Vote for the AcademyHealth Board of Directors and let your voice be heard.
The Board of Directors provides critical strategic direction for both AcademyHealth and the fields of health services research (HSR) and health policy. Our Board members have a rare platform from which to be champions for the field, raising the understanding and visibility of HSR with policymakers and other key leaders.
Amid all the change in the field and in Washington, it is especially important you participate in this election, so the Board can advocate for the changes you wish to see. Help us elect representatives to best exemplify the users and producers of health services research on the AcademyHealth Board of Directors.
Congratulations to two members of the Board who were re-elected by the sitting Board members this spring! Helen Burstin and Claire Brindis will serve alongside the three member-elected directors, as well as our student representative, Shekinah Fashaw.
Vote by Monday, September 30, 2019 at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Note: In order to be eligible to vote, your individual or organizational membership needed to be active by May 15, 2019.
Dr. Adams is the inaugural Stanford Medicine Innovation Professor and a Professor in the Departments of Health... Read Bio
Statement of Interest
It would be an honor to serve on the AcademyHealth Board of Directors. I see serving on the Board as an opportunity to give back to my professional community and to an organization that has had a pivotal role in my professional development. As an embedded researcher within a learning health care system, I hope to share what I have learned about research translation and to collaboratively design effective strategies for improving the impact of our work. In addition, I have witnessed first-hand the dramatic impact of technological advances related to big data analytics on health care delivery over the last 20 years. I am excited to engage with leadership and members about the opportunities and challenges this presents to our field. Furthermore, as we usher in the next generation of scientists, I look forward to continuing our commitment to training, mentorship, diversity and inclusion.
I understand that Board members have an obligation to the AcademyHealth members. I am excited about this opportunity to serve as an ambassador for AcademyHealth and to proactively speak out about the importance of health services research to public health and health policy.
Statement of Interest
The talents and passions of AcademyHealth members to improve health care and population health are the common denominators that bring us together. As a researcher, teacher, practicing physician, and AcademyHealth member since 1994, I was elected to the Board in 2015 and currently serve as the Board’s Treasurer, Chair of its Finance Committee, and a member of its Executive Committee. I am running for re-election to the Board to continue sharing my experience and insights as the Board sets strategic priorities and works with staff leaders to guide programs supporting our members’ career development and impact. I am excited that many innovative ideas developed by our members are being implemented, evaluated, and refined through health care reform to promote a more equitable and effective health care system. In my role leading a large multi-disciplinary university institute that is actively engaged with health system leaders and state and federal policymakers, I am deeply committed to the AcademyHealth mission to develop and communicate “rigorous, relevant, and timely evidence” to enhance health care, reduce disparities, and improve health.
Dr. Kuo is Director of the Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention in the Los Angeles County Departm... Read Bio
Statement of Interest
AcademyHealth plays a critical role in developing a healthcare workforce that integrates evidence into practice. As a long-time member of AcademyHealth myself, I have benefited tremendously from organization-sponsored trainings, guidance on policy development and action, and networking with colleagues from all disciplines in health services research. I would be honored to serve on the Board and, if selected, will work to advance the organization’s vision of a transformed health environment where evidence is properly used to drive policies and meaningful actions.
In our rapidly changing healthcare landscape, the intersection between scientific rigor, policy and practice is ever more important. This is especially true as we are beginning to more fully recognize that the path to good health often requires multi-sector solutions that deploy combinations of strategies to address real world problems. I believe that my interest and focus on policy, systems, and environmental change in chronic disease prevention and control align well with AcademyHealth’s mission and could contribute substantively to the organization’s mission-driven goals. As a Board member, I would work to advance efforts to achieve health equity through policy, systems, and environmental change at the national, state, and local levels; support investments in new and innovative research tools that can address implementation barriers to good health programming and applications; and expand opportunities for the lay and professional workforce to better prepare them for career advancement in an environment where they are increasingly being asked to balance scientific rigor with pragmatic concerns of day-to-day practice.
Eric Schneider, M.D., M.Sc. leads NCQA’s measurement, research and contracting agenda as Executive Vice Presid... Read Bio
Statement of Interest
AcademyHealth has been an inspirational professional home and community for my entire research career. AcademyHealth nourishes a wide field of investigators seeking interprofessional, interdisciplinary, and international networking opportunities. Its education programs, advocacy, and media and communications enable researchers, innovators, policymakers, students and fellows to teach and learn from one another across boundaries between academic and professional disciplines, industry, government, and philanthropy. AcademyHealth fosters the curiosity, creativity, and social networks that are fundamental to excellent research.
I have served as an abstract reviewer since the 2001 Annual Research Meeting (ARM). I was a member of the planning committee for the 2018 ARM. I served as a chair of abstract review committees for quality-related themes for ARM 2007, 2014, 20I8, and 2019. I was a member of the advisory committee for the 2016 National Health Policy Conference. I had the privilege of leading “poster walks” at ARM in 2015 and 2018.
I will bring several perspectives to the AcademyHealth board. I built a successful soft-money research career at the intersection of health services, medicine, and public health in both academic settings and a large private contract research organization, so I am familiar with the challenges that confront a broad range of researchers today and how they must adapt to a rapidly evolving U.S. health care system and a difficult research funding environment. As a leader in a premier health policy philanthropy, I know the strategies and tactics necessary to translate policy ideas into research proposals and to translate rigorous research evidence for consumption by federal and state policymakers, delivery system leaders, and other stakeholders. In recent research, I have studied the digital health innovators who are beginning to reshape health care and create new health services research opportunities.
The independence of my professional position in philanthropy will enable me to serve the board in at least three ways. Consistent with the Fund’s mission of high quality, affordable health care for everyone, I can serve effectively as an ambassador and advocate for the field of health services research and for evidence-based policymaking. I can assist the board in shaping AcademyHealth’s development and communications strategies. And I can leverage the Commonwealth Fund’s network of stakeholders to facilitate new collaborations and partnerships that will advance AcademyHealth’s mission and promote the valuable work of its members.
David R. Strutton is Vice President of Global Pharmaceuticals and Policy Evidence Research in Merck’s Center f... Read Bio
Statement of Interest
Health Services Research and evidence-informed policy development will continue to be critical in the evolution of global health care systems. The availability of an ever-increasing amount of data, and the proliferation of tools and technologies to collect and analyze new data sources for actionable insights emphasizes the need for leadership by Academy Health to champion rigorous analytic methods and to provide guidance on the use of insights generated from health services research studies. In my role as a pharmaceutical industry researcher, I lead a team of scientists who are attempting to quantify and describe the patient, and population level impacts of new technologies on patient clinical, economic and humanistic patient outcomes, as well as the financial impacts of new technologies for various stakeholders with the health system. I have worked extensively with government and non-government stakeholders as they have evaluated incorporating new vaccines to national immunization programs, and I have observed, first-hand, the impact that high-quality evidence can have on health care policy decisions. As the research environment becomes more complex, industry, academic, non-profit, and government research collaborations and partnerships will be necessary to meet evidence demands, as skills and subject matter expertise are dispersed within different organizations across the health care system.
I strongly believe my extensive experience and background as a researcher and leader within a global biopharmaceutical company would be a valuable addition to the Academy Health board. It would be my honor to serve and contribute towards initiatives that elevate the role of rigorous research methods across the health services research ecosystem to address the pressing challenges facing our industry. I would support junior researchers and provide a novel perspective on scientific career paths within the healthcare industry to improve outcomes for the patients.
Adam Wilcox, Ph.D., is the Chief Analytics Officer at UW Medicine, and a Professor of Biomedical Informatics a... Read Bio
Statement of Interest
My work is at the intersection of research and practice, emphasizing the use of data to support improvements and care transformation in healthcare organizations. My interests, including operational roles, research and teaching, are focused on the application of health information technology, especially data and analytics, to effectively transform care and to transform research and discovery. The goal of my work over the past two decades has consistently been to advance the use of information to enable learning healthcare systems, which includes using data to inform strategic healthcare transformation; measures to support real-time process and quality improvement; and data and information to facilitate research and knowledge discovery.
It is this interest in enabling and demonstrating improvements in healthcare delivery that first connected my work in clinical informatics and analytics to health services research and AcademyHealth. Here I have found a community focused on impact, translating research and discovery in many domains to achieve improvements in health services. As we move toward a data-driven transformation of healthcare delivery, the opportunities for using informatics and analytics in health services and policy have accelerated. I have worked closely with AcademyHealth in many activities supporting these changes. Many of these have been through the Electronic Data Methods (EDM) Forum, where I was an initial key stakeholder and have been a consistently active partner in the EDM Forum’s initiatives, including the eGEMs journal, Concordium and Datapalooza meetings, leading and participating in panels at the Annual Research Meeting, and leading AcademyHealth’s response to the NIH’s call for comments on their Proposed Provisions for a Future Draft Data Management and Sharing Policy.
As a board member, I am committed to AcademyHealth’s leadership role in this data-driven healthcare delivery transformation, and to advance the improved use of data and information to support learning health systems. While I recognize informatics and analytics are not traditionally primary focus areas for AcademyHealth, I see my experience and background as an opportunity amid the exploding demand and use of data and analytics to sustain the mission of the organization through a changing environment. I would be honored to serve to ensure the important shared goals of AcademyHealth and its members are supported.