Dr. Keyhani is a general internist and a health services researcher. She has experience in retrospective cohort study designs, use of natural language processing to construct cohorts, and use of advanced statistical techniques for observational research. She is currently leading multiple NIH funded cohort studies and has used natural language processing for either cohort construction or data extraction in all studies. Areas of focus include the cardiovascular health effects of marijuana use, the management of carotid and predictors of 30-day readmission.

She also has an active research program in health care quality and health policy. Her quality of care research to date has focused on examining the underuse and overuse of medical procedures, comparing receipt of appropriate therapy in different systems of care (e.g. Medicare versus Veterans Health Administration) and examining system factors that contribute to improved quality. More recently her quality of care work has focused more specifically on stroke therapies such as carotid endarterectomy and thrombolytic therapy. Her policy research has largely focused on areas important to health care reform and factors that may contribute to inefficiency and the use of inappropriate care in the US health care system. She has surveyed physicians on their views towards national guidelines, comparative effectiveness research, defensive medicine and conflicts of interest in medicine.