Dr. Allison Lipitz-Snyderman is a health services researcher in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Health Outcomes Research Group, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). She is a member of the MSK Center for Health Policy and Outcomes. Her research focuses on three primary areas: identifying unwarranted variation between clinicians and institutions in their clinical practice and outcomes; evaluating the impact of changes in health care delivery on outcomes; and assessing the extent of potentially preventable harm to cancer patients. She has methodological expertise in the analysis of large-scale datasets, including claims, mixed-methods approaches, and retrospective medical record reviews.
Presently, she is leading a portfolio of research to assess the extent of variation between hospitals in their cancer care delivery and outcomes using claims. Dr. Lipitz-Snyderman is also involved in research efforts to develop and validate new cancer-related quality measures. She led the initial development and testing of an oncology-specific screening tool to help identify potentially preventable adverse events due to medical care from patient medical records. She is currently collaborating on follow-up studies to evaluate whether this screening tool can be adapted for use in claims for large-scale assessments of patient harm and to identify opportunities for improvement. Dr. Lipitz-Snyderman also led a qualitative study focused on obtaining physicians’ perceptions of barriers to direct physician-to-physician communication about delays in cancer diagnoses. During her doctoral studies at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, she used Medicare claims to evaluate a multi-component initiative to reduce bloodstream infections, the Keystone Intensive Care Unit Project, along the outcomes of mortality and length of stay.