Placement: Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Mentor: David W. Bates, M.D. (Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health)
Co-Mentor: Don Goldmann, M.D. (Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvement)
Project Title: Identifying State Legislator Priory Goals for U.S. Health Policy (Project A); How Can Information Systems be Implemented and Used More Effectively within Acute Care Hospitals? (Project B)
Christina Pagel, Ph.D., M.Sc., is a 2016-17 U.K. Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice. She is currently a Reader (Associate Professor) in Operational Research at University College London. Pagel’s previous work includes the development of the Partial Risk Adjustment in Surgery model (PRAiS) for 30-day mortality following pediatric cardiac surgery, which has been adopted across the U.K. The model was published in 2012, and she subsequently led a large National Institute of Health Research-funded project to develop a web-tool to help families and non-specialists interpret published mortality outcomes. Pagel has also led projects at the local hospital level, implementing a mathematical model to forecast demand for beds within the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and building a model and accompanying software to signal the annual winter surge for the pediatric intensive care unit. She received a Ph.D. in Space Physics from Imperial College London, an M.Sc. in mathematical physics from King’s College London, an M.Sc. in applied statistics from University of London, a Bachelors Degree in mathematics from University of Oxford, and two M.A. degrees in Medieval History and Classical Civilization from the University of London.
Project Abstract
Project A: Given the results of the recent presidential election, and the impact it is likely to have on the U.S. health care system, this project aims to identify what legislators believe are the most important goals of national health policy. A brief survey will be administered to U.S. state legislators serving on health policy committees to rank their priorities from a set of possible health policy goals. A mathematical algorithm will be used to combine individual priorities in order to determine group priorities, with the goal of providing useful information on how much consensus is there within each party; each party’s most and least important priorities; and how different the priorities are between parties, between legislators and health leaders, and between different regions of the country? This resulting shared understanding (not necessarily agreement) of priorities could help formulate discussions and decisions around health care reform at both the State and National level.
Project B: There is strong and increasing pressure to introduce new health information technology systems into hospitals. While the potential benefits of high quality health information technology systems are enormous, implementing new systems within hospitals is challenging and often fails, due largely to the details of how a system is integrated with hospital workflows. Using a single intensive care information technology system, T3, as a case study, this work will build on the experience of previous implementation in hospitals to improve the process of future implementation in new settings by developing tips and guidelines that can be shared widely.
