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Maribel Cifuentes, RN, BSN

Instructor, Deputy Director, Advancing Care Together, Director, Office of Strategic Communications

​

12631 East 17th Avenue

Aurora, CO 80045

 

303-724-9772 Office

303-724-9747

 

Maribel.Cifuentes@ucdenver.edu

www.advancingcaretogether.org

 

 

 

ABOUT ME:

Maribel Cifuentes is the current deputy director of Advancing Care Together, a primary care practice redesign initiative seeking proper integration of care for people with emotional and behavioral problems.

She is the past deputy director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Prescription for Health national program. Under this initiative, 22 primary care practice-based research networks developed, tested, and evaluated 27 practical, evidence-based strategies to improve the delivery and effectiveness of health behavior change services in frontline primary care practice. The strategies targeted four health risk behaviors: Tobacco use, unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, risky alcohol use.

Ms. Cifuentes has extensive knowledge in the management and functions necessary to carry out large research initiatives. She is a nationally recognized figure in both the operation and expansion of research networks and in the management and coordination of multi-year nationally based research initiatives.
New to the field of qualitative research, she engaged in the study of a delivery model that marries elements of the PCMH and ACO into a unique Primary Care Based Accountable Care Organization. More recently she is working on the qualitative assessment of the implementation of a health literacy universal precautions toolkit in primary care practices.

She is an Instructor at the University of Colorado Denver, Department of Family Medicine; and prior to joining the University, she was a neonatal nurse at Denver Health and Hospitals.

She received her BSN from the University of Colorado Denver, School of Nursing and is finishing a master’s degree in health professions education from the University of Illinois, Chicago. Ms. Cifuentes is a Guatemalan native who has made Colorado her home for the last 23 years. Her favorite activity is hiking in the Colorado mountains with her husband and two children.

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Research interests span various areas related to primary care practice redesign and healthcare reform, including: delivery and payment systems to optimize the delivery of  integrated care, health behavior change strategies, multidisciplinary team-based care, and culturally appropriate patient-centered care in primary care settings.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:

Ms. Cifuentes is a member of a primary care research team in Basque Country, Spain working on a national initiative to incorporate systems to promote healthy behaviors and lifestyle into the Basque primary care delivery system.

She is also the director of the department's Strategic Communications Office working on various initiatives to enhance or create vehicles to better communicate internally among departmental faculty and staff and to present the department and its activities to external and other strategic partners within and outside of Colorado.

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS:

North American Primary Care Research Group

PUBLICATIONS AND GREY LITERATURE:
  1. Phillips RL, Bronnikov S, Petterson S, Cifuentes M, Teevan B, Dodoo MS, Pace WD, West DR. Case Study of a Primary Care-Based Accountable Care System Approach to Medical Home Transformation. Journal of Ambulatory Care Management, 2011;34(1):67-77.
  2. Krist AH, Cifuentes M, Dodoo MS, Green LA. Measuring Primary Care Expenses. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 23 (3): 376-383 (2010).
  3. Pace WD, Cifuentes M, Valuck RJ, Staton EW, Brandt EC, West DR. “An Electronic Practice-Based Network for Observational Comparative Effectiveness Research.” Annals of Internal Medicine, Sep 2009; 151(5).
  4. Green LA, Cifuentes M, Glasgow RE, Stange KC. “Redesigning Primary Care Practice to Incorporate Health Behavior Change: Prescription for Health Round-2 Results.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Nov 2008; 35(5 Suppl):S347-349.
  5. Dodoo MS, Krist AH, Cifuentes M, Green LA. “Start Up and Incremental Practice Expenses for Behavior Change Interventions in Primary Care.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Nov 2008; 35(5 Suppl):S423-430.
  6. Cifuentes M, Fernald DH, Green LA, Niebauer LJ, Crabtree BF, Stange KC, Hassmiller SB. “Prescription for Health: Changing Primary Care Practice to Foster Healthy Behaviors.” Annals of Family Medicine, 2005 3(S2): S4-S11.
  7. Glasgow RE, Ory MG, Klesges LM, Cifuentes M, Fernald DH, Green LA. “Practical and Relevant Self-Report Measures of Health Behaviors for Primary Care Research.” Annals of Family Medicine, 2005 3 (1): 73-81.
  8. Cifuentes M, Green LA. Obesity trial: knowledge without systems. British Medical Journal, 2004; 328(7438):E272-4.
  9. Lin CT, Barley GB, Cifuentes M. Personalized remedial intensive training of one medical student in communication and interview skills. Teaching and Learning in Medicine. 2001; 13(4):232-9.
  10. Plomer K, Schneider L, Barley G, Cifuentes M, Dignan M. Improving medical students’ communication with limited-literacy patients: project development and implementation. Journal of Cancer Education. 2001:16(2):68-71.
  11. O’Brien-Gonzales A, Cifuentes M, Paranka J. Integrating the care of Hispanic patients into a third-year clerkship. Academic Medicine. 2000; 75(5):514-5.