Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS

Director of Health Services Research, Cedars-Sinai Health System

Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS, is director of Health Services Research for Cedars-Sinai and Director of the Cedars-Sinai Master's Degree Program in Health Delivery Science. He directs the Cedars-Sinai Center for Outcomes Research and Education (CS-CORE), a multidisciplinary team that investigates how digital health technologies can strengthen the patient-doctor bond, improve outcomes, and save money. His team developed one of largest and most widely-documented medical VR programs at Cedars-Sinai, and his work has helped to support a new field of medicine called Medical Extended Reality (MXR) in which doctors use immersive technologies like VR to help treat conditions ranging from pain, to anxiety and depression, to irritable bowel syndrome.

Spiegel has published numerous medical textbooks, editorials and more than 250 articles in peer-reviewed journals. His digital health research has been featured by major media outlets, including The NY Times, CBS News, Forbes, LA Times, NBC News, Reuters, The Washington Post, and WSJ. Dr. Spiegel published the book "VRx: How Immersive Therapeutics Will Revolutionize Medicine" (Basic Books, NY, NY), which was named by Wired Magazine as one of its top 8 science books of 2020.

Beyond his focus on digital health innovations, Spiegel conducts psychometric, health-economic, epidemiological and qualitative research across a wide range of healthcare topics. His research team has received funding from the NIH, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, State of California Precision Medicine Program, PCORI, VA and industry sources. Spiegel is the immediate past editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Gastroenterology, the leading clinical gastroenterology journal in North America. He was among the first group of clinical researchers to examine the gastrointestinal manifestations of COVID-19. He continues to practice clinical medicine and maintains an academic teaching practice at Cedars-Sinai. A prolific speaker, Spiegel is frequently invited to present on his areas of expertise at national and international events.

Dr. Spiegel earned his bachelor's degree from Tufts University, his medical degree from New York Medical College where he received Alpha Omega Alpha honors, and his master's from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai and his fellowship at UCLA. He is also the Founding Director of the Cedars-Sinai Master's Degree Program in Health Delivery Science, where he teaches classes on digital health science, health analytics, and cost-effectiveness analysis.