Stanford pediatrician Jason Wang and researcher Mildred Cho have received $1,087,920 to launch a center in Taiwan and Stanford dedicated to training medical professionals about ethics. Wang -- an associate professor of pediatrics and a CHP/PCOR affiliate, and Cho -- a professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine’s Center for Biomedical Ethics -- received one of five of this year’s bioethics grants from the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health. 

The Fogarty grant will help support the launch of the Centers of Excellence in Research Ethics Training in the Asia Collaborative for Medical Education (ACME), a consortium of leading medical schools and healthcare institutions, with the Steering Committee chaired by Dr. Harvey Fineberg, President of the U.S. Institute of Medicine. Wang and his colleagues have proposed innovative ways to train practitioners in Southeast Asia, where ethical behavior in healthcare-related research is a pressing concern but training is scarce. 

In addition to the Taiwan facility, which will be based jointly at the Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center and the National Yang Ming University, the web-based curricular development center will be based at the Stanford’s Center for Health Policy at the Freeman SpogIi Institute for International Studies, and the School of Medicine. The centers will be hubs for training, research, and innovation for Asia health and research professionals.

The training curriculum will incorporate the use of the IDEO design method, a human-centered, design-based approach that uncovers "latent needs, behaviors and desires,” to help scholars develop culturally appropriate lessons. Partnership models include pairing trainees with core faculty members from Stanford, Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center, and National Yang Ming University for mentorship on research ethics, which will then be developed into a training curriculum appropriate for their home institutions.  

Scholars from different countries will also be invited to participate in a Research Ethics Improvement Network. The model includes face-to-face learning sessions (story boards, role plays, simulations, didactics), a web-based support component (didactics materials, cases discussions, video/audio teleconferences for problem solving,) and the application of traditional quality improvement to curricular improvement. 

The collaborative and ongoing improvement training model, inspired by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Quality Collaboratives, also has a dissemination component where scholars will be encouraged to build networks and to engage policy makers and community leaders to publicize the importance of research ethics in their academic and local communities.

Wang says that “testing and dissemination of the project’s innovative training mechanisms is paramount because of the relevance to other parts of the world facing similar demands.”

Three student researchers with Stanford Health Policy have been awarded the Lee B. Lusted Student Prizes by the Society for Medical Decision Making.

The cash prizes, which were awarded in October, recognize outstanding presentations of original student research.

First-year doctoral student Sze-chuan Suen won the Lusted Award for Best Student Presentation in the area of Health Services and Policy Research.  Suen’s abstract, Dynamic Transmission Microsimulation of Tuberculosis in India to Assess the Future Impact of Treatment Programs, explores the connection between tuberculosis treatment and the growing burden of multi-drug resistant TB in India. Co-authors included Eran Bendavid, an affiliate of Stanford Health Policy; and Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, a core faculty member of SHP, which is a center at the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Bendavid and Goldhaber-Fiebert are both assistant professors of medicine.

Fourth-year doctoral student Lauren Cipriano won the Lusted Award for Best Student Presentation in the area of Applied Health Economics. Her abstract, Optimal Information Acquisition Policy in Dynamic Healthcare Policy: Application to HCV Screening, demonstrates how a complete policy lifecycle analysis of Hepatitis C screening can maximize its social value. Cipriano illustrated the practical value of her theoretical framework using an HCV model developed by Stanford doctoral student Shan Liu and Goldhaber-Fiebert.

Eva Enns, who finished her PhD in June, won the Lusted Award for Best Student Presentation in the area of Quantitative Methods and Theoretical Developments.  Enns’s abstract, Calibration Methods for Inferring Transition Probabilities from Cross-sectional Studies, presents an iterative algorithm that accurately and consistently infers transition probabilities from multiple cross-sectional prevalence estimates. Enns, a recent Stanford graduate and first-year faculty member at the University of Minnesota, completed this project while at Stanford, in collaboration with SH-trainee Suzann Pershing, Stanford doctoral student Yang Wang and Goldhaber-Fiebert.

Stanford investigators’ research presentations at the conference covered a wide range of clinical topics from infectious diseases to emergency care. They also contributed new methods and frameworks to help policymakers decide how best to allocate scarce resources for problems such as determining the cost-effectiveness of competing HIV management strategies and quantifying the mortality rates of high-risk groups infected with chronic Hepatitis C.

Among SHP’s participants were a number with top-ranked, plenary abstracts. Former SHP trainee and current Stanford faculty member, M. Kit Delgado, was acknowledged for his top-ranked abstract, which established that current helicopter scene transport for trauma victims is not as cost-effective as ground transport. Goldhaber-Fiebert was also recognized for his top-ranked abstract, which developed calibration methods to infer rates of exposure for time-varying risk factors from household surveys using the example of smoking in India.

SHP affiliates who gave oral presentations and posters included: Daniella Perlroth, Dena Bravata, and Lauren Shluzas. Trainees Kevin Erickson and Zachary Kastenberg were recognized as Lee B. Lusted Award finalists for their original research in the field of Applied Health Economics, and recent Stanford graduate, Sabina Alistar, was named a finalist in the area of Health Services and Policy Research.  Other trainees and former trainees who presented included Serena Faruque, Suzann Pershing, Jonathan Glazer Shaw, Grace Hunter, Jessie Juusola, and Crystal Smith-Spangler. Co-authors and faculty mentors on many of these projects include SHP director, Douglas Owens; former SHP director, Alan Garber; and Stanford professors Margaret Brandeau, Mary Goldstein, Glenn Chertow, Bendavid and Goldhaber-Fiebert.

The Society for Medical Decision Making brings researchers, educators and others in health care together in a mission of improving health outcomes through the advancement of proactive systematic approaches to clinical decision-making and policy-formation in health care. The value the society places on interdisciplinary scholarship and methodological excellence mirrors SHP’s focus on conducting rigorous, multi-disciplinary research that lays the foundation for better domestic and international health policy and health care.

“Knowing the dedication of our students and faculty to tackling important topics with sophisticated analysis, I was not surprised with our results at this year’s annual meeting. But it really was a wonderful moment to hear each Lusted Prize winner’s name, followed by their Stanford affiliation,” said Kathryn McDonald, SHP’s executive director. “Our entire Stanford contingent shared a sense of pride since everyone supports each other’s work.”