Notes on Contributors

Julia Abelson is an assistant professor at the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. Her interests include public participation in the governance of the health system, evaluation of knowledge-transfer strategies, health policy analysis, and values and health policy decision making.

Lawrence Casalino is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Studies at the University of Chicago. He is interested in the development of organized processes by medical groups and hospitals to improve quality and control costs. He is also interested in the public and private policies that affect the behavior of hospitals and medical groups. A recent article published with colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley, used results of a national survey of 1,040 physician groups to examine these issues (Casalino et al. [2003], External Incentives, Information Technology, and Organized Processes to Improve Health Care Quality for Patients with Chronic Diseases, JAMA 289[4]:434–41).

José J. Escarce is a professor of medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, and a Senior Natural Scientist at the RAND Health Program, Santa Monica, California. His research interests include social and ethnic differences in medical care, provider behavior in response to economic incentives, quality of care, and technology diffusion.

Penny Hollander Feldman is Vice President for Research and Evaluation at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) and Director of the VNSNY Center for Home Care Policy and Research. At the Center, she directs research with three main objectives–-improving the quality, outcomes, and cost-effectiveness of home-based care, understanding the impact of government policies that affect the home care delivery system, and helping communities become more “elder friendly.” Recent projects include AHRQ-funded studies of the relationship between working conditions and patient safety and the effectiveness of “just-in-time” e-mail reminders to promote evidence-based practice for heart failure and cancer pain studies.

Robert L. Kane is the Minnesota Chair in Long-Term Care and Aging at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis. He does research and evaluation studies on long-term care and aging. Recent projects include the evaluation of the federal demonstration projects to test the effectiveness of managed care for dual eligibles and to test the effectiveness of Evercare.

Kanika Kapur is an associate economist at the RAND Health Program in Santa Monica, California. Her interests include the determinants of medical expenditure and utilization, managed care, and the labor market implications of private health insurance.

The Knowledge Transfer Study Group comprises both researchers and knowledge brokers who wish to advance our understanding about effective approaches to the transfer of research knowledge. Members of the group who participated in the study described in this article and who provided feedback on earlier versions include Jane Brenneman Gibson (Institute for Work & Health), Kathie M. Clarke (The Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre), and Maureen Dobbins (School of Nursing, McMaster University).

Jodi Korb is a senior research associate at Laguna Research Associates, San Francisco. Her research interests and recent work has focused on studies of long-term care and Medicaid and Medicare financing. Earlier work focused on managed care and community health centers.

John N. Lavis holds the Canada Research Chair in Knowledge-Transfer and Uptake and is an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, where he is also a member of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis and an associate member of the Department of Political Science. In addition, he is a Liberty Health Scholar at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in Toronto, and a scientist at the Institute for Work and Health in Toronto. His research interests include knowledge transfer and uptake in public policy-making environments; the politics of health care systems; and the social determinants of health, especially labor-market experiences.

Olaug S. Lian is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Tromsø in Norway. Her interests include health policies in a sociological and comparative perspective, especially the use of market mechanisms in public health systems; priority setting in health care; medicalization; trust in the physician-patient relationship; professionalism; and the changing role of the physician.

Nelda McCall is president of Laguna Research Associates in San Francisco. She has published numerous articles and chapters in books on Medicare and Medicaid policy, managed care, physician reimbursement, and long-term care financing. Her book Who Will Pay for Long-term Care?, which she edited in 2002, presents a full range of policy options for long-term care financing.

Christopher B. McLeod is a research associate at the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto. His research interests are in the social determinants of health with a focus on understanding how public policy can affect health status. His recent work has examined the relationship between income inequality and health, labor-market experiences and health, and several projects on how health research knowledge is transferred to and used in public policy-making environments.

Stanley Moore is a consulting programmer/analyst at Laguna Research Associates in San Francisco. He provides computer support for statistical analysis or large or complex data on a variety of platforms. He has extensive experience processing Medicare and Medicaid files for health care delivery research.

Andrew Petersons is a senior applications development programmer/analyst for the Permanente Medical Group in Oakland, California; when he contributed to this article, he was a research analyst at Laguna Research Associates in San Francisco. His interests include quality of care, the financial health of managed care organizations, physician organizations, Medicaid managed care, and the financing of long-term care.

Dave Robertson is a medical student at Queens University in Kingston, Canada. His interests lie in health policy reform, resource allocation, and knowledge transfer.

James C. Robinson is professor of health economics at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on health care markets, organization, and finance, including health insurance, nonprofit organization, medical groups, and the capital markets.

Jennifer M. Woodside is research coordinator of the Program in Policy Decision-making at the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.