Celebrating 10 Years of Progress in Informing State Health Policy with Evidence
This milestone prompts reflection on and acknowledgement of the evolution of state-focused health services research.
Susan Kennedy, M.P.P., M.S.W. is the Senior Director of AcademyHealth's Evidence-Informed State Health Policy Institute, where she manages the full portfolio of state-focused networks and projects. She serves as Program Director for the State-University Partnership Learning Network, a learning network, which works to collaboratively support evidence-based state health policy and practice with a focus on transforming Medicaid-based healthcare, including improving the patient experience with care, improving the health of populations, and reducing the per capita cost of healthcare. In this capacity, she leads the administrative coordinating center for the Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network (MODRN), which was established to enable cross-state Medicaid analyses to inform critical Medicaid policy and program decisions. She is also the Program Director for the Medicaid Medical Directors Network (MMDN), a learning network focused on the development and use of evidence-based medicine, measurement and improvement of health care quality, and the redesign of health care delivery systems. She also directs the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Medicaid Waiver Evaluation Learning Collaborative aimed to identify consistent evaluation design components and methodologies that states can incorporate into their 1115 waiver applications and implement effectively in their waiver assessments. Previously, she served as the Project Manager for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) grant focused on collaborating with various organizations and stakeholder groups to influence health care payment reform so that it supports community-wide population health. She previously served as a Consultant with health systems participating in the New York State Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) Program where she assessed current primary care approaches to chronic disease management, as well as, quality improvement efforts in care management to identify gaps and best practices that would inform health system improvements. She received her B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Sociology and Women’s Studies from Trinity College and her M.P.P and M.S.W. from the University of Michigan. She also completed a Professional Program in Health Advocacy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Authored by Susan Kennedy, M.P.P., M.S.W.
Showcasing Expertise and Analytic Capacity of State-University Partnership Learning Network Members
The State-University Partnership Learning Network (SUPLN) collaboratively works to support evidence-based state health policy and practice with a focus on transforming Medicaid-based health care through rapid response knowledge sharing and multi-state Medicaid research analyses.
Improving STD Prevention and Care through Partnerships
AcademyHealth, in collaboration with the CDC, the CDC Foundation and collaborative partners, hosted a one-day meeting to showcase work analyzing current trends in sexually transmitted disease (STD) testing and care delivery in the Medicaid program.
Catalyzing Medicaid Policy Research with T-MSIS Analytic Files (TAF): Learnings from Year 1 of the Medicaid Data Learning Network (MDLN)
In its first year, the Medicaid Data Learning Network (MDLN) facilitated expert presentations and collaboration among TAF experts and member research teams by hosting an in-person meeting at AcademyHealth's Annual Research Meeting (ARM) and eight virtual learning sessions. This publication presents a summary of the findings from the first year of the Medicaid Data Learning Network, including key takeaways for the research and policy communities from each learning session.