Staff Profiles

Robert H. Brook

Santa Monica Office

Vice President, RAND Corporation; Director, RAND Health; Distinguished Chair in Health Care Services; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School; Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, Professor of Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, and Director, Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, University of California, Los Angeles

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Education

M.D. and Sc.D., Johns Hopkins University

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Overview
Expert Profile

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Biography

Robert H. Brook led RAND Health on the RAND Health Insurance Experiment and was co-principal investigator on the Health Services Utilization Study. He was the co-principal investigator on the only national study that has investigated, at a clinical level, the impact of diagnosis-related groups on quality and outcome of acute hospital care. He was also the co-principal investigator on a joint activity of 12 academic medical centers, the American Medical Association, and RAND, the purpose of which was to develop appropriateness criteria and parameters for the use of procedures.

Brook is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the American Association of Physicians. In 2005, Brook won the Institute of Medicine's Gustav O. Lienhard Award, cited "as the individual who, more than any other, developed the science of measuring the quality of medical care and focused U.S. policymakers' attention on quality-of-care issues and their implications for the nation's health." He has also been awarded the HRET Trust Award, the David E. Rogers Award of the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Baxter Foundation Prize, the Rosenthal Foundation Award of the American College of Physicians, the Distinguished Health Services Researcher Award of the Association of Health Services Research, and the Robert J. Glaser Award of the Society of General Internal Medicine.

Research Focus

Development and use of health-status measurements in health policy; efficiency and effectiveness of medical care; quality assessment and assurance; variation in the use of medical services across geographic areas

RAND Research Areas

Health and Health Care

Selected Publications

Corita R Grudzen, MD, MSHS, Marc N Elliott, PhD, Peter R. Kerndt, MD, MPH, Mark A Schuster, MD, PhD, Robert H Brook, MD, ScD, and Lillian Gelberg, MD, MSPH, "Condom Use and High-Risk Sexual Acts in Adult Films: A Comparison of Heterosexual and Homosexual Films", American Journal of Public Health, 2009

Alicia TF Bazzano, MD, MPH, Rita Mangione-Smith, MD, MPH, Matthias Schonlau, PhD, Marika J Suttorp, MPH, and Robert H Brook, MD, ScD, "Off-Label Prescribing to Children in the United States Outpatient Setting", Academic Pediatrics, 9(2) 81-8, 2009

Teryl K Nuckols, MD, MSHS, Anthony G Bower, PhD, Susan M Paddock, PhD, Lee H Hillborne, MD, MPH, Peggy Wallace, RN, MSN, Jeffrey M Rothschild, MD, MPH, Anne Griffin, RN, MPH, Rollin J Fairbanks, MD, MS, Beverly Carlson, MS, RN, CNS, Robert J Panzer,, "Programmable Infusion Pumps in ICUs: An Analysis of Corresponding Adverse Drug Events", Journal of General Internal Medicine, 23(S1) 41-5, 2008

Tseng CW, Mangione CM, Brook RH, Keeler E, Dudley RA, "Identifying Widely Covered Drugs and Drug Coverage Variation Among Medicare Part D Formularies", Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 297(23) 2596-2602, 2007

Liu JH, Zingmond DS, McGory ML, SooHoo NF, Ettner SL, Brook RH, Ko CK, "Disparities in the utilization of high-volume hospitals for complex surgery", Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 296(16) 1973-80, 2006

M. A. Schuster et al., "How Good Is the Quality of Health Care in the United States?", The Milbank Quarterly, 83(4), 2005

P. G. Shekelle et al., "Identifying Potential Health Care Innovations for the Future Elderly", Health Affairs [Web exclusive], 2005

Douglas S. Bell et al., "Recommendations for Comparing Electronic Prescribing Systems: Results of an Expert Consensus Process", Health Affairs [Web exclusive], 2004

Honors & Awards

Gustav O Leinhard Award awarded by Institute of Medicine
TRUST Award awarded by Health Research and Educational Trust
Rosenthal Foundation Award awarded by American College of Physicians

Related RAND Resources

Biography

Brook is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the American Association of Physicians. In 2005, Brook won the Institute of Medicine's Gustav O. Lienhard Award, cited "as the individual who, more than any other, developed the science of measuring the quality of medical care and focused U.S. policymakers' attention on quality-of-care issues and their implications for the nation's health." He has also been awarded the Baxter Foundation Prize for excellence in health services research, the Rosenthal Foundation Award of the American College of Physicians for contributions to improving the health of the nation, the Distinguished Health Services Researcher Award of the Association of Health Services Research, and the Robert J. Glaser Award of the Society of General Internal Medicine.

Brook has recently published two commentaries in the Journal of the American Medical Association: "Health Policy and Public Trust" (July 2008) and "The Science of Health Care Reform" (June 2009). His "Seven Ideas to Improve Quality" appeared in the September 2008 issue of Hospitals & Health Networks.

Research Focus

Recent Media Appearances

Interviews: American Medical News; Business Times Singapore; Business Week; Forbes; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review; Sacramento Bee

Video Interviews: Brook discusses the challenges of mandatory health care and looks at the critical health care issues in the 2008 election (on tcil.org).