Primary Care and Health-Care Delivery
Primary Care and Delivery
Primary Care and Patient Safety
Our primary care and health-care delivery efforts focus on enhancing clinical decision-making, improving the quality of care, and promoting patient safety. We explore the development and implementation of best clinical practices through clinical guidelines and decision support systems. Additionally, we measure care quality while creating metrics that foster patient safety.
Leading our efforts is Department of Health Policy Chair Douglas K. Owens, MD, MS, an expert in decision theory and the cost-effectiveness of preventive treatment for HIV, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, as well as the evaluation of public health interventions. Owens and colleagues published a cost-effectiveness analysis that would change the face of HIV prevention. Their landmark study in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that expanding HIV screening would increase life expectancy and curb transmission of the disease — and was cost effective in virtually all health-care settings.
He previously served as chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a volunteer panel of nationally recognized experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine that influences primary care practices for nearly every patient in the United States.
Another leading faculty member of primary care and delivery research at Stanford Health Policy is Mark Hlatky, MD, who focuses on outcomes research, evidence-based medicine and cost-effectiveness analyses. He introduced data collection about economic and quality-of-life endpoints in several randomized trials, principally trials of therapies for cardiovascular disease. A cardiologist, Hlatky is a principal investigator of a study at Stanford Medicine that examines the connections between preeclampsia in pregnant women and the subsequent risk of atherosclerosis as the women grow older. The interdisciplinary study, Effect of Preeclampsia on Cardiovascular Health, or EPOCH, is intended to eventually help millions of women.
Sara Singer, PhD, MBA, conducts research on health-care management and policy, drawing from her diverse background in health policy, organizational behavior, and general management. The professor of health policy and of medicine employs innovative mixed methods and organizational theories to study health-care teams and organizations. Her goal is to help leaders and policymakers enhance the safety and quality of health care delivery by making improvements in institutional culture, leadership, organizational design, and team dynamics. One recent study, for example, ranked large U.S. companies by how their products impact the health of their customers, as obesity, heart disease and loneliness are growing factors of American society.