Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine is pleased to announce the appointment of JoAnna Leyenaar, MD, MPH, MSc, as the Paul Batalden Chair for Clinical Improvement and Professional Development. Leyenaar, a professor of pediatrics and of health policy and clinical research at Geisel and a pediatric hospitalist and health services researcher at Dartmouth Health, brings more than a decade of experience addressing healthcare disparities and improving outcomes for vulnerable pediatric populations.
The Paul Batalden Chair was established in 2008 in honor of Paul Batalden, MD, a professor emeritus of health policy and clinical practice, pediatrics, and community and family medicine at Dartmouth, and guest professor of quality improvement and leadership at Jönköping University in Sweden. The endowed chair recognizes faculty whose teaching and research embody the highest standards of healthcare improvement scholarship and whose work advances the quality, value, and safety of healthcare delivery.
“We selected Dr. Leyenaar for the Batalden Chair after a rigorous national search. We were delighted that the most exceptional candidate for this endowed professorship was already here at Dartmouth,” says Amber Barnato, MD, MPH, MS, the John E. Wennberg Distinguished Professor, department chair and director of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice. “Recognizing Dr. Leyenaar’s exceptional contributions as one of the top pediatric health services researchers in the U.S. with this professorship is a privilege. Her commitment to translating clinical observations into meaningful research that drives healthcare improvement for vulnerable children and their families will increase [The Dartmouth Institute’s] impact on population health by focusing earlier in the life course than our historical work in the Medicare population. I am so grateful to Dr. Batalden for his generosity and leadership in establishing this professorship, and am excited to see the many ways that Dr. Leyenaar and her team will make healthcare better for all.”
Research Driven by Clinical Observation
At Dartmouth Health, Leyenaar’s research portfolio spans critical areas of pediatric healthcare, with particular focus on vulnerable and underserved populations. Her current projects, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Nursing Research, Defense Health Agency, and National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, investigate some of the country’s most pressing healthcare challenges, such as disparities in care for children with medical complexity, long-term outcomes for infants with prenatal opioid exposure, and suicide prevention in rural emergency departments.
“What drives my work is seeing problems firsthand in clinical practice and recognizing opportunities to make things better through research and advocacy,” says Leyenaar. “Every research project I undertake stems from a clinical experience that highlighted a gap or disparity in care. Research becomes a way to shine a spotlight on issues that are under-researched or under-resourced.”
Powerful clinical experiences have often inspired Leyenaar’s research focus. Early in her tenure at Dartmouth Health, Leyenaar encountered a medically complex child whose family was preparing to take him home despite his need for intensive nursing support. Upon inquiring about home nursing services, she learned that while insurance approved the care, no pediatric home nurses were available in the family’s rural community. The parents had been managing his complex medical needs entirely on their own, taking shifts around the clock.
“That experience opened my eyes to the unique challenges facing rural families with medically complex children,” Leyenaar says. “It led to my first major research project examining urban-rural disparities in healthcare quality for children with complex or disabling health conditions.”
Building Bridges
Leyenaar’s appointment represents a strategic opportunity to strengthen collaboration between The Dartmouth Institute and Dartmouth Health’s healthcare enterprise. “This position allows me to have one foot at Dartmouth Health and one foot on the college side,” she explains. “I hope to accelerate research by building bridges between the research community and clinicians, fostering the kind of collaboration that leads to meaningful healthcare improvement.”
The endowed professorship provides dedicated funding that enables rapid response to emerging healthcare challenges without the typical lag time associated with grant-funded research. This flexibility, Batalden notes, creates “an opportunity for the chairholder to lead” rather than simply follow external funding priorities.
“We have many individuals doing excellent research, but we lack a shared umbrella for collaboration,” Leyenaar observes. “I’m excited about the opportunity to bring people together, build efficiencies, and create shared resources within the maternal and child health space.”
A Natural Alignment with Pediatric Care
Batalden and Leyenaar’s shared focus in pediatrics align experientially and philosophically. “Pediatricians know that more than two parties are engaged in health and healthcare service,” Batalden says. “So, pediatricians are in the habit of dealing with a small team of others—sometimes known as mothers and fathers, sometimes known as grandparents, and sometimes known as patients. You’re in the midst of a small group of people all the time.” This multi-party dynamic inherent in pediatric care naturally embodies the collaborative approach that Batalden has championed throughout his career, and sees in the chairholder.
“Very soon after I arrived [to Dartmouth Health], I was struck by the differences in the rural environment, differences in resources, and differences in catchment area relative to my work in Boston where I had been previously,” Leyenaar says. That early exposure to rural healthcare challenges became the foundation for her research career focused on vulnerable populations.
Leyenaar completed her medical degree at McMaster University School of Medicine in 2001 and pediatric residency training at the IWK Health Center in Halifax, NS, Canada, and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in 2005. She is board certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine. She earned her Master of Public Health from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and her PhD in Clinical and Translational Research from Tufts University.
In 2016, Leyenaar joined Dartmouth Health as a pediatric hospitalist and has maintained active clinical practice alongside her research career. Her research has been published in leading journals including Pediatrics, JAMA, and BMJ. She currently serves on grant review panels and national pediatric research committees, contributing to the broader academic community’s efforts to improve child health outcomes.
The Paul Batalden Chair for Clinical Improvement and Professional Development represents the latest milestone in Leyenaar’s career dedicated to improving healthcare for vulnerable children and families. Her appointment ensures that this important work will continue to thrive at the intersection of clinical care, research excellence, and healthcare improvement—principles that Batalden championed throughout his distinguished career and continues to nurture.
Reflecting on the long-term nature of this work, Batalden speaks with characteristic optimism. “Part of the challenge is to prepare people one and two generations ahead of me.” This sentiment is on full display in his office, where a weaving featuring an ancient Greek proverb sits above his desk: “Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
