Faculty
Mark Diana, PhD, MS, MBA
Is the W.C. Tsai and P.T. Kung Professor in Health Systems Management and Associate Professor in the Global Health Systems and Development Department and is jointly appointed in the Department of Anesthesiology in the School of Medicine at Tulane University. His funded projects include analyzing the impact of health information technology on health outcomes and health system functioning. He has published extensively on the adoption of health information systems and its impact on patient care and the organization of medical practice.
Thomas W. Carton, Phd
Thomas W. Carton is the Director of Analytics at the Louisiana Public Health Institute. He conceives, manages, and coordinates many aspects of research across multiple programs, regional staff, and established partners. As the Principal Investigator of the Louisiana Clinical Data Research Network, he leads a large, multi-institutional team poised to establish a pragmatic research infrastructure across the state. As analytics lead for the Greater New Orleans Health Information Exchange, a community governed health information network, he has the background, connections, and experience to lead research priorities and patient engagement. He teaches a Doctoral-level course in Econometrics at the Tulane University School of Public Health, where he is an Adjunct Professor.
Dr. Valerie Yeager
Is Assistant Professor at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in the Department of Global Health Systems and Development. Her research applies a health services research perspective to various settings and issues ranging from public health departments to physician practices and from access to care to quality improvement. Much of her work is conducted at the system or organizational level and is part of a nationally growing area of research called public health systems and services research (PHSSR). Recent studies have examined public health partnerships and quality improvement in local public health settings. Other research has focused on the use of health information technology such as health information exchange, electronic health records, and SMS across various settings, locations, and populations. She has also served as an investigator on studies that examined, for example, state and local barriers to utilizing public health emergency response funds during disasters, the organization and structure of public health departments, and the impact of the 2010 Gulf oil spill on the healthcare sector in Alabama.
Dr. Paul Hutchinson
Is Associate Professor at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in the Department of Global Health Systems and Development. He specializes in health economics. His main areas of interest include, (1) evaluating access to and estimating the demand for primary health care services, (2) examining the role of socioeconomic status in affecting health behaviors and health outcomes, (3) evaluating decentralization programs, and (4) studying issues related to the financing of health care in developing countries. Hutchinson is involved with several projects, including the MEASURE Evaluation Project, for which he has conducted impact evaluations of USAID health projects in Bangladesh and South Africa, as well as evaluations of decentralization programs in Uganda and Tanzania. He is also the PI for a study of the incidence of vasectomies in the United States. Prior to joining the faculty at Tulane, Hutchinson was a research associate at the Carolina Population Center (CPC) at the University of North Carolina (and pre-doctoral trainee at CPC). Hutchinson has also spent time working for the World Bank at their Resident Mission in Kampala, Uganda. He received his PhD in economics (focus on health economics and econometrics) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
