University School of Medicine
    • 1982 - BA - Biology (with honors) - The Johns Hopkins University

    Appointments

    • 3/2011 - Director of Community Engagement, CTSA - UTHSCSA
    • 9/2010 - Professor (tenured) and Vice Chair for Research - UT Health Science Center, Family & Community Medicine, San Antonio
    • 1/2006 - Faculty Member and Graduate Faculty - UTHSCSA

  • Instruction & Training

    • 7/2010 - Present, Family Practice Clerkship, The University of Texas Health Science Center
    • 9/2009 - Present, Patient Orient Clin Res Method I, The University of Texas Health Science Center
    • 2/2008 - Present, MEDICINE- BEHAVIOR AND SOCIETY LONGITUDINAL MODULE, The University of Texas Health Science Center
    • 11/2006 - Present, Health Services Research, The University of Texas Health Science Center
    • 4/1997 - Present, Post Graduate Rotation Supervision, UTHSCSA
    • 4/1997 - Present, Post Graduate Rotation Supervision, UTHSCSA
    • 4/1997 - Present, Post Graduate Rotation Supervision, UTHSCSA

  • Research & Grants

    Grants

    Federal

    Funding Agency NIH/NCATS Title Clinical and Translational Science Award - Institute for the Integration of Medicine and Science: a Partnership to Improve Health Status Active Period 5/2018 - 4/2023 Role Contributor Grant Detail This Clinical and Translational Science Award provides a broad range of research infrastructure support, renewal submission for our CTSA Funding Agency Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Title Delivery System Reform Incentive Payments.Expanding Chronic Care Management in a Safety Net Clinic. Status Active Period 9/2012 - 12/2018 Role Principal Investigator Grant Detail Implementation of a population health management for patients with diabetes in a large safety net practice, including a disease registry, clinical guidelines, additional medical assistants to manage the registry and deliver needed services, and two nurse care managers. Funding Agency NIH Title Institutional Clinical and Translational Science Award - CTSA Status Active Period 5/2013 - 4/2018 Role Co-Investigator Grant Detail This Clinical and Translational Science Award provides a broad range of research infrastructure support. Funding Agency Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Title Delivery Systems Reform Incentive Payment. Community Health Worker Program to Address Health and Social Needs in a Vulnerable Population. Status Active Period 9/2012 - 12/2017 Role Principal Investigator Grant Detail Adds 12 community health workers to a safety net primary care practice to deliver home-based assessment and intervention for medical and social needs among patients with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes mellitus. Funding Agency NCATS Title Poner la Mesa: building skills for healthy eating in a vulnerable primary care population Status Active Period 1/2016 - 7/2017 Role Principal Investigator Grant Detail Pilot grant under parent CTSA. Randomized trial of connecting primary care patients with uncontrolled diabetes and food insecurity with the San Antonio Food Bank to receive biweekly allotments of healthy food, as well as education for healthy shopping and eating.

  • Publications

      Book Chapter

      Ferrer RL. Social determinants of Health. In: Timothy P. Daaleman
      Margaret R. Helton. Chronic Illness Care - Principles and Practice. New York: Springer; 2018. Katerndahl DA, Burge SK, Ferrer RL, Becho J, Wood, R. Quantitatively demonstrating the complex nature of intimate partner violence. In: Sturmberg, JP (ed). The Value Of Systems And Complexity Sciences For Healthcare. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 147-161.

      Book/Monograph

      Committee on Accounting for Socioeconomic Status in Medicare Payment Program, Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, Board on Health Care Services, Health and Medicine Division. Accounting for Social Risk Factors in Medicare Payment Washington, D.C: National Academies Press; 2017. Committee on Accounting for Socioeconomic Status in Medicare Payment Program, Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, Board on Health Care Services, Health and Medicine Division. Accounting for social risk factors in Medicare payment: Identifying social risk factors Washington, D.C: National Academies Press; 2016. Committee on Accounting for Socioeconomic Status in Medicare Payment Program, Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, Board on Health Care Services, Health and Medicine Division. Accounting for Social Risk Factors in Medicare Payment: Criteria, Factors, and Methods 2016. Committee on Accounting for Socioeconomic Status in Medicare Payment Program, Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, Board on Health Care Services, Health and Medicine Division. Accounting for Social Risk Factors in Medicare Payment: Data 2016. Committee on Accounting for Socioeconomic Status in Medicare Payment Program. Systems practices to improve care for socially at risk populations 2016.

      Electronic/Web Publication

      Ferrer RL. Evaluation of Peripheral Lymphadenopathy in Adults 2016 Dec.

      Journal Article

      Katerndahl DA, Burge SK, Ferrer RL, Becho J, Wood R. Multi-day patterns around taking action in intimate partner violence Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology and Life Sciences 2018 Apr;22(2):225-242. Katerndahl DA, Burge SK, Ferrer RL, Becho J, Wood R. Is readiness to take action among women in violent relationships a catastrophic phenomenon? (epub ahead of print) J Interpersonal Violence 2018 Feb;. Katerndahl DA, Burge SK, Ferrer RL, Becho J, Wood R. Is Perceived Need for Action Among Women in Violent Relationships Nonlinear and, If So, Why? Journal of Interpersonal Violence 2017 Aug;. Katerndahl DA, Burge SK, Ferrer RL, Becho J, Wood R. Is readiness to take action among women in violent relationships a catastrophic phenomenon? Journal of Interpersonal Violence 2017 Mar;:1-25. Burge SK, Ferrer RL, Foster EL, Becho J, Talamantes MA, Wood RC, Katerndahl DA. Research or intervention or both? Women`s changes after participation in a longitudinal study about intimate partner violence Families, Systems, & Health 2017 Jan;:1-11. Stevens, KR & Ferrer, RL. Real-time reporting of small operational failures in nursing care Nursing Research and Practice 2016 Nov;2016(2016). Katerndahl DA, Burge SK, Ferrer RL, Becho J, Wood R. Predictors of perceived need for and actual action taking among women in violent relationships Journal of Interpersonal Violence 2016 Sep;:1-28. Burge SK, Katerndahl DA, Wood RC, Becho J, Ferrer RL, Talamantes M. Using complexity science to examine three dynamic patterns of intimate partner violence Fam Syst Health 2016 Mar;34(1):4-14. Ferrer RL, Burge S, Palmer R, Cruz I. Practical opportunities for healthy diet and physical activity: relationship to intentions, behaviors, and body-mass index Annals of Family Medicine 2016 Jan;14. Foster EL, Becho J, Burge SK, Talamantes MA, Ferrer RL, Wood RC, Katerndahl DA. Coping with intimate partner violence: qualitative findings from the study of dynamics of husband to wife abuse Families, Systems & Health 2015 Sep;33(3):285-294. Katerndahl DA, Burge SK, Ferrer RL, Wood R, Becho J. Modeling outcomes of partner violence using cusp catastrophe modeling Nonlinear Dynamics Psychol Life Sci 2015 Jul;19(3):249-268. Katerndahl DA, Burge SK, Ferrer RL, Becho J, Wood R. Effects of religious and spiritual variables on outcomes in violent relationships International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine 2015 May;49(4):249-263. Katerndahl DA, Burge SK, Ferrer RL, Becho J, Wood, R. Recurrent multi-day patterns of intimate partner violence and alcohol intake in violent relationships Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology and Life Sciences 2015 Feb;19(1):41-63. Burge SK, Becho J, Ferrer RL, Wood RC, Talamantes M, Katerndahl DA. Safely examining complex dynamics of intimate partner violence Families Systems & Health 2014 Sep;32(3):259-270. Ferrer RL, Cruz I, Burge SK, Bayles BP, Castilla MI. Measuring capability for healthy diet and physical activity Annals of Family Medicine 2014 Jan;12(1):46-56.

      Not Specified

      Ventres W, Dharamsi S, Ferrer RL. From Social Determinants to Social Interdependency: Theory, Reflection and Engagement Social Medicine 2017 Jan;11:84-89.

  • Clinical

    Board Certifications

    • American Board of Family Medicine