WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 8, 2008)—AcademyHealth announced its 2008 award winners today. The four prestigious awards recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to the fields of health services research and health policy.
"The awardees, each independently selected by distinguished leaders from our community, represent the very best from our talented health services field. We are delighted to recognize new and established leaders whose research advances policy and practice to improve health and health care," said W. David Helms, Ph.D., president and CEO of AcademyHealth.
The following awards will be presented at the 2008 Annual Research Meeting, June 8 in Washington, D.C.:
Distinguished Investigator Award
David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.
Dr. Blumenthal is director of the Institute for Health Policy and a physician at The Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System in Boston, and Samuel O. Thier Professor of Medicine and professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. His research interests include the dissemination of health information technology, quality management in health care, the determinants of physician behavior, access to health services, and the extent and consequences of academic-industrial relationships in the health sciences.
Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award
Ashish Jha, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Jha is an assistant professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and staff physician at Boston VA Healthcare System and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He has worked in areas evaluating the quality of hospital care, especially hospitals that care for large minority populations; the impact of health information technology and public reporting on quality and disparities in care; and delineating the relationship between hospital quality and efficiency. Much of his current work focuses on the current state of HIT use in the United States and the impact it has on the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care.
Article-of-the-Year Award
Ming Tai-Seale, Ph.D.
Dr. Tai-Seale received this award for a body of work that includes lead authorship on "Time Allocation in Primary Care Office Visits," which appeared in the October 2007 issue of Health Services Research and was co-authored by Thomas G. McGuire and Weiman Zhang, and "Two-Minute Mental Health Care for Elderly Patients: Inside Primary Care Visits," which appeared in the December 2007 issue of Journal of the American Geriatric Society and was co-authored by Thomas McGuire, Christopher Colenda, David Rosen, and Mary Ann Cook. Dr. Tai-Seale is an associate professor of health economics in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Texas A&M Health Science Center.
Dissertation Award
J. Michael McWilliams, Jr., M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. McWilliams received this award for his dissertation, "Importance of Health Insurance for Adults with Chronic Conditions," from the Ph.D. program in health policy at Harvard University. Beginning in July 2008, he will be assistant professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School.
AcademyHealth is the professional home for health services researchers, policy analysts, and practitioners, and a leading, non-partisan resource for the best in health research and policy. AcademyHealth promotes interaction across the health research and policy arenas by bringing together a broad spectrum of players to share their perspectives, learn from each other, and strengthen their working relationships. AcademyHealth seeks to improve health and health care by generating new knowledge and moving knowledge into action. www.academyhealth.org.