Ongoing Research

Esti­mat­ing the Costs of Sup­port­ing Safety-Net Trans­for­ma­tion into Patient-Centered Med­ical Homes in Post-Katrina New Orleans
The study aimed to under­stand the char­ac­ter­is­tics of clin­ics that trans­formed into patient-centered med­ical homes and the incre­men­tal cost for trans­for­ma­tion. We found Larger sized clin­ics and those with a higher female pro­por­tion were more likely to trans­form. The PCASG pro­gram pro­vided approx­i­mately $24.86 per visit over the two and a half years. This esti­mated incre­men­tal cost could be used to guide pol­icy rec­om­men­da­tions to sup­port pri­mary care trans­for­ma­tion in the United States.

Cost Shar­ing of Dis­ease Mod­i­fy­ing Treat­ments (DMTs):  as Pol­icy Level to Improve DMTs Access in Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis 
The objec­tive of this study is to exam­ine the rela­tion­ship between out-of-pocket (OOP) pay­ment for DMTs and DMT use/adherence. We found the use of DMTs and DMT adher­ence appeared inelas­tic to OOP pay­ment below $442 and $890, respec­tively. Insur­ance plans with OOP pay­ment above $442 is expected to cover more than 50% of the MS patients in 2016. This infor­ma­tion can inform design­ing val­ued based insur­ance plan.

- Lizheng Shi, PhD

Eval­u­a­tion of Rwanda’s Hos­pi­tal Accred­i­ta­tion Strat­egy
In 2014, the Gov­ern­ment of Rwanda approved a set of national hos­pi­tal accred­i­ta­tion stan­dards. Since that time, hos­pi­tals have engaged in the insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion of qual­ity improve­ment processes in prepa­ra­tion for peri­odic accred­i­ta­tion sur­veys. The eval­u­a­tion, which is funded by the United States Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment, uses a mixed-methods approach exam­ine the impact of the accred­i­ta­tion process on qual­ity met­rics, staff sat­is­fac­tion and moti­va­tion, and hos­pi­tal finan­cial sta­tus. The eval­u­a­tion is being con­ducted in part­ner­ship with the National Uni­ver­sity of Rwanda School of Pub­lic Health.

Eval­u­a­tion of the Sim­pli­fied Com­mu­nity Score­card Approach in the Demo­c­ra­tic Repub­lic of Congo
The sim­pli­fied com­mu­nity score­card approach is an inter­ven­tion under­way in rural areas of the Demo­c­ra­tic Repub­lic of Congo. Funded by the United King­dom Government’s Depart­ment for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment, the aim of this inter­ven­tion is to empower com­mu­ni­ties to par­tic­i­pate in the man­age­ment and gov­er­nance of health ser­vices. The eval­u­a­tion uses pri­mary quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive data to exam­ine the impact on lev­els of com­mu­nity empow­er­ment, the qual­ity and scope of health ser­vices, and health provider satisfaction.

- Janna Wis­niewski, PhD