The mission of Division of Health Policy, previously called the Division of Health Services and Policy Research, is to conduct research on policy issues relevant to the local, national, and global delivery of health care. These include the allocation of scarce resources, financing and reimbursement, health care technology assessment, program evaluation, and the organization of the health care delivery system.
On July 1, 2006, the Division of Health Services took on its current name and Bruce R. Schackman, Ph.D., was appointed Chief. Previously Dr. Schackman was an Assistant Professor in the Division of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research, a position he held since 2001. Dr. Schackman has had a longstanding commitment to HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C treatment and care research, including cost-effectiveness analysis, quality-of-life measurement, and access to care by underserved populations. He was recognized by the Treatment Action Group, a non-profit organization dedicated toward finding a cure for AIDS, which awarded him the 2005 Research in Action Award. He also collaborates with Cornell investigators in Haiti, where he is exploring cost-effective methods for diagnosing and treating HIV and syphilis.
The research of Madelon L. Finkel, Ph.D., an epidemiologist and Professor of Clinical Public Health, concerns the epidemiology of women’s health issues as well as health care policy. Among the issues she has studied and written about are hormone replacement therapy, breast cancer, and mammography screening. Dr. Finkel is presently collaborating with the Ministry of Health in Panama to design and implement a cervical cancer screening study. She is also conducting research into breast and cervical cancer screening with colleagues at the Christian Medical College and Hospital in Vellore, India. In the area of health care policy, Dr. Finkel, through a grant from the Physician Organization (PO) at Weill Cornell Medical College, has been responsible for administering annual patient satisfaction surveys for the PO.
Dr. Finkel serves as the course director for the required Public Health courses for first-, second-, and fourth-year medical students at Weill Cornell Medical College. She also helped establish the required Public Health courses for medical students at the medical college’s Qatar campus. Among the classes she teaches is the innovative Public Health Fourth-Year Clerkship, which studies health care policy issues. An article describing this clerkship was published in the journal Academic Medicine (February 2004). Dr. Finkel also teaches first-year courses in evidence based medicine and biostatistics and epidemiology, as well as the second-year U.S. health care system course. She twice received the Excellence in Teaching award, most recently in 2005. Dr. Finkel is leading the Department’s initiative to expand teaching and training to hospitals in the New York Presbyterian Healthcare System by conducting an eight-week Research Methods course for residents at Lincoln Hospital and in the Department of Family Medicine at The Brooklyn Hospital Center. This contact has opened opportunities for collaborative research between the Medical College and Network hospitals.
For the first six months of 2004, Dr. Finkel was a visiting professor at the University of Sydney School of Public Health in Australia. During this sabbatical, she studied and taught health care policy issues. Her work included researching breast cancer care as well as the Australian health care system. She successfully established a formal relationship between the University of Sydney and Weill Cornell Medical College to facilitate the expansion of student and faculty exchanges and collaborative research.
Dr. Finkel also directs Cornell Analytic/Consulting Services. The purpose of this unit is to provide expert epidemiologic, biostatistical, and health economic consulting services to health care organizations outside of the Medical College. Cornell Analytic’s clients include pharmaceutical companies, health care organizations, managed care organizations, and public agencies.
In November 2004 Dean Gotto appointed Dr. Finkel Director of the Office of International Medical Education (recently renamed the Office of Global Health Education). In this role she administers all the College’s international programs for student exchanges, which enable Weill students to study abroad and allow visiting international students to take elective classes here. An article describing one of the international programs, “The United States-European Union Medical Education Exchange,” was published in the April 2006 issue of Academic Medicine. Dr. Finkel has worked to obtain endowed fellowships so that any Cornell student who wishes to travel abroad can do so. The program has grown tremendously under her leadership. She has initiated collaborative agreements with the University of Sydney ( Australia) and the Universidad Latina de Panama, for example.
Much of the work of Hirsch S. Ruchlin, Ph.D., who served as Acting Chief of the Division from 1999 though June 2006, involved pharmacoeconomics. A large part of his research, funded by Merck Research Laboratories, examines compounds under development to treat diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer. Dr. Ruchlin, a health economist, is responsible for documenting the cost of particular illnesses, developing economic models of disease progression, and evaluating the cost savings of using the drugs under investigation at Merck. This information is used by formulary authorities in participating countries once a drug is approved for sale to decide whether or not to add it to their formulary.
Dr. Ruchlin also collaborates on projects with the Division of Outcomes Research, focusing on quality of care and information technology issues. For example, an ongoing project sponsored by the Visiting Nurse Service is aimed at finding a better way to automate the translation of information when a patient leaves the hospital and is referred to home care. The goal is to help nurses effectively adjust care in accordance with evidence based literature. Dr. Ruchlin’s projects also include research in gerontology. In collaboration with faculty at Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology, and funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies, a recently completed study addressed a major problem in nursing homes: the high turnover rate of nurses’ aides. The grant provided for some nurses’ aides to be trained as “retention specialists,” whose role was to encourage colleagues to stay on their jobs and to diffuse situations that might lead them to quit.
The research and policy activities of Oliver T. Fein, M.D., focus on health delivery system reform at both the national and local levels. His studies have included measuring social class and health inequalities using a variety of methods, and comparing the role of primary care in health system reform in the United States and the United Kingdom. As Associate Dean for Affiliations at Weill Medical College, he works to diversify the clinical educational experience for medical students through affiliations with hospitals and physicians who deliver health care services to vulnerable populations. He also hosts the Medical College’s weekly David Rogers Health Policy Colloquium, at which experts on health policy both from within the medical institution and outside of it present their research and viewpoints on important current topics. Dr. Fein received the Excellence in Teaching Award for Medicine, Patients, & Society I in 2006.
During the next academic year, the Division will begin recruiting new junior faculty members. In addition, the Division will be expanding on existing partnerships and building new alliances within Weill Medical College, with New York Presbyterian Hospital and Healthcare System, with Cornell in Ithaca, and with external partners.
