Research

Research and Teaching Profiles

Faculty associated with the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (HPME) are involved in a broad range of research activities with a variety of organizations. Success of the HPME Knowledge Transfer initiative is dependent on presenting our stakeholders with a unified, clear image of the depth and breadth of Departmental expertise. To promote greater internal awareness of the knowledge developed through HPME, faculty research profiles will be included as a regular feature of this newsletter.

This issue of the HPME newsletter features research profiles for:

• Geoff Anderson is an HPME Professor, Senior Adjunct Scientist with ICES, and Liberty Health Chair in Health Management Strategies. His research focuses on health care system performance measurement and pharmaco-surveillance.
  
  
• Jan Barnsley is an Associate Professor in HPME and the Departmental Director of the MSc/PhD program. Her research involves the use of performance indicators and performance measurement in the primary care setting.
  
  

+ + PROFILES OF THE MONTH + +

Geoffrey Anderson, PhD

Dr. Geoffrey Anderson is an HPME Professor and was recently named as the Liberty Health Chair in Health Management Strategies. This position is located in both the faculties of Medicine and Law, with the goal of studying alternative approaches to managing Canada's health care system. His research focuses on health care system performance measurement and pharmaco-surveillance.

Education and Work Background

Dr. Anderson obtained a degree in Medicine from the University of Ottawa and a Master's of Science in Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. This was followed by a PhD in public policy analysis at the RAND Graduate School of Policy Studies in Santa Monica, California. Dr. Anderson then worked at the University of Ottawa and the University of British Columbia before he joined HPME and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, where he is currently a Senior Adjunct Scientist.

He is a member of the health personnel awards committees in Ontario and Alberta and is a member of the Federal Provincial and Territorial Advisory Committee on Health Care Services, for which he chairs a Working Group on Quality of Care. In the past, Dr. Anderson held a National Health Scientist Award from the National Health Research and Development Program (NHRDP), an Ontario Career Scientist Award from the Ontario Ministry of Health, and a position as Senior Research Advisor for the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

Research Activities

Recently completed research includes an examination of alternative approaches to the development and testing of hospital-level mortality measures using different approaches to cohort definition and risk-adjustment; development of the clinical utilization and outcomes used in the Ontario Hospital Report Cards on Acute Care Hospital and Emergency Department Care investigation of the quality of drug therapy clinical practice guidelines in Canada; and an assessment of how nurse staffing affects the surgical volume-outcomes relationship.

Current research led by Dr. Anderson includes a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a coordinated multifaceted guideline implementation intervention in reducing the rate of cesarean section; the development of a framework for incorporating pharmaco-surveillance in formulary decision-making; evaluation of a methodological framework for improving the measurement of hospital outcomes; and an assessment of pharmacological management of chronic disease in older adults. He is also participating in a multi-part project examining the development of population-based hierarchical analytic methods to assess the impact of medical and non-medical determinants of health.

Teaching and Supervisory Responsibilities

Dr. Anderson is currently supervising one PhD student and two Post-Doctoral fellows. He is the coordinator for the Health Policy and Evidenced-based modules in the medical undergraduate program in the faculty of Medicine and teaches graduate courses in HPME.

Future Research

Future research will examine adverse event rates associated with prescription drug therapy and the determinants of multi-drug adherence in older persons.

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Janet Barnsley, PhD

Dr. Barnsley is an Associate Professor in HPME specializing in primary care performance measurement and the use of performance indicators. Her research involves working closely with primary care physicians to identify, select, and evaluate measures that can be used to assess primary care practice. She also functions as the Departmental Director of the MSc/PhD Program.

Education and Work Background

Dr. Barnsley received her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Health Policy and Administration, under the supervision of Dr. Arnold Kaluzny, well-known for his research on program evaluation in health care. She then became affiliated with the University of Toronto as a Research Associate in HPME (then Health Administration), followed by a position with the Department as Assistant Professor.

Dr. Barnsley was a member of the Primary Health Care Expert Working Group for the Canadian Institute of Health Information. She is on the Research Subcommittee of the Ontario Association of Health Centres and on the Board of Directors for the Flemingdon Community Health Centre. In the past, she has served on various committees for the Toronto District Health Council, Joint Policy and Planning Committee, Canadian Hospital Association, and the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation.

Research Activities

Recently completed projects include a three-year multi-university study comparing walk-in clinics with other primary care settings on quality, cost, satisfaction and utilization; the development of a performance framework for primary care using an expert panel consensus process; and the development and application of a performance framework for health care organizations. The latter was a HEALNet project conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of Montreal.

Current research activities led or co-led by Dr. Barnsley include developing, implementing and evaluating a model to promote collaboration between chiropractors and physicians in two Primary Care Networks. Another research study involves field-testing the previously developed primary care performance measures to assess the feasibility of collecting indicator data. The information will be used in province-wide workshops on the use of performance indicators in primary care.

Teaching and Supervisory Responsibilities

Dr. Barnsley is currently supervising one PhD student, and is involved as a committee member on four additional student committees. Recent graduates include Shelley Cleverly (Consultant), Michelle Wrobel (Toronto East General Hospital), Maria Matthews (Memorial University, Newfoundland), and Diane Watson (Canadian Institutes for Health Research).

Future Research

Future research will focus on the transfer of patient information between family physicians and specialists based in hospitals or in the community.

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