Digital Tech Holds Promise for Patient Health Management

Digital technologies offer the promise of helping patients manage their health, but developing safe and effective interventions is challenging as technology evolves. Linda Park, PhD, MS, FNP-BC, is studying the use of digital health solutions for cardiovascular disease patients.

“My work with patients in cardiology over the past 20 years has informed my passion to create practical solutions to manage their everyday struggles, such as medication management and physical activity,” says Park. By developing and testing interventions using quantitative and qualitative research methods, she seeks to improve patient self-care and health outcomes. Patients often struggle to adapt to lifestyle changes after diagnosis and medication adherence is critical to limit additional cardiac events.

A UCSF alum, Park holds dual appointments as an assistant professor in the School of Nursing and a nurse researcher at San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center (SFVAMC), and she continues to work as a nurse practitioner with patients who undergo cardiac and vascular procedures at John Muir Medical Center. She is a 2019-2020 Tideswell Emerging Leader in Aging and was a UCSF/National Institutes of Health KL2 Scholar from 2015 to 2018.

For Park, becoming a nurse was an early decision. Her family immigrated to the U.S. when Park was a toddler because her brother needed to have open heart surgery. She saw her parents struggle to adapt to their new life in Chicago and leave their familiar lives and engineering careers behind in Korea.

“Helping people is in my DNA. I learned at a young age that I wanted my parents’ sacrifice to be worth it, so I committed to being a nurse at age eight,” says Park. She followed that path, earning a master of science degree as a family nurse practitioner from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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