About
Project Title/Research Interests: The Vital Few: Characterizing the comorbidity profiles and spending trajectories of super utilizers to better understand potential opportunities for intervention
Background:
I am a first year doctoral student in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. I also currently work at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research as a Graduate Student Researcher. My current research projects include a study predicting future Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Payments to California hospitals after health care reform, to assess whether increases in revenue from all purchasers will balance the Medicaid DSH reductions in 2019. I am the primary analyst on this project, working under PI Katherine Neuhausen, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar.
Prior to beginning the PhD program, I worked as Project Director/Project Manager for the Health Economics and Evaluation Research Program at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research from 2009 to 2012, where I have focused on research and evaluation studies in the areas of safety-net services, access to care for low-income populations, health system integration, and disease management programs for chronically ill Medicaid beneficiaries.
I plan to continue focusing my research in the area of delivery of high-value, accessible care, particularly for low-income or otherwise disadvantaged populations. I am interested in efforts to redesign systems of care in the U.S. health care marketplace (such a payment reforms or clinical guidelines), and individual and organizational features that enhance their effectiveness upon implementation.