Edward Ellerbeck, M.D., MPH

Edward Ellerbeck, MD, MPH, is Professor of Population Health and Internal Medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He is co-program leader for the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the University of Kansas Cancer Center and co-leads the KL2 training program for the Frontiers: University of Kansas Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

Dr. Ellerbeck received his medical degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City where he also completed his Internal Medicine residency and chief residency. He completed his Masters in Public Health, a residency in Preventive Medicine, and a fellowship in General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Ellerbeck spent five years with the Health Care Financing Administration (now the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)) where he led national and regional efforts to measure and improve care for Medicare beneficiaries. He joined the University of Kansas School of Medicine in 1997 and served as the chair of the Department of Population Health (formerly the department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health) from 2005 to 2022.

Dr. Ellerbeck’s teaching has focused on evidence-based medicine, health care finance, quality improvement, and practice redesign; he received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2012. He has been an active research mentor, leading a variety of research training programs, and received the Jayhawk Lifetime Achievement Award for mentoring in 2017.

Dr. Ellerbeck has more than 35 years of clinical experience in primary care, including work in homeless and disadvantaged communities. His translational research builds upon his clinical experience and is focused on identifying better ways to measure and improve the quality of medical care.

Dr. Ellerbeck’s research is focused on identifying better ways to measure and improve the quality of medical care with a focus on preventive care, rural health, cancer control, and smoking cessation. He has worked extensively with claims data to characterize utilization of health care services, measure quality of care, and link quality metrics to outcomes. His efforts to develop quality metrics for cardiovascular care resulted in quality measures that were subsequently implemented nationwide.

Dr. Ellerbeck characterized delivery of preventive services in rural primary care clinics across Kansas and used his findings to develop, implement and test a ‘chronic care model’ for smoking cessation in rural primary care clinics that demonstrated the willingness of smokers to make repeated cessation attempts and showed that the effectiveness of repeated quit attempts did not diminish over time. He demonstrated the feasibility of a chronic care approach to smoking cessation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and in the care of smokers after hospital discharge. He has worked on a variety of studies focused on framing messages (either in person or via text) to encourage smokers to initiate or maintain smoking cessation efforts. Dr. Ellerbeck has collaborated with other investigators on a wide-variety of health service delivery endeavors, including efforts to improve smoking cessation, cancer screening, obesity treatment, and physical activity.

Dr. Ellerbeck has mentored multiple faculty on career development grants that subsequently led to independent NIH funding. He led the KUMC K30 Clinical Research Curriculum Program from 2005-2010 before directing the research training core for the Frontiers: Kansas University Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

A Mobile Smoking Cessation Intervention for Mexico (Vive sin Tabaco... ¡Decídete!): Single-Arm Pilot Study.

A Randomized Trial of Motivational Interviewing: Cessation Induction Among Smokers With Low Desire to Quit.

Comparative and cost effectiveness of telemedicine versus telephone counseling for smoking cessation.

Concomitant HPV and MenACWY vaccination among sixth and seventh graders receiving Tdap.

Counseling alone or in combination with nicotine replacement therapy for treatment of black non-daily smokers: a randomized trial.

Effect of Behavioral Therapy With In-Clinic or Telephone Group Visits vs In-Clinic Individual Visits on Weight Loss Among Patients With Obesity in Rural Clinical Practice: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Effect of Long-term Nicotine Replacement Therapy vs Standard Smoking Cessation for Smokers With Chronic Lung Disease: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Effect of varying levels of disease management on smoking cessation: a randomized trial.

Factors That Explain Differences in Abstinence Between Black and White Smokers: A Prospective Intervention Study.

Impact of Adding Telephone-Based Care Coordination to Standard Telephone-Based Smoking Cessation Counseling Post-hospital Discharge: a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Rural-Urban Differences in Changes and Effects of Tobacco 21 in Youth E-cigarette Use

Using Implementation Science to Further the Adoption and Implementation of Advance Care Planning in Rural Primary Care.

Warm Handoff Versus Fax Referral for Linking Hospitalized Smokers to Quitlines.