Skip to Content
Interactive Textbook on Clinical Symptom Research Logo


Home Button

Evaluating Health Care Systems Sections
Currently selected section: Author Bio
Introduction
Model for Organization of Care
Changing Systems to Improve Outcomes
Challenges to Study Design
Components of Care
Practice Changes
Methods of Evaluating Care
Conclusion

 


Chapter 10: Symptom Research-Evaluating Health Care Systems for Improving Symptom Management: Author Biography
 
     

Photo of Amy BonomiAmy Bonomi is a Research Associate at the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation, Center for Health Studies, Group Health Cooperative. Ms. Bonomi completed graduate training in public health at the University of Washington, with a specific emphasis on social and behavioral aspects of disease onset and manifestation. Her research emphasis includes quality of life and health status measurement, primarily in the areas of cancer, chronic pain, and asthma. She is currently serving on a panel of experts at the Mayo Clinic to summarize the body of evidence regarding clinically meaningful change in quality of life scores. Ms. Bonomi also works on measurement approaches to assist health care organizations in evaluating how well they are providing care for people with chronic diseases and has evaluated multi-level system approaches to improve outcomes for people with chronic illnesses. These activities are part of a 5-year, $25 million project funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to improve health services nationwide for the chronically ill. Ms. Bonomi and her colleagues have extended this measurement work to recent research being undertaken by the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA) to develop national health care quality indicators for chronic disease.

Photo of Ed WagnerDr. Wagner is a general internist/epidemiologist and Director of the W.A. MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation at the Center for Health Studies (CHS), Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound. He is also Professor of Health Services at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Current research interests include the development and testing of population-based care models for diabetes, frail elderly, cancer, and other chronic illnesses; the evaluation of the health and cost impacts of chronic disease and cancer interventions, interventions to prevent disability and reduce depressive symptoms in older adults; and evaluating health care innovations directed at the chronically ill. Dr. Wagner has written two books and more than 200 journal articles. As of June 1998, he directs the Improving Chronic Illness Care (ICIC) National Program, a 5-year, $25 million program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to assist health systems nationwide in improving care for the chronically ill. He is also Principal Investigator of the Cancer Research Network, an NCI funded consortium of 10 HMOs conducting collaborative cancer effectiveness research.

Photo of Michael VonKorffMichael Von Korff, ScD is a Senior Investigator at the Center for Health Studies, Group Health Cooperative. He is also an affiliate professor in the departments of psychiatry and health services of the University of Washington Schools of Medicine and Public Health. His major research interests are the management and outcomes of depression and of chronic pain among primary care patients, and determinants of disability and health care use in these patient populations. He serves as an advisor to the World Health Organization's initiative on assessing disability. He has published more than 120 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has received awards for his research from the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine and the American Association for the Study of Headache. He is a fellow of the Society for Behavioral Medicine and the Association for Health Services Research.

Page 1 of 10