About the Center for Healthcare Delivery Science
What We Do
The Center for Healthcare Delivery Science’s programs and activities are available to all clinical investigators, research staff and operational leaders at BIDMC. One of the Center’s highest priorities is building the research infrastructure and tools required to support the Center’s programs in each of the focus areas described below. In addition, the Center brings together core faculty and senior advisors with deep expertise in healthcare delivery science, emerging research methods, biostatistics and epidemiology, and staff expertise in project management and data management. These faculty and staff experts serve as mentors to Innovation grant awardees and other junior investigators. The Center’s management of InSIGHT Core is an important part of this infrastructure.
The contribution of machine learning to clinical care led by Steven Horng, MD. Machine learning has the potential to capitalize on the data-rich electronic health record to improve care by enabling risk predictions and insights. Our work focuses on using new data science methods to leverage this opportunity to help rather than hinder the bedside clinician; meaningfully inform and change care rather than repackaging information available in other ways; and, address head on embedded inequities in the care delivered to different classes and groups of patients.
Achieving equity in healthcare delivery led by Chloe Zera, MD, MPH and the Center’s Leadership Group for Advancing Equity in Healthcare Delivery including, Drs. Leonor Fernandez, Rose Molina, Daniele Ölveczky and Carrie Tibbles. The Group’s work is aimed at promoting health equity at BIDMC by facilitating action-oriented research focused on clinical operations and care delivery with broad applicability across specialties. This effort includes identifying needed infrastructure, tools for researchers, and criteria for evaluating health equity considerations in all Center research projects. The Group’s highest priority is to improve the accuracy of data collection critical to designing interventions.
Achieving high value care led by Timothy Anderson, MD, MAS. Value has been defined as the measure of benefit to patients/cost. The Center’s work advances the development and testing of innovative care models that seek to deliver high value, equitable, and patient-centered healthcare. This effort focuses on clinical operations and care delivery across all clinical departments and care settings. Of particular interest is leveraging what healthcare delivery scientists in the outpatient setting have learned about low value, wasteful care to identify opportunities for interventions in inpatient care. Dr. Anderson’s work in this area includes examining how transitional care management (TCM) can be used to mitigate post-hospital risks for primary care patients at BIDMC. TCM protocols, including time-based targets for patient outreach, follow up visits and care coordination, are associated with improved clinical outcomes and higher reimbursement rates. However, many of these protocols are underused locally and nationally.