Michael P. Cary Jr., Ph.D., RN
Host Site: Department of Veterans Affairs
Research Interests: Preventing functional decline and rehospitalization in older adults, multimorbidity, health disparities and minority aging, health services research methods, e.g., use of large administrative and clinical datasets.
Dr. Cary is an assistant professor in the School of Nursing, senior fellow in the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, and core faculty member in the Center for Biobehavioral Health Disparities Research at Duke University. In his research, he uses large datasets and advanced analytics to: 1) better understand risk factors for complications and adverse outcomes (functional decline and rehospitalizations) among older adults with medically complex conditions treated in PAC settings and 2) measure quality in PAC settings to promote performance improvements.
Currently, his funded work focuses on system outcomes including hospital readmission and successful community discharge following inpatient rehabilitation. Specifically, through a granted funded by the Duke Clinical and Translational Sciences Award, Dr. Carey studies multiple comorbid conditions (MCCs) among hip fracture patients treated in Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities to (1) identify subgroups of hip fracture patients with MCCs associated with higher risk for readmission so that targeted interventions can be developed, (2) support the development of evidence-based clinical guidelines specific to hip fracture patients with MCCs, and (3) shape performance-based payment to Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities based on risk-adjusted measures. Learn more on the Duke School of Nursing website.
Dr. Cary earned a Bachelor’s degree in health services administration from James Madison University. He also earned a Bachelor’s, Master’s and Ph.D. in Nursing from the University of Virginia.
Hyewon Lee D.M.D., M.P.H.
Host Site: DentaQuest Institute
Research Interests: Health systems design, capacity strengthening, policy analysis and development, and community-based program operation in public sectors especially in marginalized communities in both US and developing countries.
Dr. Lee is a public health professional specialized in health policy development and analysis, strategic planning, and program development for children and pregnant women. She led and co-led development of multiple policy resolutions, including the Declaration on Access to Oral Health for Children published by the World Federation of Public Health Associations. At the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States, Health Resources and Services Administration, she was the agency lead for Healthy People 2020 Oral Health Chapter and was closely involved with the publication of "Oral Health during Pregnancy: National Consensus Statement". She usually spends her vacation in Africa, where she and her husband run a non-profit organization to provide art-integrated education to children in rural communities in Kenya.
Kunhee Lucy Kim, Ph.D.
Host Site: NYU Langone Medical Center
Research Interests: Impact of policy and regulations on provider markets, incentives and organization of care delivery, post-acute care, technology and physician practice patterns.
Dr. Kunhee Lucy Kim completed her PhD in health care management and economics at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation research focused on the determinants and quality implications of health care workforce configuration in the home health space. Using novel proprietary data from a home health company, she examined the impact of temporary nurses on patient outcomes; home health offices’ temporary-permanent labor mix strategy; and the impact of care discontinuity on patient outcomes. Under the DSSF, she is currently working on largely two areas in health care delivery: post-acute care and physician practice decisions. In post-acute care, she is exploring the determinants of hospitals’ vertical integration decisions with post-acute care; the impact of hospital readmissions penalty program on the practice patterns in post-acute care; and the value of home health care. In her research on physician practice decisions, she is exploring physicians’ computer technology adoption decisions as strategies to cope with malpractice lawsuit risks or to complement skills. The DSSF will allow her to develop expertise in the complex organizational structures and incentives in diverse health care delivery system settings and advance her research on managerial and organizational challenges and public policies that affect them.
Liron Sinvani, M.D.
Host Site: Northwell Health
Research Interests: Hospital Medicine, geriatrics, aging, delirium, hospital associated disability, transitions of care, medication reconciliation, checklist-based tools.
As a geriatrician-hospitalist and researcher, Dr. Sinvani has observed the consequences of hospitalization in older adults, often resulting in iatrogenic complications such as Hospital Associated Disability (HAD), delirium and transition fragmentation. Her overall goal is to develop and test interventions to consistently integrate evidence-based geriatric practices into Hospital Medicine in order to improve short-term and long-term outcomes for this population that she was trained to serve. The systematic integration of established best practices through health information technology has the potential to better standardize care for vulnerable elders. Specifically, Dr. Sinvani seeks to test the usability and integration of checklist interventions into the Electronic Medical Records (EMR), throughout a multi-center health system. As an AcademyHealth Delivery Systems Science Fellow, Dr. Sinvani hopes to learn more about the methods behind systems and applied research as well as to use these methods to discover how information technology can effectively assist in the implementation of evidenced-based medicine which is essential to providing high quality care for a growing population. She has the good fortune to be part of a strong and supportive group of colleagues working together in the Northwell Health System, which groups 21 hospitals within the greater New York metropolitan tri-state area and serves patients with enormously diverse backgrounds. This organizational structure and size of the network provides her with exceptional opportunities to rigorously assess the impact of implementing large scale interventions of geriatric-focused best practices.