Dr. Douglas K. Owens is the Henry J. Kaiser, Jr. Professor, and Director of the Center for Health Policy (CHP) in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and of the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research (PCOR) in the Department of Medicine and School of Medicine at Stanford. He is a general internist and an investigator at the Center for Innovation to Implementation, a health services research center of excellence, at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Owens is a Professor of Medicine and, by courtesy, a Professor of Management Science and Engineering, at Stanford University; he is also a Senior Fellow at FSI.

Owens's research focuses on technology assessment, cost-effectiveness analysis, evidence synthesis, and methods for clinical decision making and guideline development. He is studying the cost-effectiveness of preventive and therapeutic interventions for HIV/AIDS in several countries; diagnostic and therapeutic interventions for cardiovascular disease; the cost effectiveness of current and emerging therapies for hepatitis C virus infection; the cost effectiveness of prevention and treatment for opioid use disorder; and he has developed methods for developing clinical practice guidelines tailored to specific patient populations. Owens chaired the Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians for four years. The guideline committee develops clinical guidelines that are used widely and are published regularly in the Annals of Internal Medicine. He served as Vice-Chair and Chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which develops national guidelines on preventive care, including guidelines for screening for breast, colorectal, prostate, cervical, ovarian, pancreatic, thyroid, and lung cancer. He was also a member of the 2nd Panel on Cost Effectiveness in Health and Medicine, which developed guidelines on the conduct of cost-effectiveness analyses published in 2016.

Owens also directed the Stanford-UCSF Evidence-based Practice Center. He co-directed three training programs in health services research: the Stanford-AHRQ Fellowship Program in Health Policy at Stanford, the VA Post-doctoral Fellowship in Health Services Research, and the VA Postdoctoral Informatics Fellowship Program.

Owens received a BS and an MS from Stanford University, and an MD from the University of California-San Francisco. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a fellowship in health research and policy at Stanford. Owens is a past-President of the Society for Medical Decision Making. He received the VA Undersecretary’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research, and the Eisenberg Award for Leadership in Medical Decision Making from the Society for Medical Decision Making. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP). In 2019, Owens received a MERIT Award from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse for his work on HIV, HCV, and the opioid epidemic.