Major Research Areas

Health Services Research and Policy

• Bruce Friedman
  The provision of health care to the elderly population, focusing on the development of more effective and efficient ways to deliver services to the functionally impaired aged; The relationship between depression and function and their impacts on healthcare service use and costs for older persons; Healthcare vouchers; Disease and case management.
  
  
• Katia Noyes
  Quality of Life assessment in healthcare and medical practice, a co-PI on the study examining quality of life of patients with implantable cardiac defibrillators; Cost-Effectiveness evaluation of health policies and interventions, clinical and pharmaceutical practices, and medical technology; Analysis of patterns of health services utilization, in particular in application to Medicare beneficiaries with Parkinson's disease; Quality of medical care and use of risk adjustment methodology for comparing health services providers and assessing their performance over time.
  
  
• Sarah Trafton
  Legal and regulatory issues affecting health care access and quality; the Americans with Disabilities Act and its relationship to professional and graduate health education.
  
  
• Helena Temkin-Greener
  Aging and Long-term Care:
  Impact of teamwork and organizational structure on patient care outcomes; Innovative delivery models for vulnerable elderly; Risk adjusted payment models for frail elderly populations; Financing of long-term care.
  
  Quality of Care:
  Patient outcomes in the PACE program; Patient outcomes in nursing homes; End-of-life care practices; Assessment of hospital palliative care service.
  
  
• Peter Veazie
  Decision behavior of health care providers and patients, the consequent health outcomes, and the influence of social and organizational systems on such behavior and outcomes; Structure and use information by patients and providers, the decision strategies of healthcare providers in the management of patients with chronic illnesses, and how physician decision processes can lead to medical errors.
  
  
• Theodore Brown
  History of public health and health policy in the United States; emergence and subsequent development of the field of health services research; history of the American health left and its marginalization; of biopsychosocial approaches to clinical medicine; repeatedly failed efforts at health care reform.
  
  
• James Zimmer
  Health services research on aging and long term care.