Dr. Richard Deyo is a preeminent scholar in evidence-based medicine and health services research, currently serving as the Kaiser Permanente Endowed Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. He earned his medical degree from the Penn State College of Medicine and completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, followed by a fellowship and Master of Public Health degree from the University of Washington's Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program. Prior to his position at OHSU, he held dual professorships in the Department of Medicine and Department of Health Services at the University of Washington, where he directed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program for fourteen years and founded the Center for Cost and Outcomes Research. His unique combination of clinical training as a general internist and expertise in population health research has positioned him at the forefront of bridging clinical practice with evidence-based decision making.
Dr. Deyo has established himself as a national authority on low back pain management, developing innovative methodologies for measuring patient functional status that have become standard tools in clinical practice and research. His seminal 2002 paper 'Cascade Effects of Medical Technology' in the Annual Review of Public Health fundamentally reshaped understanding of how medical innovations propagate through healthcare systems, while his book 'Hope or Hype: The Obsession with Medical Advances and the High Cost of False Promises' critically examined the societal implications of medical overutilization. His work on inappropriate use of medical technology and the commercial, political, and media forces influencing healthcare decisions has provided policymakers with essential frameworks for evaluating medical innovation. These contributions have established him as a thought leader in understanding how evidence translates into clinical practice and how external forces shape medical decision making.
As Deputy Editor of the journal Spine and editorial board member for the Back Review Group of the Cochrane Collaboration, Dr. Deyo continues to shape methodological standards for musculoskeletal research and evidence synthesis. He co-chaired the NIH Pain Consortium's Task Force on Research Standards for Chronic Low Back Pain and served as principal investigator for the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality Patient Outcomes Research Team, helping establish best practices for evaluating back pain interventions. His membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation and leadership roles in professional societies including the American College of Physicians and International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine reflect his standing as a transformative figure in evidence-based medicine. Dr. Deyo's ongoing research examining the drivers of excessive medical technology use remains critically relevant in contemporary healthcare debates, where balancing innovation with appropriate utilization continues to challenge clinicians, patients, and policymakers seeking to improve healthcare value.
