Seminar Series

2001 - 2002

The Health Services Research Seminars feature nationally and internationally known leaders in health services research speak on current topics. These seminars are free and open to the public.

2001-2002 Schedule

Archives

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Abstracts for HSR Series

Elizabeth A. McGlynn
Associate Director of RAND Health and Director of the Center for Research on the Quality of Health Care, RAND

“An Improved Approach for Assessing the Quality of Health Care”

Abstract

Elizabeth A. McGlynn, Ph.D., is a nationally recognized expert on the measurement of technical quality. Under funding from government (HCFA, AHRQ), foundation (RWJ, CHCF), and private (BMS) sources, she has led the development of a comprehensive, evidence-explicit system for quality assessment that can be used in managed care, medical group, and community settings. The system, known as QA Tools, x includes more than 500 quality of care indicators across 45 clinical areas for children and adults. Under funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, QA Tools is being used to assess the quality of care nationally and in 12 communities.

Dr. McGlynn has worked with Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, and the United Auto Workers to develop a coordinated strategy for reporting on health plan performance to employees and retirees of the "Big Three" automobile manufacturers. She directed a related project for the Health Care Financing Administration to develop a reporting strategy for Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in managed care. Under funding from The Commonwealth Fund and AHRQ, Dr. McGlynn has provided technical assistance to the National Committee for Quality Assurance in the development of HEDIS 3.0 and the testing of potential new measures for HEDIS. She is currently a member of NCQA's Committee on Performance Measurement. She was a member of the Strategic Framework Board of the National Quality Forum and now serves on NQF's Strategic Advisory Committee. Dr. McGlynn serves on the editorial boards for Health Services Research and The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. She received her Ph.D. in 1988 from the RAND Graduate School.

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Lawrence Casalino
Assistant Professor, Department of Health Studies University of Chicago

“Effects of Public and Private Policies on Medical Group Practice in the United States”

Abstract

Using information from three lines of original research, Dr. Casalino will discuss the benefits of, and barriers to, medical group practice, with emphasis on groups of moderate to large size. He will also discuss the ways in which state and federal regulatory and health insurance purchasing policies, as well as the actions ("private policies") of large employers, affect the benefits of, and barriers to, medical group creation and success.

Two years ago, Dr. Casalino moved to the Department of Health Studies at the University of Chicago after twenty years as a family physician in Half Moon Bay, California. He obtained his Ph.D. (while continuing his practice) in Health Services Research and Organizational Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. With support from an Investigator Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Dr. Casalino is studying medical groups, IPAs, and physician-health plan contracting in 13 metropolitan areas around the United States. He is particularly interested in the effects of public and private policies, that is, of large corporate purchasers of health care and of government as both regulator and purchaser of health care. He is also a co-investigator in the first National Survey of Physician Organizations and the Management of Chronic Diseases, which has obtained detailed data on the type, size, governance, and care management practices of over 1,000 large medical groups and IPAs in the US He is a senior researcher with the Community Tracking Study of the Center for Studying Health Systems Change. Dr. Casalino's work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Health Affairs, and the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law.

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Peter Kemper
Professor, Department of Health Policy and Administration Pennsylvania State University

“Insurance Product Design and Its Effects: Trade-Offs Along the Managed Care Continuum”

Abstract

This presentation will use 1996-97 Community Tracking Study data to analyze the effects of different insurance product designs on service use, access and consumer assessments of care for nonelderly persons with employer-sponsored insurance. Product types are defined by features including use of networks, gatekeeping, capitation, and group/staff model delivery systems. There has been no evidence of differences across product types in unmet need or delayed care or use of hospitals, surgery or emergency rooms. The findings have implications for efforts to regulate managed care, particularly those that would change the nature of managed care products by prohibiting the use of specific care management tools. To the extent that the backlash against managed care is against restrictions on choice and administrative hassles among consumers who nonetheless choose more heavily managed products because of their lower cost, eliminating those options would leave those consumers worse off.

Dr. Kemper conducts research on long term care and teaches health policy and research methods. Previously, he was Vice President of the Center for Studying Health System Change, where he was principal investigator of the Community Tracking Study. Prior to that, he was Director of the Division of Long-Term Care Studies at the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (now the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), Director of the Madison Office of Mathematica Policy Research, and Assistant Professor at Swarthmore College. Dr. Kemper has published widely on managed care and long-term care, including home care of elderly persons with disabilities and lifetime nursing home use and financing. He has served on numerous advisory panels and government task forces, including the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Clinton Health Reform Task Force.

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Norman Daniels
Goldthwaite Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Medical Ethics, Tufts University

“Setting Limits Fairly: Can We Learn to Share Medical Resources?”

Abstract

Dr. Daniels has written widely in the areas of philosophy of science, ethics, political and social philosophy, and medical ethics. His current research focuses on three main themes that derive from his concern to integrate philosophical theory and health policy. To keep a focus on equity and population health in the context of health sector reform, he has been working with collaborating teams in Asia, Latin America, and Africa to adapt and apply the "benchmarks of fairness" for use in less developed countries (WHO Bulletin, June 2000). His work on "accountability for reasonableness" a model for fair deliberative process in setting limits to health care is being refined and applied in several managed care contexts and has influenced thinking about limit-setting in publicly administered systems in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe. His work on justice and the social determinants of health, along with this account of fair process, is being incorporated in a new book, Just Health.

A member of the Institute of Medicine, a Fellow of the Hastings Center, a Founding Member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and of the International Society for Equity in Health, he has consulted with the organizations, commissions, and governments in the US and abroad on issues of justice and health policy, including for the United Nations, WHO, and the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine.

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