Director of Research, Rehabilitation Outcomes Center
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and Harvard Medical School
I am Professor Emeritus of Health Policy and Management and formerly Director of the Center for the Assessment of Pharmaceutical Practices (CAPP) at the Boston University School of Public Health. I am also a senior scientist and formerly Director of the Pharmaceutical Research Program at the Center for Health Quality, Outcomes and Economic Research (now called CHOIR) at the Bedford VA Medical Center. I received my doctoral degree from Harvard University School of Public Health in 1980. I later joined the Veterans Health Administration in 1992 where I was recipient of the prestigious Research Career Scientist Award from the VA for almost a decade. I have also been a special consultant to the Office of Quality and Performance in the VA where I was previously director of Functional Status for the Veterans Health Administration and principal investigator of the well-known Veterans Health Study. I am a leading scientist in the development of metrics that span quality of care and health related quality of life (HRQoL) for more than 25 years. Chief amongst my accomplishments has been the creation of outcome metrics including the Veterans RAND 36 and 12 item health surveys (VR-36 and VR-12) and the utility metric called the VR-6D. (see link: https://www.bu.edu/sph/about/departments/health-law-policy-and-management/research/vr-36-vr-12-and-vr-6d/). From 2001 to Jan. 2022, 864 articles have been published using these assessments and close to seven million administrations of these surveys has occurred both inside and outside the VA for purposes of monitoring patient outcomes of care. The VR-12 has been adopted by the Veterans Health Administration for quality improvement purposes and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as principal endpoints for the national Health Outcomes Survey (HOS) for evaluating the Medicare Advantage Program. The VR-12 assessments have been included as part of the evaluation of the Star Rating System for the Medicare Advantage Program and its’ Plans nationally for a number of years. The VR-12 was also included in 2006 as one of the HEDIS measures by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). The VR-12 has been included in the AHRQ Federal Survey, the national Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) in recent years. My research team was the recipient of the esteemed Peter Reizenstein Prize for the best paper published in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care in 2006.
Tied to my contributions in metrics is the use of large administrative data bases linked to patient reported outcome assessments. I am a well-known expert in using large secondary data bases for over 25 years. I have conducted studies supported by grants and contracts for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), NIH-National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the National Institute for Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (HHS/ACL/NIDILRR), the Social Security Administration and the Shriners Hospitals for Children Research Programs. I have well over 300 publications in peer reviewed journals, including research in health outcomes, Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) using legacy measures and measures using Computer Adaptive Tests (CATs) , effectiveness studies and pragmatic clinical trials using large data bases. I have served as a special consultant to the Office of Quality and Performance in the Veteran’s Administration (VA) and served as a consultant to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the evaluation of the Medicare Advantage Program. I have collaborated as a senior investigator with the Shriners Hospitals for Children for more than 20 years working with children and adults with traumatic burn injuries. This work includes leading the development of the Burn Outcomes Questionnaires (BOQ), translations of the assessment, and the development and validation of tracking recovery using the BOQ assessments. I have served as the PI on a five year multi-million-dollar project supported by the National Institute of Disability Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research HHS/ACL/NIDILRR to develop computer adaptive tests (CATs) as outcome assessments related to the community re-integration of adult burn survivors. This five-year project resulted in the publication of more than 13 articles in peer reviewed journals. I have also led a project as PI with the United Health Care Group’s Optum Labs to conduct effectiveness studies regarding patients with low back pain seeing conservative therapists versus primary care physicians as it relates to opioid use. There are three publications in highly respected peer reviewed journals from this work. I have also participated as a co-investigator on the well-known Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial Study (SPRINT) with two publications as co-author published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In addition to my former positions at Boston University as I am now Professor Emeritus status, I was made Director of Research in 2021 for the newly established Spaulding Hospital Rehabilitation Outcomes Center (ROC). My work at Spaulding spans metric development for Traumatic Burn Injuries, Spinal Cord Injuries (SCI) and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI). I also am director of research for a Burn Model System Program with Dr. Jeffrey Schneider Director of the Program. Together with Dr. Joseph Giacino (PI), I am Co-PI of an awarded 5 year multi-million-dollar grant funded by HHS/ACL/NIDILRR to develop a computer adaptive test using Machine Learning and focusing on social participation in TBI patients.
I am a full professor now Emeritus since January 2024 at Boston University School of Public Health in the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management and have been a major leader in outcome assessments formerly heading the Center for the Assessment of Pharmaceutical Practices and the Health Outcomes Unit. I have mentored many doctoral students, fellows and junior faculty during that time.
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