Notes on Contributors

Hannah Abel, MSc, is a research associate at Dalhousie University, Canada. She has an MSc in community health and epidemiology and her research interests include health utility measurement, collaborative care models, and interprofessional health care team functioning.

Yukiko Asada, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Dalhousie University. Her research focuses on the intersection of population health, health services research, and ethics. Her current research involves articulating the concept of health inequity, advancing the measurement of health inequity, and promoting public dialogue on health inequity.

Shannon Barkley, MD, MPH, is the technical officer for primary health care services at the World Health Organization. She completed her MD at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and her MPH with an emphasis in international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, followed by specialization in family medicine and additional specialization in advanced hospital medicine at Swedish Medical Center.Her current work supports implementation of the WHO framework on integrated, people-centred health services and the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative. Throughout her career she has been involved with the development of effective primary health care among underserved communities globally through direct service provision, health workforce education, service delivery policy, and monitoring and evaluation.

Zvia Bar-On, MD, MHA, is the terror victim unit medical coordinator at the National Insurance Institute of Israel and is a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation.

Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH, is the director of primary health care at Ariadne Labs, where he leads Ariadne’s efforts on the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative as well as work in Estonia, Ghana, Costa Rica, and India. He is an assistant professor of medicine and health care policy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He has also studied the dissemination and outcomes of the patient-centered medical home model in the United States, and he practices primary care internal medicine in Jamaica Plain, MA. He serves as a senior advisor at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation for the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus Initiative, an 18-state multipayer effort matching payment reform to primary care transformation.

Osnat Cohen, MA, has been director of the Division of Hostile Action at National Insurance Institute of Israel since 2004. Cohen holds a BA and an MA in social work from Jerusalem University.

Krycia Cowling, MPH, is a consultant at the World Bank, working with the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative (PHCPI), and is a PhD candidate in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, graduating in December 2017. Her dissertation research examines the impacts of global trade and investment liberalization on the key noncommunicable disease risk factors of tobacco, alcohol, and dietary consumption. She has an MPH in global health metrics and evaluation from the University of Washington and has previously held research positions at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the Public Health Foundation of India.

Eytan Ellenberg, MD, MPH, PhD, is a researcher for the National Insurance Institute of Israel, focusing specifically on terror victims and medical disabilities. He is the author of many articles and books on various subjects such as medical ethics, clinical risks, and terror victims.

Gilbert Gonzales, PhD, MHA, is an assistant professor of health policy at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he researches access to care and health disparities for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people under evolving policy contexts. His research has appeared in JAMA, JAMA—Internal Medicine, and the American
Journal of Public Health.

Colleen M. Grogan, PhD, is a professor and academic director of the Graduate Program in Health Administration and Policy at the University of Chicago. Her research interests include health policy and health politics, the American welfare state, and participatory democracy. She has written several book chapters and articles and coauthored a book on the history and current politics of the US Medicaid program. She is currently working on a book tentatively titled The Political Transformation of America’s Health Care State and is the former editor of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.

Carrie Henning-Smith, PhD, MPH, MSW is a research associate at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, in the Division of Health Policy and Management.Her research centers on the intersection of policy, health equity, and the social determinants of health, with a particular focus on historically disadvantaged populations, including rural residents, older adults, people with disabilities, people who identify as LGBT, women, children, and families.

Lisa R. Hirschhorn, MD, MPH, is professor of medical social sciences and psychiatry and behavioral health at Northwestern University Feinberg Medical School. Hirschhorn started her career as director of HIV services at Dimock Community Health Center in Roxbury and senior clinical advisor for HIV at JSI Research and Training, before becoming director of monitoring, evaluation, and quality for Partners In Health and, most recently, director of implementation and improvement science at Ariadne Labs. Trained in primary care, infectious disease, and public health, she is a leader in implementation and improvement science focused on evaluating and spreading effective approaches to improve the quality, equity, and delivery of services in the United States and in low- and middle-income countries.

Jay R. Hoffman holds the rank of full professor in the sport and exercise science program and professor of medicine at the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Central Florida. He is also the director of the Institute of Exercise Physiology and Wellness within the College of Education and Human Performance.

Meredith Kimball, MSPH, is a fellow at Results for Development where she focuses on the intersection of health systems, measurement, and quality. Kimball has worked on the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative since its inception. In addition, she is a technical facilitator within the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage, where she works with policymakers to strengthen measurement of primary health care at the country level. Kimball is pursuing her PhD in global health metrics and implementation science at the University of Washington. She holds an MSPH in health policy and management from the University of North Carolina and an AB from Princeton University.

Danielle Luft-Afik, MPH, is CEO and cofounder of Medintec, a provider of outsourcing services and the IT solution MedinClaim to payers for fully automated and efficient cost-containing management of their medical expenses, including online reporting. Prior to Medintec, she held executive positions at the Technology Policy and Quality Assurance Department of the Israeli Ministry of Health, the Phoenix Insurance Group, and Sheba Medical Center. She holds an MPH from the University of Haifa and a BA degree in economics and statistics from Tel Aviv University.

Laure Mercereau, MPA, is a senior operations officer in the health nutrition and population global practice at the World Bank. Her work focuses on health care delivery at the primary health care level, and more generally on measurement of health system performance for improvement. She also works on universal health coverage and participates in global initiatives to improve the availability, quality, and use of data for local decision making and tracking. Her former work experience includes working in health system financing and social protection at the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in France, her home country.

Ishay Ostfeld, MD, MHA, is a cardio-thoracic surgeon and health administration specialist. He served as a military physician in the Israel Defense Forces and currently is the medical director and chief physician of the National Insurance Institute of Israel. Ostfeld is a sport physician and is also certified in aviation medicine and diving medicine. His main research interests include military medicine and medical response to terror, as well as trauma and disaster medicine, sport physiology, and human performances.

Sunggeun (Ethan) Park is a PhD candidate in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. He investigates how health and social service organizations can provide responsive and effective services through improved user engagement and interorganizational collaborations. His doctoral research examines how substance use disorder treatment centers engage patient perspectives in service production processes through practicing patient-centered care and employing staff with lived experience of addiction.

Hannah Ratcliffe, MSc, is a primary health care research specialist at Ariadne Labs, a joint innovation center founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her focus is on developing novel ways of measuring primary health care functions and patient experience of care in low- and middle-income countries and conducting research to understand variation in performance of primary health care systems in order to generate evidence-based pathways to catalyze improvement efforts. She holds a master of science degree in global health and population with a concentration in maternal and child health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a BA in biology from Williams College.

Chris Skedgel, PhD,MA, is senior lecturer in applied health economics at the Norwich Medical School of the University of East Anglia (UEA) and deputy director of the health economics consulting group at UEA. He has a PhD in health economics and decision science from the University of Sheffield and a master’s degree in development economics from Dalhousie University. His research interests are around the use of health economic evaluation to promote economic efficiency or “value-for-money” in health care, as well as the development and application of stated preference methods to promote societal value and distributive justice in health care priority setting.

Mark I. Taragin, MD, MPH, is an internist and epidemiologist and serves as deputy director of the Office of Medical Affairs at the National Insurance Institute of Israel.

Chelsea Taylor, PhD, MHSc, is a senior program officer at Research for Development (R4D), where she focuses on the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative. Taylor is an epidemiologist who has spent more than 10 years working on the use of data to tell the stories of health both for individuals and health care systems and countries. Her areas of focus have ranged from the Canadian health care system and OECD countries to a broad range of low- and middle-income countries. Before joining R4D, Taylor worked at the Canadian Institute for Health Information, creating a system of relative weights based on national hospitalization data grouping patients with similar clinical issues or requiring similar resources. Taylor holds a PhD in epidemiology and an MHSc in community health and epidemiology from the University of Toronto.

Jeremy Veillard, PhD, is the program manager for the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative at theWorld Bank and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. Prior to joining the World Bank, Veillard was the vice president of research and analysis at the Canadian Institute for Health Information from 2010 to 2015. He is the past president of the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research and was the chair of the OECD Health Quality Indicators Experts Committee from 2013 to 2015. Veillard is a hospital administrator by background and is specialized in quality of care and health system performance.

Hong Wang, MD, PhD, is a senior program officer in the integrated delivery team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His responsibilities at the foundation include leading formulation of the foundation’s position on critical issues in health economics, financing, and systems, particularly related to primary health care development. In addition, he serves as an internal advisor and expert on the effects of health economics, financing, and systems issues. Wang also manages a grant portfolio focused on improving primary health care globally and holds a position of affiliate professor at the Department of Global Health, University of Washington. He has received his medical doctor degree from Beijing Medical University and PhD in health economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Grace Warner, PhD, is an associate professor at the Dalhousie University School of Occupational Therapy. She is cross-appointed to the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology and has an affiliate scientist position at the Nova Scotia Health Authority. Her research focuses on understanding factors that affect the uptake of innovations. She works closely with health system partners to conduct applied health services research, often focused on community-based services for older adults. She is part of a research network in Nova Scotia that includes primary health care researchers, providers, and decision makers. She has a PhD in epidemiology and has done postdoctoral work in health services research and knowledge translation.

Ethan Wong, MPA, is a program officer in the integrated delivery team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His work focuses on improving health care delivery at scale through the primary health care system. His grant portfolio includes work in the LAC region and globally, with emphasis on the role of measurement for improvement. He received his MA in public policy at the University of Washington and BA in economics at Western Washington University.