Events - Colloquia & Seminars

CCIS & The Bouvé College of Health Sciences
     invite you to attend a lecture on health informatics-

"Use of Health Insurance Claims Data to Improve Quality and
  Reduce Cost of Health Care"

Speaker: Earl P. Steinberg, MD, MPP (Resolution Health Inc.)

Date: Thursday, November 10, 2005

Talk: 3:00 pm (Reception 4:00 p.m.) - 10 Behrakis Health Sciences Center

Abstract

In its landmark report on the state of health care in the U.S., the National Academy of Health's Institute of Medicine concluded that health care delivery has been relatively untouched by the revolution in information technology that has been transforming nearly every other aspect of society, and that information systems are essential to enhancing quality and improving efficiency in the U.S. health care system.

Despite this call to action, and President Bush's appointment of a health care information czar, it is highly unlikely that physicians will replace the paper records they currently use with computerized medical records anytime soon.

There is a vast reservoir of information that resides in health insurers' information systems, however. In his lecture, Dr. Steinberg will explain how this information will increasingly be used to improve the quality and reduce the cost of health care in the U.S.

Biography

Earl P. Steinberg, M.D., M.P.P. is a nationally known expert in evaluation and improvement of the quality and efficiency of health care. He currently is President and CEO of Resolution Health Inc. (RHI), a leading health care data analysis company that provides innovative quality improvement and cost reduction services to health plans, employers, PBMs and disease management companies. Dr. Steinberg also is 1) a member of Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association's National Medical Advisory Panel (on which he has served for 10 years), 2) an Adjunct Professor of Medicine and of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins University and 3) a member of the Advisory Council of Harvard Medical School's Department of Health Care Policy. Prior to joining RHI, Dr. Steinberg spent six years as Vice President of Covance Health Economics and Outcomes Services Inc., Director of its Quality Assessment and Improvement Systems (QAIS) Division, and Co-Director of its Outcomes Studies Group (OSG), 12 years on the full-time faculty at Johns Hopkins University, where he was Professor of Medicine and of Health Policy and Management and Director of The Johns Hopkins Program for Medical Technology and Practice Assessment, and four years on the Federal Physician Payment Review Commission (PPRC).

Dr. Steinberg's primary interests are in 1) design of systems for measuring the content, outcomes and quality of health care and 2) the development of tools, such as computerized decision support systems, disease management programs, and physician- and/or patient- targeted programmatic interventions, that can improve the cost-effectiveness of care. While at Covance, Dr. Steinberg led the teams that developed three HEDIS measures: health plan performance in 1) control of hypertension, 2) counseling of women on options for management of menopause), and 3) management of osteoporosis in women with fracture. He also was the scientific director of the National Kidney Foundation's Dialysis Outcomes and Quality Initiative that produced over 250 clinical practice guidelines for management of patients with end stage renal disease. While at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Steinberg was the Principal Investigator on the federally-funded Patient Outcome Research Team (PORT) devoted to evaluation of variation in management of cataracts and their relationship to patient outcomes.

Dr. Steinberg received his A.B. degree from Harvard College (Summa Cum Laude), his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a Master of Public Policy degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. His residency training in internal medicine was performed at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Steinberg has received numerous awards, including the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Faculty Scholar Award in General Internal Medicine (1984), the "Outstanding Young Investigator" Award from the Association for Health Services Research (1988), and a Special Presidential Visionary Award from the National Kidney Foundation for his work as the scientific director of the NKF's landmark Kidney Disease Outcomes and Quality Initiative (2004). He also is a Fellow of both the American College of Physicians and AcademyHealth.