Urmimala Sarkar MD, MPH is a Professor of Medicine at UCSF in the Division of General Internal Medicine and a primary care physician at San Francisco General Hospital’s Richard H. Fine People's Clinic. Dr. Sarkar’s research focuses on (1) patient safety in outpatient settings, including adverse drug events, missed and delayed diagnosis, and failures of treatment monitoring, (2) health information technology and social media to improve the safety and quality of outpatient care, and (3) implementation of evidence-based innovations in real-world, safety-net care settings. 

Dr. Sarkar is committed to enhancing health information technology approaches to improve primary care and ameliorate disparities in vulnerable populations, through the health-literacy-sensitive, patient-centered approaches such as co-development and usability testing, in partnership with technology development experts. Her current work applies design thinking and interdisciplinary, iterative approaches to characterize and address safety gaps in outpatient settings. 

She has conducted studies that explore the impact of health communication (health literacy, English proficiency) and health information technology on patient safety. Her prior studies on internet-based patient portals demonstrate digital disparities by race/ethnicity and health literacy. Her social media studies use mixed-methods approaches to understand patient perspectives about physician quality and cancer screening behaviors. Her ongoing work employs varied health information technologies to detect and ameliorate adverse events among outpatient chronic disease populations. She is currently funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the National Cancer Institute, with prior funding from the California Healthcare Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.