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Affiliated Researchers
These researchers are serving as principal investigators for CHRT's current research and demonstration projects.
Jeffrey A. Alexander, PhD
Richard Carl Jelinek Professor of Health Management and Policy, U-M School of Public Health
Professor, Organizational Behavior and Human Resources, U-M Ross School of Business
Faculty Associate, Survey Research Center
CHRT Project: Patient Centered Medical Home
Jeffrey Alexander is the Richard Carl Jelinek Professor of Health Management and Policy in the School of Public Health, University of Michigan. He also holds positions as Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management, Ross School of Business, and Faculty Associate, Institute for Social Research. His teaching and research interests focus on organizational change in the health care sector, multi-institutional systems, governance, and physician participation in institutional management and policy making. His recent publications have appeared in Health Services Research, The Milbank Quarterly, Medical Care Research and Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Journal of Health and Social Behavior. He is the former editor of Medical Care Research and Review.
Tony Chiodo, MD
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Michigan Health System
CHRT Project: Radiology
Kevin J. Dombkowski, DrPH, MS
Research Assistant Professor, Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR), Division of General Pediatrics, University of Michigan Health System
CHRT Project: Influenza
Kevin J. Dombkowski, Dr.P.H., M.S., is Research Assistant Professor and faculty member of the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) unit within the University of Michigan Division of General Pediatrics. Dr. Dombkowski’s research interests include improving the timeliness of childhood vaccinations as well as health services utilization among children with asthma. Dr. Dombkowski is currently active in several collaborations with the Michigan Department of Community Health, including several CDC-funded interventions using the Michigan Care Improvement Registry (MCIR) as well as a wide range of studies related to improving health outcomes among children with asthma.
In addition to his research interests, Dr. Dombkowski has extensive experience with health care information systems, especially administrative claims data systems, immunization registries and other public health data management systems. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, he served as a health care information systems consultant to health care systems and public health agencies throughout Michigan and the United States.
Kyle L. Grazier, PhD
Professor, Health Management and Policy, U-M School of Public Health
Professor, Department of Psychiatry, U-M School of Medicine
Editor, Journal of Healthcare Management
CHRT Project: Mental Health Parity
Dr. Grazier is a Professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy. She holds masters degrees in engineering and in public health and a doctorate in administrative sciences from the University of California at Berkeley. She teaches graduate courses in corporate finance, insurance and payment systems, and the capstone case studies in healthcare management.
She is the editor of the Journal of Healthcare Management and is on the editorial board of the Health Administration Press/AUPHA Press. She currently serves on the Services Research Review Committee for the National Institute of Mental Health, and has been a member of grants review committees for AHCPR, NIAAA, and the Health Care Financing Administration. She has completed a six-year term on the Board of Directors of AUPHA, the last three of which were as Treasurer. She currently serves as chair of the University's Committee on Sustainable Health Benefits, Co-chair of the MHealthy Advisory Board, and is a member of the Provost's Faculty Budget Committee. Prior to Michigan, she was the J. Thomas Clark Professor of Entrepreneurship and the Director of the Sloan Graduate Program in Health Services Administration at Cornell University. She has also held the King Sweesy and Robert Womack Chair in Medical Science and Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, and was on the faculty at Yale University School of Medicine.
Hitinder S. Gurm, MD
Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Health System
Director, Carotid Interventions in Cardiovascular Medicine
Project Director, Blue Cross Blue Shield Cardiovascular Consortium Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Registry (BMC2-PCI)
CHRT Project: Angiography
Dr. Hitinder S. Gurm is an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System as well as Director, Inpatient Services for the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and Director, Carotid Interventions in Cardiovascular Medicine. He is also the Project Director of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Cardiovascular Consortium Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Registry (BMC2-PCI). BMC2-PCI is a multi-center, quality improvement registry funded by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, designed to improve quality of care and outcomes for patients who undergo percutaneous coronary interventions in the state of Michigan. Hitinder is a graduate of Christian Medical College in India. He subsequently trained in the United Kingdom and was elected to the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians. He joined the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 1996 and did a residency in internal medicine followed by a year as chief resident. He completed his fellowship in Cardiology and Interventional Cardiology at the same institution. He joined the cardiology division of the University of Michigan in the summer of 2005. His clinical interests include cardio-vascular interventions with special interest in carotid and below knee interventions. His research interests include carotid interventions, pharmacotherapy of PCI, quality improvement and outcomes assessment focused on acute coronary syndromes and PCI, and development of novel devices for endovascular interventions. He has published more than 80 original articles and book chapters and has been named as an inventor on 4 patent applications. His outside interests include foreign films and walking in the woods with his children.
Andy Haig, MD
Professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Michigan Health System
CHRT Project: Radiology
Andrew Haig is Tenured Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at The University of Michigan, Volunteer Associate Professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and President of Rehabilitation Team Assessments, LLC. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Northwestern University’s Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, he has been recognized internationally as an expert in research, education, clinical care, and leadership.
Dr. Haig’s clinical work in spine care, electrodiagnostic medicine, and multidisciplinary inpatient management spans small rural hospitals and large urban academic centers. It has lead to his recurrent inclusion in most national top doctor lists. As a researcher Dr. Haig developed the paraspinal mapping EMG technique which has lead to the first masked trials in the 60 year history of electrodiagnostic medicine. He published the first randomized trials of independent multidisciplinary assessment of complex disability. Funded by the NIH, NIDRR, and others, he has published over 100 articles and a textbook. In 2008 his work was honored by ‘best researcher’ awards from the AAPMR, AANEM, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan McDermott award for the best research in any clinical field. Dr. Haig’s educational accomplishments include development of Michigan’s spine fellowship, mentorship of dozens of students and junior faculty, many of whom have received national honors for their collaborations, and frequent, popular international lectures. He is often quoted in the national media, and has been a consultant to a number of foreign governments and academic institutions. His leadership roles include medical directorship of the award-winning Center for Rehabilitation Services in Neenah, Wisconsin, founding directorship of the University of Michigan Interdepartmental Spine Program, and founding presidency of the International Rehabilitation Forum, a consortium of universities which work together to promote medical rehabilitation around the world. He teaches corporate executives through Michigan’s Ross School of Business Global Leadership program.
Margaret Holmes-Rovner, PhD
Professor of Health Services Research, Michigan State University
CHRT Project: Cardiology
Margaret Holmes-Rovner is Professor of Health Services Research at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on improving the quality of health care in the US, and patient-provider communication and shared decision-making. She teaches health policy, and ethics in the pre-clinical and post-graduate programs of the College of Human Medicine at MSU. She joined the Department of Medicine in 1986, and was Chief of the Division of Health Services Research from 1995–2005. She is presently housed in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences.
Dr. Holmes-Rovner has served in a national leadership capacity in the field of medical decision-making and technology assessment. In 1991, she was the first woman elected President of the Society for Medical Decision Making, and has served in many other roles in the Society, receiving the Eugene Saenger Award for Distinguished Service in 1999. She has served on many policy commissions, editorial boards, and grant review panels for the CDC, NIH and the AHRQ, serving as Chair of the Health Care Technology and Decision Sciences Study Section for AHRQ from 1999–2003. She has worked to help establish international standards for educational materials designed to support informed, shared patient decision-making as a founding member of the International Patient Decision Aid Standards (IPDAS) Collaboration (details are available at http://ipdas.ohri.ca/). She is currently a member of the Steering Committee and Chair of the Health Literacy subcommittee.
Dr. Holmes-Rovner’s research has contributed substantially to establishing the field of patient-provider shared decision-making in health care. Her research focuses on patient-provider communication, evidence-based patient choice, and the role of literacy. She has developed decision support tools, and decision aid evaluation measures that are widely used nationally and internationally. On-going research includes studies of application of shared decision-making to coronary artery disease decision making in primary care, feasibility of shared decision-making to improve diabetes and heart disease care among low income populations, testing the impact of a decision aid for treatment decision-making in early stage prostate cancer. An update of a Cochrane Review of interventions to improve patient-centered care will evaluate impact of patient-centered care alone and new models that combine patient-centered care and evidence review in the clinical encounter.
Peter D. Jacobson, JD, MPH
Professor of Health Law and Policy, Department of Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health
Director, Center for Law, Ethics, and Health
CHRT Project: Safety Net
Peter D. Jacobson is Professor of Health Law and Policy in the Department of Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health, and Director, Center for Law, Ethics, and Health. He received his law degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1970, and a Masters in Public Health from UCLA in 1988. Before coming to the University of Michigan, he was Senior Behavioral Scientist at RAND from 1988 to 1996. His current research interests focus on the relationship between law and health care delivery and policy, law and public health systems, and health care safety net services.
In 1995, he received an Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine the role of the courts in shaping health care policy. The project culminated in the publication of the book Strangers in the Night: Law and Medicine in the Managed Care Era (Oxford University Press, 2002). Jacobson co-authored a law school casebook with Lawrence O. Gostin titled Law and the Health System (Foundation Press, 2005), and is also a co-author of False Hope vs. Evidence-Based Medicine: The Story of a Failed Treatment for Breast Cancer (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Professor Jacobson's current research interests focus on the relationship between law and health care delivery, law and public health systems, public health ethics, and health care safety net services. For instance, he is the Principal Investigator (PI) on studies examining public health entrepreneurship, the impact of state and federal law on public health preparedness, and enhancing organizational and operational efficiencies in Michigan's health care safety net providers.
Paula M. Lantz, PhD, MS
S.J. Axelrod Collegiate Professor of Health Management and Policy
Chair, Department of Health Management and Policy
Director, RWJ Scholars in Health Policy Research Program
Research Professor, Institute for Social Research
CHRT Project: Public Health Departments
Dr. Paula Lantz, a social epidemiologist, is the S.J. Axelrod Collegiate Professor of Health Management and Policy, and is Chair of the Department of Health Management and Policy. She is also a Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research. Prior positions include working as an epidemiologist for the Wisconsin Division of Health and as a senior researcher for Marshfield Clinic. She is the director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan. Dr. Lantz's main areas of research interest are policy issues in women's health and child health, clinical preventive services (such as cancer screening and prenatal care), and social inequalities in health. She teaches courses on public health policy and policy analysis methods.
Michelle L. Macy, MD, MSc
Clinical Lecturer, Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases
Clinical Lecturer, Department of Emergency Medicine
CHRT Project: Pediatric Observation Beds
Michelle Macy, M.D. is a Lecturer in the Division of General Pediatrics and Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System. Dr. Macy obtained her B.S. with High Honors in Biology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She received a Masters of Health and Health Care Research at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Macy’s clinical interests include improving asthma care for children and providing health education to parents and children seeking emergency care.
Dr. Macy’s research interests focus on optimizing emergency department and hospital resource utilization in the care of children; and the role of observation medicine to improve efficiency and reduce costs of pediatric acute care.
John D. Piette, PhD, MS
Senior VA Research Career Scientist and Professor of Internal Medicine, U-M School of Medicine
Director, UM/VA Program on Quality Improvement for Complex Chronic Conditions
CHRT Project: Diabetes Care
Dr. Piette is a Senior VA Research Career Scientist and Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. He also is the Director of the UM/VA Program on Quality Improvement for Complex Chronic Conditions. Dr. Piette’s research includes studies designed to improve the quality and accessibility of chronic illness care with an emphasis on self-management support, communication between face-to-face visits using accessible health technology, and interventions that can be disseminated at low cost. He has been the Principal Investigator for numerous trials evaluating novel strategies to improve self-management support via automated telephonic systems that facilitate clinical monitoring, peer-to-peer communication, and more effective involvement of patients’ social networks. Dr. Piette has written extensively on cost-related medication under-use, with an emphasis on the non-cost factors that can influence patients’ elasticity of demand for prescription drugs. He is a frequent speaker at national and international meetings on medication adherence, health literacy and the use of interactive technology to improve chronic illness care. Dr. Piette is an international leader in innovation for care management; he currently is an advisor on these issues with the Inter-American Development Bank, the governments of Mexico and Chile, and Yojoa International Medical Center in Honduras.
Thomas M. Reischl, PhD
Associate Research Scientist, Health Behavior & Health Education, U-M School of Public Health
Evaluation Director, Prevention Research Center
Dr. Reischl's research interests focus on the development and the evaluation of community-based public health programs, violence prevention programs, family support programs, and consumer-controlled (self/mutual help) programs. He is interested in conducting process and outcome evaluation studies that are collaborative, responsive, and client-centered.
Christopher G. Wise, PhD, MHA
Director, Lean for Patient-Centered Medical Home Collaborative Quality Initiative (PCMH CQI)
CHRT Project: Patient Centered Medical Home
Since 2007, Christopher G. Wise, M.H.A., Ph.D., has been the Director of a statewide program entitled the “Lean for Patient-Centered Medical Home Collaborative Quality Initiative (PCMH CQI)”. This CQI provides support to primary care clinic teams throughout Michigan to help identify barriers to PCMH implementation and develop implementation strategies to overcome these barriers, using the tools and concepts of ‘Lean Thinking’ to assist with process improvement. More than 70 primary care clinics, from 14 different physician organizations have participated in this CQI, with participation continuing to grow.
Dr. Wise is also the principal investigator of a study of PCMH implementation, with joint funding from the University of Michigan’s Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
He has a longstanding interest in program development for population-based medical and disease management, care coordination and transitional care. In this regard, he has directed the design and application of innovative care management programs for Ford Motor Company and General Motors, and has published the positive results of these programs in peer-reviewed literature.
Building from the body of work with the auto companies, Dr. Wise co-authored the University of Michigan Health System’s (UMHS) proposal to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services for participation in a “Physician Group Practice Demonstration Project” that emphasizes innovative models of care coordination and disease management. UMHS was selected as one of ten physician groups in the United States for participation in this demonstration project, and has been cited nationally for its success in this demo.
Dr. Wise holds a Masters in Hospital Administration and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Health Services Organization and Policy from the University of Michigan, and has a track record of peer-reviewed publications in the areas of clinical practice guidelines, financial impact of the Medicare fee schedule, models for changing physician behavior, and the organizational structure of hospitals and health service organizations.
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