Meet the NAC: Mark Kelley

This week, we conclude our "Meet the NAC" series by introducing you to Mark Kelley, MD.

Dr. Kelley recently served as Executive Vice President, and Chief Medical Officer for the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit. Previously, he was professor of medicine and vice dean for clinical affairs at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. A pulmonary-critical care physician, Dr. Kelley has led national initiatives on physician workforce and quality, and medical education. Dr. Kelley currently serves as one of the 2013 Advanced Leadership Fellows at Harvard University.

We would like to thank all of our NAC members for their years of service to the INQRI program!

Meet the NAC: Susan Reinhard

This week, we would like to introduce you to Susan Reinhard, PhD, RN, FAAN, a liaison to our National Advisory Committee.

Dr. Reinhard is a Senior Vice President at AARP, directing its Public Policy Institute, the focal point for public policy research and analysis at the state, federal and international levels. She also serves as the Chief Strategist for the Center to Champion Nursing in America at AARP, a national resource and technical assistance center created to ensure that America has the nurses it needs to provide care both now and in the future. Dr. Reinhard is a nationally recognized expert in health and long-term care policy, with extensive experience in conducting, directing and translating research to promote policy change. Prior to joining AARP, Dr. Reinhard served as a Professor and Co-Director of Rutgers Center for State Health Policy where she directed several national initiatives to work with states to help people with disabilities of all ages live in their homes and communities. Previously, she served three governors as Deputy Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, where she led the development of health policies and nationally recognized programs for family caregiving, consumer choice and control in health and supportive care, assisted living and other community-based care options, quality improvement, state pharmacy assistance, and medication safety. She also co-founded the Institute for the Future of Aging Services in Washington, DC and served as its Executive Director of the Center for Medicare Education. Dr. Reinhard is a former faculty member at the Rutgers College of Nursing. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and member of the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Meet the NAC: Ellen Kurtzman

This week, we would like you to another former member of our National Advisory Committee.
Ellen T. Kurtzman, MPH, RN is assistant research professor in the School of Nursing and has been at The George Washington University since 2007. For nearly a decade, Ms. Kurtzman has been working in the field of patient safety and health care quality. Prior to her arrival at GW, she was the architect of National Quality Forum-endorsed™ (NQF) consensus standards for measuring nursing’s contribution to quality. While at NQF, Ms. Kurtzman also led national efforts to establish hospital and home health care quality and performance standards. In advancing these causes, she has published and presented on nursing performance measurement, public reporting, and quality issues. Ms. Kurtzman has served in senior capacities for large, national health services organizations including the American Health Care Association, National PACE Association, American Red Cross, and The Partnership for Behavioral Healthcare. She was honored to serve as a Senior Examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and Examiner for the U.S. Senate Productivity and Maryland Quality Awards.

Meet the NAC: Gabriel Escobar

The next person we would like to introduce is former National Advisory Committee member Gabriel J. Escobar, MD, FAAP.

Dr. Escobar is a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research and the director of the Division of Research Perinatal Research Unit. Dr. Escobar received his medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine; completed his pediatrics residency at University of California, San Francisco; and was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Escobar practices clinical medicine at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Walnut Creek where he works in the neonatal intensive care nursery and as a hospital-based pediatrician. Dr. Escobar’s research interests include the outcome of neonatal intensive care, the epidemiology of neonatal and perinatal care in general, severity of illness scoring, medical informatics, quantification of care processes in obstetrics, and electronic decision support for human-error reduction. He currently serves as a Research Scientist III in the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente Northern California and as a Staff Pediatrician in the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California.

We asked Dr. Escobar to discuss his view of the greatest challenges and opportunities related to health care and nursing:

Meet the NAC: Linda Burnes Bolton

This week, we would like to introduce you to Linda Burnes Bolton, DrPH, RN, FAAN, who served as liaison to our national advisory committee prior to joining the Foundation's Board of Trustees.

Dr. Burnes Bolton is vice president for nursing, chief nursing officer, and director of nursing research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was elected to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Board of Trustees in January 2012. She is one of the principal investigators at The Burns and Allen Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai. Burnes Bolton is a past president of the American Academy of Nursing and the National Black Nurses Association. She is currently a member of the American Nurses Association, American Organization for Nurse Executives, Association of California Nurse Leaders, American Public Health Association, Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science, National Black Nurses Association, and National League for Nursing. She has served as a trustee at Case Western Reserve University since 2006. Burnes Bolton has held other board and officer positions for several national organizations and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Organization of Nurse Executives and the Distinguished Alumnae Award from Arizona State University. In 2009 she was appointed vice chair of the Institute of Medicine Commission on the Future of Nursing. In 2011 she was named one of the top 25 women in health care by Modern Healthcare magazine and one of the top 10 health care executives by the Los Angeles Business Journal. An endowed nursing leadership scholarship in her name was established in 2011 at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Nursing. Burnes Bolton also holds positions as an associate clinical professor of nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, and University of California, Los Angeles.

In this clip, Dr. Burnes Bolton discusses what she perceives to be the greatest challenges and opportunities in health care today and how the INQRI program has influenced her views.

Meet the NAC: Randall Krakauer

Next in our series of posts highlighting the members of our National Advisory Committee (NAC) is Randall Krakauer, MD, FACP, FACR.

Dr. Krakauer is a Vice President and the National Medical Director in Medicare for Aetna. He graduated from Albany Medical College in 1972 and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. He received training in Internal Medicine at the University of Minnesota Hospitals and in Rheumatology at the National Institutes of Health and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, and received an MBA from Rutgers. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Rheumatology and Professor of Medicine at Seton Hall University Graduate School of Medicine. He is past chairman of the American College of Managed Care Medicine. Dr. Krakauer has more than 30 years of experience in medicine and medical management, has held senior medical management positions in several major organizations. He is responsible for medical management planning and implementation nationally for Aetna Medicare members, including program development and administration.

We asked Dr. Krakauer to share his view on the quality of INQRI-funded research:

Meet the NAC: Shelley White-Means

This week, we would like to introduce you to another member of our National Advisory Committee, Shelley I. White-Means, PhD.

Dr. White-Means is a Professor and Director of the Consortium for Health Education, Economic Empowerment and Research, a NCMHD Exploratory Center of Excellence in Health Disparities at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She is Past-President of the National Economic Association, a Post-Doctoral Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, and on the steering committee for the Meharry Medical College Community Health Centers, Community Networks Program. Prior to her current appointment at University of Tennessee, she served on the faculty at Cornell University and University of Memphis. Her research emphasizes social determinants of health disparities; racial/ethnic disparities faced by blacks and Hispanics in the utilization of medical services; and labor market implications and costs of family caregiving. Her recent studies have documented the distinction between racial/ethnic differences and racial/ethnic disparities in health care utilization and also how labor market disparities are associated with health insurance disparities.

In this clip, Dr. White-Means discusses her view of the quality of INQRI-funded projects and the effect that interdisciplinary collaboration has had on INQRI work.

Meet the NAC: Alison Rein

This week, we would like to introduce you to another member of our National Advisory Committee, Alison Rein, MS.

Ms. Rein is a director at AcademyHealth, where she manages several projects that investigate the roles and responsibilities of consumers, policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders in helping to transform the health care system through use of health information technology and exchange. These projects all converge around the opportunities and challenges associated with capturing and appropriately leveraging more and more diverse data sources to improve population and individual health, and health care more broadly. She has focused in particular on information management and governance policies. Ms. Rein has considerable experience in managing and coordinating state-level quality improvement technical assistance programs, and also directs a project under the AcademyHealth international portfolio that aims to understand the ways in which a select number of industrialized nations have encouraged use of HIT/HIE to support clinical care and population health objectives. Prior to joining AcademyHealth, Ms. Rein was assistant director of food and health policy at the National Consumers League (NCL). Prior to joining NCL, Ms. Rein served as a health care consultant to a number of private and nonprofit organizations for which she conducted strategic assessments, market studies, and other research efforts aimed at evaluating the relative-effectiveness of numerous drug, biologic, and device interventions.

We asked Ms. Rein to share what she perceives as the greatest challenges and opportunities for nursing:

Meet the NAC: Linda Aiken

The next member that we will profile from our National Advisory Committee is Linda Aiken, PhD, FAAN, FRCN, RN.

Dr. Aiken conducts research on the outcomes of nursing care in the United States and around the world. She directs the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, and is The Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor of Nursing and Sociology, and Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Dr. Aiken directs a large NIH T32 Advanced Research Training Program in Health Outcomes which has many successful alumni who are funded researchers at a variety of universities and research organizations. She has won numerous awards for her research including the AcademyHealth Distinguished Investigator and Article of the Year awards and the Individual Codman Award from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations for her leadership utilizing performance measures to demonstrate relationships between nursing care and patient outcomes. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine and a former president of the American Academy of Nursing.

We asked Dr. Aiken her view on the quality of INQRI-funded research and the impact that the program has had.

Meet the NAC: José Pagán

This week, we would like to introduce you to another member of our National Advisory Committee, José Pagán, PhD.

José Pagán is a Professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Dr. Pagán is also Adjunct Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in economics from The University of New Mexico. His research work centers on the effects of uninsurance on health care access and quality in local health care markets. He was a consultant on community uninsurance and health care quality for the 2009 report by the Institute of Medicine on the consequences of uninsurance. Dr. Pagán was a Fulbright Scholar in Mexico, a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, and the recipient of a 2007 Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is a member of the National Advisory Committee of the RWJF Health and Society Scholars Program and the RJWF Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative NAC.

We asked Dr. Pagán to discuss what he perceives to be the greatest challenges and opportunities in health care today and how the INQRI program has influenced his views.

Meet the NAC: Elizabeth McGlynn

This week, we would like to introduce you to another member of our National Advisory Committee, Elizabeth McGlynn, PhD.

Dr. McGlynn is director of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Effectiveness and Safety Research. She formerly served as associate director of RAND Health and held the RAND Distinguished Chair in Health Care Quality. Dr. McGlynn is an internationally known expert on methods for evaluating the appropriateness and technical quality of health care delivery. She has conducted research on the appropriateness with which a variety of surgical and diagnostic procedures are used in the U.S. and in other countries. She led the development of a comprehensive method for evaluating the technical quality of care delivered to adults and children. The method was used in a national study of the quality of care delivered to U.S. adults and children. The article reporting the adult findings received the Article-of-the-Year award from AcademyHealth in 2004. Dr. McGlynn is a member of the Institute of Medicine and serves on a variety of national advisory committees. She was a member of the Strategic Framework Board that provided a blueprint for the National Quality Forum on the development of a national quality measurement and reporting system. She serves on the Committee on Performance Measurement for NCQA and on the Assessment and Quality Improvement Working Group for the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation. She is on the Board of the Little Company of Mary Hospital Service Area in Southern California. She serves on the editorial boards for Health Services Research and The Milbank Quarterly.

We asked Dr. McGlynn to share why she chose to join the INQRI National Advisory Committee and what she gained from her involvement with the program.

Meet the NAC: Laura Caramanica

In the coming weeks, we will be introducing you to the members of INQRI's National Advisory Committee (NAC) and having them share their views about the program. First up, is Laura Caramanica, RN, PhD. Dr. Caramanica is the chief nursing officer at WellStar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, GA. She has held several nursing executive positions, including with Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, NY, Hartford Hospital in Hartford, CT, Lawrence Memorial in New London, CT, and Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford, CT. An experienced healthcare executive, she has more than 20 years of senior-level leadership in acute care settings, including strategic planning, operational management, business development, resource management, and promoting clinical safety. She has taught, published, and presented extensively in the area of leadership, quality/performance improvement, shared governance, and nursing practice. Dr. Caramanica is the current president of the American Organization of Nurse Executives.

We asked Dr. Caramanica to share with us what she has gained as a member of the INQRI NAC.

New Human Capital Blog Post Regarding the Shortage of Primary Care Providers

A recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine features two examples of policy analysis focused on the implications of expanding nurse practitioners' scope of practice relative to primary care, as well as an editorial addressing the same. Dr. Linda H. Aiken, a member of the INQRI National Advisory Committee and a Research Manager supporting the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, discusses these pieces in a new blog post on RWJF's Human Capital blog.

Click here to read Dr. Aiken's post and share your comments.

A Continuing Collaboration

Randall Krakauer, MD 

Five years ago there was considerably less attention paid to the issue of readmissions than is the case today. Mary Naylor, Mark Pauly and the University of Pennsylvania team had already demonstrated the potential to reduce 90 day readmissions through better management of the discharge process, including the period immediately after discharge. Our team at Aetna was busy building Medicare care management infrastructure to impact chronic illness and Advanced Illness at the intersection of quality and cost - and had already seen a reduction in avoidable admissions and readmissions through telephonic case management. We needed to know whether there was incremental opportunity with on-site and home care management. So began a very productive collaboration that continues. Our program began with collaboration with Mary, Mark, and their team on Aetna Medicare Advantage members in metropolitan Philadelphia, with a Transitional Care program, measured against a clinically matched group in another region. With the demonstration of a 20% reduction in 90-day readmissions (publication 1), and considerable cost savings (impact at the intersection of quality and cost) we began building Transitional Care programs that are now nationwide. With the increased importance of Star Rating measures for Medicare programs, this experience has served us well. Such programs are still being expanded, but they are part of comprehensive care management programs everywhere - it is no longer necessary to demonstrate their value.

My collaboration with Mary, Mark, and their team has also led me to another venture: my role on the National Advisory Committee (NAC) for the Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) program. Since joining the NAC in 2006, I have been pleased to review research proposals, advise funded grantees on their project plans, and offer advice and support to Mary and Mark as they lead this impressive program. Like Aetna’s work with the Penn team, INQRI teams have continually shown the value of nurse-led interventions.

Our work and collaboration on reducing readmissions has been very productive and valuable. But since we don't actually achieve Nirvana in this world, this work and collaboration will continue, and we expect to continue pushing the limits of our potential. Similarly, I look forward to seeing the continued impact that I know INQRI teams will have on improving healthcare quality.

Dr. Krakauer is the National Medical Director for Aetna Medicare and a member of INQRI’s National Advisory Committee. 

1) Naylor, M; Bowles, K; McCauley, K; Maislin, G; Pauly, M; Krakauer, R: "High Value Transitional Care: Translation of Research into Practice." J. Eval. Clin. Practice. 16 March 2011, 1-7.

This post is part of our week-long blog carnival focused on the Medical Care supplement.  Click here to access all posts in this carnival.

INQRI Demonstrates Lessons Learned, Recommendations for the Future

José A. Pagán, PhD 

This special issue of Medical Care nicely summarizes many of the key accomplishments of the INQRI program in terms of pushing the frontier of what is known about the linkages between nursing care and health care quality.

INQRI not only has provided resources for nursing researchers to show the role of nursing care on the delivery of high quality health care services, but the program has also increased awareness about the importance of nursing care in the research conducted in other disciplines.

The provision of financial and technical resources through the INQRI program to make interdisciplinary work possible has brought together researchers from different disciplines (economics, business, engineering and many others) that typically would have not thought about getting involved in nursing research. I suspect some of this is due to the lack of a scholarly community large enough to sustain high impact conversations and policy discussions about the role of nurses in health care quality. INQRI has taken us a step closer to having a critical mass of interdisciplinary nursing researchers.

The methodological challenges in implementation science may seem large but the work funded by INQRI in this area shows clear lessons learned and provides recommendations to advance methods, including the need to develop standards for implementation methods as well as identifying the potential benefits of thinking about reporting standards.

Dr. Pagán is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Management & Policy in the School of Public Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth and a member of INQRI's National Advisory Committee. 

This post is part of our week-long blog carnival focused on the Medical Care supplement.  Click here to access all posts in this carnival. 

INQRI at AcademyHealth's Annual Research Meeting

With the AcademyHealth annual research meeting kicking off this weekend, we wanted to recognize all of the INQRI scholars who will be participating in this year's event.  If you have the chance, be sure to check out their presentations.

In the meantime, though, join us in congratulating INQRI National Advisory Committee member,
Elizabeth McGlynn from Kaiser Permanente, who will be receiving the Distinguished Investigator Award.

Sunday, June 24

MEET-THE-EXPERTS STUDENT BREAKFAST 8:00 a.m.–9:00 a.m. 
Three INQRI grantees will participate:

• Shoshanna Sofaer 
• Joel Cantor 
• Peter Buerhaus 

"The Science of Quality Improvement: A Focus on Networks" 9:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
Featuring INQRI grantee: Jill Marsteller, Johns Hopkins University, "Scale-up and Spread: Lessons from the Keystone ICU Project and Beyond"


"CAHPS, Yelp, and Beyond: Using Patient Input to Measure Quality" 4:30 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
Chaired by INQRI grantee: R. Adams Dudley, Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF

Monday, June 25

"Doing Research Differently: The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute's Mission, Priorities and Funding Opportunities" 8:00 a.m.–9:30 a.m.
PCORI Panelists include INQRI grantee Robin Newhouse, University of Maryland School of Nursing

"Nurse Practitioners, Physicians and the Provision of Primary Care in the United States" 8:00 a.m.–9:30 a.m.
Featuring INQRI grantee Peter Buerhaus, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, "National Primary Care Health Workforce Supply and Policy"

Student Papers  9:45am–11:15am
Chaired by INQRI grantee: Robin Newhouse, University of Maryland School of Nursing

"Methodology Committee of the PCORI: 2012 Proposed Standards, Implications and Future Directions" 11:30am–1:00pm
Chaired by INQRI grantee: Robin Newhouse, University of Maryland School of Nursing

"Promises and Pitfalls of Consumer Use of Publicly Available Quality Information" 11:30am–1:00pm
Roundtable Panelists include INQRI grantee: Shoshanna Sofaer, Baruch-CUNY

"Impact of Reform Initiatives: Early Evidence"  3:00pm–4:30pm
Featuring INQRI grantee: Joel Cantor, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, "Did the Affordable Care Act’s Dependent Coverage Provision Expand Health Insurance Coverage for Young Adults?"

"Approaches to Quality Improvement" 5:00pm–6:30pm
Chaired by INQRI grantee: Patricia Stone, Columbia University

Tuesday, June 26 

"Measurement and Evaluation in Improvement Science" 8:00am–9:30am
Featuring INQRI grantee: Robin Newhouse, University of Maryland School of Nursing, "A Phased RCT of Rural Hospitals Testing a Quality Collaborative to Improve Heart Failure Care: Organizational Context Matters"

"The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA): Research Priorities"  9:45am–11:15am
Roundtable Panelists include INQRI grantee: Ira Moscovice, University of Minnesota

"Mixed Methods in Health Services and Policy Research - Expanding the Range of Uses"  11:30am–1:00pm
Chaired by INQRI grantee: Shoshanna Sofaer, Baruch College-CUNY
Roundtable Panelists include INQRI grantees: Robin Newhouse, University of Maryland School of Nursing; Kathleen Stevens, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

"How Provider-Related Factors Impact Care" 11:30am–1:00pm
Featuring INQRI NAC member: Linda Aiken, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, "Impact of Nurse Staffing and Nurse Education on Surgical Mortality in Europe"

INQRI Program Co-Director Awarded The William B. Graham Prize

We are pleased to share with all of you that Mark Pauly, Ph.D., INQRI's Co-Director, has been named the 2012 winner of the William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research. Dr. Pauly follows a long line of distinguished recipients of this award including former CMS Administrator Dr. Donald Berwick; AHRQ Director, Carolyn Clancy; and INQRI NAC member, Dr. Linda Aiken. The award program is funded by the Baxter International Foundation, administered by the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) and is considered to be one of the most prestigious and highly regarded recognitions a health services researcher can receive.

Please join all of us at the INQRI Program in congratulating Dr. Pauly on such a wonderful achievement.

To learn more about the William B. Graham Prize, click here.

Former INQRI NAC Member, Linda Burnes Bolton, Elected to RWJF Board of Trustees

We are pleased to share with all of you the recent appointment of former INQRI NAC member, Linda Burnes Bolton, RN, DrPH, FAAN, to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Board of Trustees. Dr. Burnes Bolton is currently vice president for nursing, chief nursing officer, and director of nursing research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, in addition to being one the principal investigators at The Burns and Allen Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai. As an INQRI NAC member, Dr. Burnes Bolton advised INQRI grantees to think about the broader impact and implications of their research on local, state and national health policy formulation.

Click here to read the full press release.

Click here to read other blogposts relating to INQRI NAC members.

Non-Profit Nursing Home Staff Happier Than Their For-Profit Counterparts

Last week, Paula Span, of the New York Times, detailed the findings of a recently published study that found nursing home ownership status was significantly related to job satisfaction. The study, published in the September 2011 issue of The Gerontologist, was conducted by a research team that included INQRI grantee, Linda Flynn, PhD, RN, FAAN, as well as INQRI NAC member, Linda H. Aiken, PhD, RN, FAAN. While this study may not have been published in 2012, Ms. Span's discussion of the study's findings in last week's New York Times demonstrates that this issue will be of great importance as the baby boomer generation continues to age and more adult children are faced with the task of finding the best care facilities for their loved ones.

Click here to read Ms. Span's article.

Click here to read the study as published in The Gerontologist (subscription required).

Linda Burnes Bolton and Mary Wakefield Among Top Women in Healthcare

Congratulations to INQRI National Advisory Committee member Linda Burnes Bolton and former INQRI grantee Mary Wakefield on their inclusion on Modern Healthcare's list of the Top 25 Women in Healthcare.

For the past 40 years, Linda Burnes Bolton has dedicated her career to patient care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles. Since 1996, she has served as vice president and chief nursing officer at Cedars-Sinai Health System and Research Institute. She manages a staff of 3,500 and oversees nursing care at the prominent system. A registered nurse, Bolton, 62, has led national initiatives on bedside care and workforce issues. She was vice chair of an initiative on the future of nursing by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Medicine.

Mary Wakefield is administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, that focuses on improving access to health services. Wakefield, 56, oversees more than 100 programs, nearly 2,000 employees and 3,000 grantees with a budget of $7.5 billion. An expert on rural health and a registered nurse, she was previously director of the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota. She was appointed by President Barack Obama to lead HRSA in February 2009.