About Health Policy and Outcomes Research
Mission Statement
The mission of the Division of Health Policy and Outcomes Research in the Department of Public Health Sciences is to improve the health of individuals and populations through contributions to the understanding of the role of health services on health.
Division News
Dr. Li received two R01 grants from the National Institute on Aging, and he is the Principal Investigator on both projects. The first project was designed to identify the key structural and process components of state technical assistance programs that effectively improve nursing home quality measured by risk-adjusted health outcomes and case mix adjusted deficiency citations. The second project aims to test the between- and within-physician variations in referring patients for cardiac procedures and to understand how differential referral patterns contribute to the observed disparities in receiving high quality CABG (coronary artery bypass graft) surgery among mentally-ill patients.
Dr. Veazie received R21 grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Mental Health. He will be the Principal Investigator on a study to develop a web-based decision lab for the study of physician decision-making. The initial work will investigate the role of patient race in physician decisions to prescribe antidepressants to the elderly.
Dr. Noyes was awarded University of Rochester Medical School Dean’s Teaching Fellowship. This prestigious fellowship prepares future leaders of medical education.
Dr. Temkin-Greener continues her NIH funded R01 grant project investigating the impact of team performance on risk-adjusted patient care outcomes in 206 New York State nursing homes. Her research team has assessed the characteristics of facilities that foster teams and the impact of teams and other management practices on staff turnover. The findings were presented at the Gerontological Society of America annual conference in San Francisco, November 2007.
Dr. Friedman submitted 5-year T32 Training Grant renewal application in conjunction with Dr. Peter Szilagyi, who is the Co-Principal Investigator for the proposed postdoctoral program in health services research. The Division has one of only 18 PhD Predoctoral Training Programs in the United States funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which provides an annual stipend, tuition payments, insurance coverage, and conference travel for 5 of our PhD students.
Dr. Veazie received a grant from the Institute of Informed Medical Decision Making. He will be co-investigator with principal investigator Dr. James Dolan on a study of the use of graphical presentation technologies in facilitating patient decisions regarding the choice of pain medications for osteoarthritis.
Dr. Noyes was named as Director of the Health Systems Theme in the U of R Medical School double-helix curriculum.
Dr. Temkin-Greener’s contract with the National PACE Association was renewed. Dr. Temkin-Greener received a contract for the 4th consecutive year to assess the impact of the CMS risk-adjusted payment model on PACE programs and to develop program-level quality indicators. For these purposes, individual level health data are being submitted by 38 PACE program nationally to the PACE Data Analysis Center which Dr. Temkin-Greener directs at the University of Rochester.
Dr. Friedman completed his 5-year career development K Award from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Mental Health to study the relationship of depression and function to health care services use and expenditures of older persons. He has recently submitted for publication two papers resulting from this work: The Effect of Major and Minor Depression on Medicare Home Health Services Use, and Major Depression and Emergency Medical Services Utilization in Community-Dwelling Elderly Persons with Disabilities.
Dr. Noyes started a new study with the U of R School of Nursing. She also started as a Co-Investigator on this research study with Dr. Ying Xue, who is the Principal Investigator. The study aims to understand the use of supplemental registered nurses by hospitals and its impact on the quality of care and costs.
Dr. Temkin-Greener was invited to be a visiting guest lecturer at the Health Services Research Institute of the Maccabi Healthcare Services in Israel. She visited there in February of 2008 giving a presentation and discussing possible research collaborations.
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