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Expert Recommendations for Electronic Prescribing Systems
Project Staff
Douglas Bell | Michael Greenberg | Adam Landman | Richard Marken
Robin Meili | Debi Reissman | Susan Ridgely | Mayde Rosen
Deb Stern | Julie Straus | Jason Wang
Principal Investigator
Douglas S. Bell (M.D., Harvard; Ph.D., Health Services, UCLA) a is a general internist and health services researcher, whose research focus is on the design and evaluation of health information systems. After his internship in medicine, Dr. Bell completed a 3-year medical informatics fellowship in the National Library of Medicine-sponsored postdoctoral program at Harvard and MIT. His research on structured data entry for radiology reports won First Prize in the Student Paper Competition at the 1994 Annual Meeting of the American Medical Informatics Association. As a resident in internal medicine at Stanford, Dr. Bell began investigating the collection of health status data directly from patients using the World Wide Web. After residency he continued this line of research, conducting a randomized trial of alternative health status survey formats using anonymous Internet volunteers. Most recently, Dr. Bell has completed a Ph.D. in Health Services at UCLA School of Public Health. His dissertation project was a randomized controlled trial of a World Wide Web-based physician tutorial on guidelines for the care of patients after acute myocardial infarction. Results from this trial were recently published (Annals of Internal Medicine 2000; 132(12):938-946). With his doctorate completed, Dr. Bell has accepted a faculty position in the Department of Medicine at UCLA, and he has also joined the consulting staff at RAND. His work will continue to focus on the use of Web technology to advance medical knowledge and to aid its dissemination. Dr. Bell is also the co-editor of eWJM, the online version of the Western Journal of Medicine.
Staff
Michael Greenberg (Ph.D., Duke University; J.D., Harvard Law School) is an Associate Behavioral Scientist at RAND. He received his Ph.D. from Duke University in a research-focused clinical psychology program, and subsequently received a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Prior to joining RAND, Dr. Greenberg worked as an attorney with Ropes & Gray, a large law firm in Boston. Dr. Greenberg's research interests focus on areas of intersection between healthcare and law, such as quality of care assessment, managed care organizations, and healthcare regulation. Dr. Greenberg's past research has included work in the areas of major depression, psychiatric comorbidity, and treatment evaluation, as well as an examination of the regulatory foundations of the FDA new drug approval process.
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Adam Landman (M.D., UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, M.I.S., Information Systems, M.S., Healthcare Policy and Management; Carnegie Mellon University) is a graduate student summer associate at RAND and a medical student at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, NJ. He is working on the vendor survey and literature review for the electronic prescribing project. Before returning to school, Mr. Landman was a technology analyst for Andersen Consulting in New York. His research interests include medical informatics and health care process improvement.
Richard Marken (Ph.D., Psychology, University of California at Santa Barbara) is a senior behavioral scientist at RAND with expertise in cognitive psychology, behavioral research methodology and human factors engineering. He will lead the human factors evaluation component of the electronic prescribing project. Dr. Marken was Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychology at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he taught courses in introductory psychology, research methods, statistics, mental testing, history of psychology, perception, developmental, control theory, and computer applications. He also consulted at Honeywell, Inc. on statistical, methodological and human factors issues related to workspace design and human- computer interface technology. Dr. Marken was an Engineering Specialist at The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo where he performed human factors evaluations of the human-system interface to satellite ground control systems. Dr. Marken is the author of two books, Methods in Experimental Psychology, (Brooks/Cole, 1981) and Mind Readings: Experimental Studies of Purpose (Benchmark Publications, 1992), and over 40 papers on control system theory and psychology.
Robin Meili (M.B.A., Finance, New York University) is a senior analyst at RAND and the Director of Business Development for RAND Health. She has spent 20 years in health care administration including public sector hospital management and policy development, hospital administration, outpatient disease specific care and managed care. At RAND Ms. Meili has focused on stimulating and participating in new and innovative public and private sector initiatives. Her most recent position prior to RAND was Director of Operations for PacifiCare Health Systems National Account segment. Her hospital experience includes both corporate and field positions in operations, finance, planning and managing change.
Debi L. Reissman (Pharm.D., The University of California School of Pharmacy, San Francisco) is a national expert in the area of pharmacy benefit design and prescription utilization management with more than 20 years experience in the managed health care industry. Dr. Reissman is currently the president of Rxperts, a managed care consulting firm located in Irvine, CA. Dr. Reissman has held a variety of pharmacy management positions within leading HMO plans including CEO to PacifiCare Health Systems PBM subsidiary, Prescription Solutions. In addition to her past roles in managed care plans, Reissman has been actively involved in several national organizations, including the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy. Dr. Reissman has experience in Commercial and Medicare benefit design, formulary development and management, volume purchasing and rebate programs, drug utilization review processes, disease management, prescription claims processing and reporting, pharmacy operations, pharmacy network management, and capitation and risk agreements. Dr. Reissman currently works with pharmaceutical industry, employers, healthcare insurers, providers, suppliers and others in the marketing and management of their prescription drug benefits and products.
M. Susan Ridgely (J.D., University of Maryland) a RAND senior policy analyst, is a health attorney with extensive experience in evaluation of managed care and the delivery of health services to vulnerable individuals. Since joining RAND two years ago, Ms. Ridgely and her colleagues have led three private sector projects focused on managed care and health coverage decision making. The first study -- on emerging medical technology -- sought to understand the processes managed care organizations employ in making coverage, medical necessity, and payment decisions, and how device developers and manufacturers prepare for and participate in these processes. The second study sought to document payment levels for cochlear implants in private and public sector insurance programs and to assess whether financial incentives are impeding access. The third study projected the potential impact of changes in the U.S. health care system on the market for high cost pharmaceuticals -- with a special emphasis on managed care organization (MCO) and pharmacy benefit management firm (PBM) coverage decision-making. Ms. Ridgely is also a key investigator in Health Care for Communities (HCC), a $2.2 million project funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. HCC analyzes how health policy variations (in insurance regulations, employer mandates) affect the organization and financing of behavioral health services; how changes in organization and financing of services related to managed care affect access, utilization and quality of care, and the health and cost outcomes of services; and identifies ways to forecast the impact of policy changes on vulnerable populations. Ms. Ridgely is on the editorial board of the Journal of Behavioral Health Services and Research and is a co-investigator in the UCLA/RAND Research Center on Managed Care and Psychiatric Disorders.
Mayde Rosen (B.S.N., Boston University; R.N., Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is an associate natural scientist at RAND and project director for the electronic prescribing project. She has worked extensively in the areas of data and information dissemination, data gathering, data cleaning, and system editing for medical and fiscal accuracy. She has chaired and formed interdisciplinary work teams to improve clinical quality, decrease length of stay and ancillary testing, and improve cost-effectiveness and utilization management. She has been the liaison with outside vendors for cost accounting and national benchmarking for data comparisons. Ms. Rosen participated in a combined U.S. Armed Services and Veterans Affairs project to improve the care of patients through the use of guidelines. She is project director for a number of research efforts, including the Cost of Cancer Treatment Study, the National Initiative on Cancer Care Quality, and the evaluation of California Senate Bill 393 on Medicare coverage of prescription drugs.
Debra Stern (B.S., Pharmacy, University of Cincinnati) is currently Vice President of Rxperts, a managed care consulting firm, where she is responsible for designing and implementing comprehensive programs to meet the needs of managed care clients. Utilizing her pharmacy benefit management and pharmaceutical industry experience, Debra currently provides consulting services to the pharmaceutical industry, health plans, employers, TPA's and technology companies to market and manage their products and services. Debbie has had extensive experience with e-prescribing systems in the managed care marketplace and provides a pharmacist's perspective to the project. Previously, Debra was the Director of Pharmacy Services at Prescription Solutions, a pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company in Costa Mesa, CA. Debra was responsible for managing all aspects of pharmacy benefits for her clients, including operations, clinical services, outcomes management, budgeting and forecasting and personnel management. Prior to joining Prescription Solutions, Debra was involved in the start-up operations of Preferred Solutions, a PBM in San Jose, CA. As the first pharmacist at Preferred Solutions, Debra was responsible for setting up the clinical, client services, claims administration, contracting and finance departments. In addition to her managed care experience, Debra spent five years in the pharmaceutical industry and ten years in retail pharmacy. She is also actively involved in the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, where she is currently an elected member of the Board of Directors.
Julie Straus (B.A., Economics, B.A., Psychology, University of Pennsylvania) is a Research Assistant at RAND. She is working on the electronic prescribing project, as well as the Improving Chronic Illness Care Evaluation for RAND Health. She is also working with the Drug Policy Research Center on methadone maintenance treatment research. Ms. Straus's research interests include quality-of-care and access-to-care for children under managed care, as well as mental health of children and adults.
Jason Wang (M.D. Harvard; B.S., molecular biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is a doctoral fellow at the Rand Graduate School and a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at UCLA. He did his residency in pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. After completing his medical training, he worked in Greater China with McKinsey and Company and served as the project manager for the Taskforce on Reforming the National Health Insurance System, Taiwan. His research interests include 1) applying information technologies for evaluating, monitoring and improving the quality of care, and 2) designing methods for evaluating genomic based medical technologies.