Ciaran S. Phibbs

Ciaran Phibbs is a health economist at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System's Health Economics Resource Center, and Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Neonatology), and a CHP/PCOR associate.  At the VA, he is also the Associate Director of the Geriatrics and Extended Care Data and Analysis Center and for the Women’s Health Evaluation Initiative.  His primary research interests are on how hospital competition interacts with costs, demand, and outcomes, and perinatal and neonatal care. His specific areas of focus of research projects has included: how hospital and patient characteristics affect demand for hospital services, defining hospital markets, hospital scale economies and capacity utilization, how NICU care effects neonatal mortality, the effects of nurse staffing on patient outcomes, evaluating the effectiveness of clinical interventions, and demand for VA services and veterans' choice between VA and non-VA services. Much of his work has depended on complex data linkages to address omitted data problems.  He also works on cost and cost-effectiveness analyses for clinical trials conducted by the VA Cooperative Studies Program.