Priscilla Arling, Ph.D.
Host Site: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Hines, IL
Research Interests: Information technology, implementation science, quality improvement, collaboration and communication, and knowledge management.
Dr. Priscilla Arling is an associate professor of information systems at Butler University’s College of Business in Indianapolis, Indiana. She received her Ph.D. in information and decision sciences from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on implementation science, quality improvement and social networks in improving delivery of health care services. Dr. Arling’s past research includes studies of how communication networks and quality improvement collaboratives contribute to improved resident outcomes in long-term care facilities. She is currently working with a variety of clinical care providers to enhance patient education and engagement, leverage technology to improve organizational process flow and patient outcomes, and determine barriers and facilitators to telehealth care. Prior to joining the AcademyHealth DSSF, Dr. Arling worked for over 15 years as a manager, project manager and consultant in the information technology field.
Mona AuYoung, Ph.D., M.S., M.P.H.
Host Site: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Ann Arbor, MI
Research Interests: Physical activity promotion, diabetes prevention and management, implementation research, and health equity research.
Dr. Mona AuYoung is a postdoctoral fellow with the VA Center for Clinical Management Research in Ann Arbor. She received her Ph.D. in health services and M.P.H. in community health sciences from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Fielding School of Public Health. This fellowship will provide her with the opportunity to build upon her work in understanding how organizations can influence patient health behaviors and outcomes. Prior to her career in research, she worked as a certified athletic trainer for UC Berkeley and Woodside High School as well as within both inpatient and outpatient physical therapy clinics. More recently, she has taught courses in Public Health at CSU Los Angeles and Kunming Medical University. She also holds an M.S. in kinesiology from CSU Hayward and a B.A. in biology from UC Berkeley.
Jing Hao, M.D., Ph.D., M.S., M.P.H.
Host Site: Geisinger Health System
Research Interests: Pharmaceutical economics and policy; healthcare services and delivery innovations evaluation; and dissemination of healthcare innovations.
Dr. Jing Hao’s research has focused on pharmaceutical economics and policy in the United States. Her research projects include an analysis of the impact of regulation of pharmaceuticals on FDA approvals and patent life, and the approvals, patent and exclusivity life and costs of combination drugs compared to single drug products. As a Delivery System Science Fellow at Geisinger Health System, Dr. Hao looks to gain experience on her strong research interest in health services research, especially on evaluation of health services and health delivery innovations focusing on quality and cost of care, and evaluation of disseminations of innovations to other health care delivery systems. Dr. Hao has presented her work in a number of prestigious academic conferences in the United States and internationally. Dr. Hao received the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting 2012 Medical Care Section Student Presentation Award, is a 2012 Westlake Youth Forum fellow sponsored by the China Medical Board, and a 2013 Public Health System Research Student Scholarship winner sponsored by the AcademyHealth and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Hao earned her medical degree from Shanxi Medical University, China. She conducted three years of laboratory research for an M.S. in immunology from Shanghai Jiaotong University in China. She received her M.P.H. degree from University of Massachusetts Amherst, and is receiving her Ph.D. in Health Policy and Management, with a minor in biostatistics and economics, from University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Shayna Henry, Ph.D., M.A.
Host Site: Kaiser Permanente Southern California
Research Interests: Chronic disease; disease burden & treatment adherence; social support, social control, and social undermining; ecological momentary assessment; social anxiety, loneliness, & isolation; and risky health behaviors.
Dr. Shayna Henry received her Ph.D. in Health psychology in 2014 from the UC Irvine School of Social Ecology. She has worked independently and collaboratively on a number of research efforts aimed at better understanding the psychological and particularly the social and interactional factors underlying chronic disease processes. In particular, she has explored the ways social relationships influence the risk for chronic disease, especially cardiovascular diseases, and the mechanisms by with social interactions affect adherence to treatment among patients with type 2 diabetes and end-stage renal disease. She received numerous awards in support of her dissertation research, including the UC Irvine Institute for Clinical and Translational Science Dean’s Triumvirate Award, awarded to a group of researchers from three different Schools at UCI collaborating for the first time on a project of significance to clinical translational research. In her future work, Dr. Henry hopes to further explore the ways in which an improved understanding of the psychosocial contributors to health behaviors can be translated into effective, efficacious interventions to improve adherence to treatment among patients with chronic diseases.
Phuc Le, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Host Site: Cleveland Clinic
Research Interests: Health economics of infectious diseases, cost-effectiveness analysis of disease prevention interventions, comparative effectiveness research, child health, cancer prevention, and environmental health.
Dr. Phuc Le received her Ph.D. in health economics/health services research in 2013 from the University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston. She is a Steven M. Teutsch Prevention Effectiveness Postdoctoral Fellow at the CDC/National Center for Environmental Health. Dr. Le is currently working on a cost-comparison analysis of blood lead testing in young children. In the past, her research included a gap analysis of the demand for and supply of primary care for low-income population, cost-of-illness study on childhood pneumonia and meningitis, and cost-effectiveness analysis of disease prevention measures including Haemophilus influenza type b vaccine introduction in a resource-limited setting and colorectal cancer screening among United States veterans. As an AcademyHealth DSSF Fellow, Dr. Le will expand her work in prevention effectiveness and outcome research. Dr. Le received support from the Small Grant program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases for her dissertation research. Dr. Le is also a member of the Delta Omega Public Health Honors Society.
Ravi Sharaf, M.D., M.S.
Host Site: Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine
Research Interests: Colorectal cancer screening, the economics of genomic medicine, and the quality and delivery of health care.
Dr. Ravi Sharaf is a gastroenterologist and health services researcher with a focus on clinical cancer genetics, the care of patients with hereditary gastrointestinal cancer syndromes. He completed medical school at New York University, internal medicine residency at Columbia, and gastroenterology fellowship at Stanford, where he also obtained an M.S. in epidemiology. He is an assistant professor of Medicine at North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System.
Frances Wu, Ph.D., M.S.
Host Site: U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Palo Alto, CA
Research Interests: quality improvement, diffusion of innovations, and health information technology.
Dr. Frances Wu recently graduated with a Ph.D. in health services and policy analysis at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation focused on health information technology (HIT) in accountable care organizations (ACOs), examining the ways in which current ACOs use HIT and its coordination role in ACO care management. In addition to her ACO-related work at the Center for Healthcare Organizational and Innovation Research (CHOIR) at University of California, Berkeley, she has also been involved in the National Study of Physician Organizations, which seeks to understand the context in which physicians practice and how this organizational context may relate to care processes provided to patients with chronic disease. At the health system level, Dr. Wu has been involved in projects related to palliative and end-of-life care at Sutter Health, a Northern California-based health system, including evaluation of palliative care consultations in the emergency department at two San Francisco hospitals. Prior to her training at University of California, Berkeley, she helped to design and implement quality and process improvement projects in the ambulatory care setting and also spent a few years in health care consulting in New York. She received her B.S. in operations research and industrial engineering from Cornell University and M.S. in evaluative clinical sciences from The Dartmouth Institute at Dartmouth College.