Harkness Project Title: Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems to Improve Patient Safety
Mentors: Andy Bindman, M.D., and Harold S. Luft, Ph.D.
Placement: University of California, San Francisco
Biography at time of Harkness Fellowship: Peter McNair, M.P.H., a 2007–08 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, is senior policy analyst in the Funding Policy Unit in the Australian Department of Human Services, having previously worked in the Metropolitan Health Service Performance Management and Clinical Information Units. His work focuses on the development of funding and service planning policy and the implementation of innovative policy solutions to improve health care quality. In addition to reports published for the Victorian Department of Human Services, McNair has published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Medicine and Australian Health Review. McNair earned a master's of health science from Latrobe University, a master's of public health in clinical epidemiology from Monash University, and a bachelor's of nursing from Phillip Institute of Technology.
Project: Peter McNair sought to quantify the impact of Medicare’s new policy not to pay hospitals for eight avoidable complications. To do so, he used hospital inpatient data from the California Office of State Health Planning and Development. In addition to calculating the financial impact of the current policy, he described alternative funding strategies to improve efficiency and reduce complications of hospital care.
Career Activity Since Fellowship
- Lead, EXPLORE Clinical Practice Program, Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, 2013
- Associate Director & Clinical Epidemiologist, Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, 2010
- Visiting Fellow, Phillip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, 2010
- Visiting Fellow, Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, 2009
- Visiting Fellow, Phillip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco
- Principal Policy Officer, Strategy and Projects, Victorian Department of Health and Human Services
E-mail: [email protected]
Selected Publications:
McNair PD & Luft HS. (2012). "Enhancing Medicare’s Hospital-Acquired Conditions Policy to Encompass Readmissions." Medicare Care & Medicaid Research Review, 2(2), E1-E15.
McNair PD, Jackson TJ, Borovnicar DJ. "The US Medicare policy of not reimbursing hospital-acquired conditions: what impact would such a policy have in Victorian hospitals?" Med J Aust. 2010 Jul 5;193(1):22-5.
McNair P, Jackson T, Borovnicar D. "Public hospital admissions for treating complications of clinical care: incidence, costs and funding strategy." Aust N Z J Public Health. 2010 Jun;34(3):330-3.
McNair PD, Luft HS, Bindman A. "Medicare's Policy Not to Pay for Hospital-Acquired Conditions: Financial Impact." Health Affairs, September/October 2009; 28(5): 1485-1493.Buchmueller T and McNair P. “Commentary: Australia model shows public health care option can work.” The Detroit News. 15 July 2009.
McNair PD, Borovnicar DJ, Jackson T, Gillett S. Prospective Payment to Encourage System Wide Quality Improvement. Med Care 2009;47(3):272-8.