Health Services and Outcomes Research
Reformulating Provider Profiling to Improve Patient Outcomes: Grouping Providers Treating Similar Populaltions of Patients Prior to Evaluating Performance
The current approach for provider profiling has significant limitations that deserve immediate attention due to the extensive repercussions profile reports have on the health care system. The long-term goal is to improve the current methodology for profiling providers by addressing some of its most pressing limitations. Since performance estimates are only valid when there exists sufficient overlap in patient characteristics, a substantial limitation with the current approach is its failure to assess the extent of patient covariate overlap among providers being profiled. The overall objective for this application is to implement a methodology that identifies similar groups of providers based on the admission characteristics of the patients they treat. The conjecture is that providers will need to be assigned to multiple groups to achieve sufficient overlap in patient characteristics and that, upon grouping providers, conclusions regarding provider performance will differ from conclusions under the current approach. Addressing this significant limitation provides a novel framework from which other researchers can build from to continue refining the current approach.
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George Papandonatos
Professor of Biostatistics (R)
Orphaned & Separated Children's Assessment Related to Their Health & Well-Being (OSCAR)
The Orphaned and Separated Children’s Assessments Related to their (OSCAR’s) Health and Well-Being Study is designed to evaluate different types of care environments for orphaned and separated children and adolescents, and understand how their care environments affect their physical and mental health. In Phase II, we are collecting the costs associated with different care environments, in order to measure their cost-effectiveness.
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Joseph W. Hogan
Carole and Lawrence Sivorich Professor of Public Health, Professor of Biostatistics, Department Chair of Biostatistics
Improving CER\PCOR Methods for Analyzing Linked Data Sources in the Absence of Unique Identifier
We will provide guidelines for statistical procedures aimed at estimating causal and noncausal relationships with linked data sources. We will also provide software implementing the possible methods so that they can be used by other researchers. In addition, we will apply the proposed methods to two important medical questions. The first application would estimate the benefits of home-delivered meals offered by Meals on Wheels programs to their clients as measured by healthcare utilization. The second application would examine possible factors that are related to meaningful recovery of elderly patients with traumatic brain injury.
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Roee Gutman
Professor of Biostatistics
Development of a Novel Mobile Health Tool for Age-Specific Dehydration Assessment and Management in Patients with Diarrheal Disease
Dehydration due to diarrheal diseases remains a leading cause of death in both children and adults worldwide, yet no clinical tools have ever been validated for the assessment of dehydration severity in adults or children over five years of age with acute diarrhea. The proposed research will both develop and validate an innovative new mobile phone based platform for the assessment of dehydration severity in adults, adolescents, and older children with acute diarrhea. This new mobile health tool will help physicians, nurses, and other providers worldwide to determine the best management strategies for patients with acute diarrhea, potentially improving and rationalizing care for the hundreds of millions of patients each year presenting to healthcare facilities around the world with acute diarrhea.
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Christopher Schmid
Professor of Biostatistics
Bridging Income Generation with Group Integrated Care (BIGPIC)
Diabetes is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of mortality in the world. The number of people with diabetes is expected to nearly double in low- and middle-income countries, which threatens to exert a large health and economic burden in these regions; this project therefore aims to address a singularly critical health and development issue. The results of this work will add to the emerging body of knowledge on innovative, scalable, and sustainable strategies for effectively reducing cardiovascular risk in diabetes and other chronic diseases among vulnerable populations in low-resource settings worldwide.
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Joseph W. Hogan
Carole and Lawrence Sivorich Professor of Public Health, Professor of Biostatistics, Department Chair of Biostatistics
BD2K Research Education Curriculum Development: Data Science Overview for Biomedical Scientists (R25)
The NIH Research Education Program (R25) supports research education activities in the mission areas of the NIH. The overarching goal of this BD2K R25 program is to support educational activities that complement and/or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation's biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs.
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Joseph W. Hogan
Carole and Lawrence Sivorich Professor of Public Health, Professor of Biostatistics, Department Chair of Biostatistics