Dartmouth Atlas Leadership
Elliott S. Fisher, M.D., M.P.H., Dartmouth Atlas Co-Principal Investigator
Dr. Fisher is Professor of Medicine and Community and Family Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, Director of Population Health and Policy, and Director of the Center for Population Health at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Care Policy and Clinical Practice. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Washington, where he was also a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and received a Master's in Public Health. His research focuses on exploring the causes of the twofold differences in spending observed across U.S. regions and health care systems - and the consequences of these variations for health and health care. He currently serves as co-chair of the National Quality Forum committee developing a new national measurement framework for evaluating and improving health system performance. He has served on the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and is a member of the Institute of Medicine.
David C. Goodman, M.D., M.S., Dartmouth Atlas Co-Principal Investigator
Dr. Goodman is Director of the Center for Health Policy Research and Professor of Pediatrics and of Health Policy at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI). Dr. Goodman received his medical degree at SUNY Upstate Medical Center, completed his Pediatric residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and received an M.S. degree in the evaluative clinical sciences from Dartmouth College. Dr Goodman's research interests include developing new methods for measuring physician resources in order to better identify under- and oversupply of physicians. This work has advanced the understanding of the relationship between area physician capacity, population risks, and health outcomes in perinatal and aged populations. Dr. Goodman leads the analytic work of the Dartmouth Atlas and directs the development of topics and research for the forthcoming Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care Report Series.
John E. Wennberg, M.D., M.P.H., Founder of the Dartmouth Atlas
John E. Wennberg, M.D., M.P.H., is the Peggy Y. Thomson Professor (Chair) in the Evaluative Clinical Sciences and Founder and Director Emeritus of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (formerly the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences). He has been a Professor in the Department of Community and Family Medicine since 1980 and in the Department of Medicine since 1989. Dr. Wennberg is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars. He has received numerous awards, including the Association for Health Services Research's Distinguished Investigator Award, the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award in Clinical Medicine, and the Baxter Foundation's Health Services Research Prize.
With colleague Alan Gittelsohn, he developed a strategy for studying the population-based rates of health resource allocation and utilization (small area analysis), which revealed large variations in the rates among local and regional health care markets, much of which appeared to relate to the distribution of supply of resources and to differences in local medical opinion. Together with colleagues in Maine and Boston, Dr. Wennberg undertook a series of studies designed to reduce scientific uncertainty, primarily in the area of prostate disease (where surgical procedures had been shown to vary by a factor of three or more among neighboring regions). Efforts to clarify the outcomes and the theoretical basis for undertaking prostate surgery led, in turn, to awareness of the importance of patient preference in the rational choice of treatment and to studies involving the patient as an active participant in the choice of treatment. His recent research includes a focus on the question of how many physicians are needed. Dr. Wennberg is the founding editor of The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care.
Kristen K. Bronner, M.A., Managing Editor
Ms. Bronner is a Research Associate with The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and the Managing Editor of the Dartmouth Atlas. She has been a member of the Dartmouth Atlas project team since 1995. Currently she edits, designs graphics, and oversees production of Dartmouth Atlas publications, and works with the investigators, programmers, and analysts to improve and expand the Atlas database. She is also the Atlas webmaster and primary content developer for the Dartmouth Atlas website.
Vincent J. Fusca III, M.M.S. Chief Operating Officer, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
Senior Atlas Authors and Faculty
Jonathan S. Skinner, Ph.D.
Dr. Skinner is the John Sloan Dickey Third Century Chair of Economics at Dartmouth College. His research interests are the determinants of health care spending and outcomes among different income groups in the Medicare population. He is currently studying how high- and low-income groups are treated differently for heart attacks, and to what extent the better survival outcomes for high-income groups are the consequence of differing treatment patterns. He has also studied the redistributional effects of the Medicare system and the time-series pattern of catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditures. His related research in economics focuses on why households save, and why so many households save virtually nothing for their retirement. Dr. Skinner is a member of the Institute of Medicine.
James N. Weinstein, D.O., M.S.
Dr. James Weinstein is the Director of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, succeeding its founder, Dr. John Wennberg. He is a spine surgeon and Professor and Chair of the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery for Dartmouth Medical School and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. He was a lead author of The Dartmouth Atlas of Musculoskeletal Health Care. Dr. Weinstein is interested in informed choice for patients and started the first-in-the-nation Center for Shared Decision Making and the Spine Center at DHMC. He has published over 230 papers and currently is primary investigator for the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT), a $21 million, 14- state clinical trial studying the effectiveness of the most common back surgery procedures.
Jason M. Sutherland, Ph.D., Chief of Data and Analytic Core
Dr. Sutherland is Assistant Professor in the Center for Health Policy Research at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and has extensive experience in the analysis of large, complex longitudinal health services databases and population estimation problems with incomplete information. Dr. Sutherland also has expertise in the evaluation of case mix methods for acute and non-acute care in single-payer health systems. His research interests include health services research, development and evaluation of risk adjustment methods, and the development and application of statistical methods generated through collaborative health services research.
Affiliated Atlas Authors and Investigators
John D. Birkmeyer, M.D.
John Erik-Bell, M.D.
F.L. Lucas, Ph.D.
Paul Merguerian, M.D.
Gerald T. O'Connor, Ph.D., D.Sc.
Anna N. A. Tosteson Sc.D.
Thérèse A. Stukel, Ph.D.
David E. Wennberg, M.D., M.P.H.
Senior Atlas Analytic Staff
Thomas A. Bubolz, Ph.D.
Dr. Bubolz has been on the faculty at Dartmouth Medical School since 1986. He is Senior Research Associate and Senior Lecturer in Community and Family Medicine. He has been chief biostatistician for Medicare's Patient Safety Monitoring System, a nationwide surveillance project using both medical records and administrative data. Dr. Bubolz was a member of CMS's Research Data Assistance Center (ResDAC) where he was Deputy Project Director for training and outreach activities. From 1995-2000 he was a member of AHRQ's Prostate Cancer PORT team. He has developed analytic methods and software to support studies of outcomes and small area variations and has used them in helping to produce the 1996 and 1998 Dartmouth Atlases of Health Care. He was a member of AHCPR's Prostatectomy PORT team, and chaired AHCPR's Use of Claims Data Work Group.
Daniel J. Gottlieb, M.S.
Mr. Gottlieb is a senior analyst who performs statistical analysis and database programming, assists with manuscript preparation, and provides guidance to junior analysts.
Jia Lan, M.S.
Mr. Lan is a programmer who develops the web data tools for the Atlas. He also conducts analysis for Atlas-related research work. Mr. Lan graduated from University of Vermont with an M.S. in Biostatistics.
Zhao Peng, M.S.
As a SAS programmer, Mr. Peng directs the conversion of raw Medicare data received from CMS to SAS data sets for the analytical use of Atlas Project, and assists in the development and implementation of programs for calculating Atlas rates. Mr. Peng graduated from University of Vermont with an M.S. in Biostatistics.
Stephanie R. Raymond, B.A.
Ms. Raymond is Senior Programmer/Analyst for the Dartmouth Atlas Project. She provides project management support to researchers and analysts in defining and implementing complex database structure systems and basic analyses. She works with the analytic research staff during development phases and helps make the transition of ideas/concepts into supportable data programming.
Sandra M. Sharp, S.M.
Ms. Sharp is a research associate who has worked as the lead analyst on the Dartmouth Atlas Project since its inception. With extensive experience in the use of health insurance claims data to conduct small area variation and outcomes studies, she collaborates with investigators on the development of analytic methods and works with analysts and programmers during the implementation and production phases of the Atlas.
Dongmei Wang, M.S.
Ms. Wang is a senior geographic analyst with expertise in spatial analysis and cartography. She develops geographic data for the Atlas project and creates custom maps that are used in Atlas related projects.
Senior Atlas Support Staff
Dean T. Stanley, RHCE
Mr. Stanley is the Network Systems Administrator supporting the Data and Analysis Core for the Dartmouth Atlas Project. He is responsible for the full-time maintenance and operation of the Atlas data systems and for the security protocol to ensure compliance above CMS and HIPAA data security mandates. He works with the primary investigators, analysts, and programmers to ensure that the infrastructure is responsive to their requirements to support data analysis and core research projects.
Phyllis Wright-Slaughter, M.H.A.
Ms. Wright-Slaughter is the Data Librarian for the Dartmouth Atlas Project. She is responsible for working with principal investigators at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice to submit data use requests to CMS and other organizations that provide data to the project, and for maintaining Data Use Agreements. She also works with other research centers and agencies interested in using data housed at the Institute.
Senior Administrative Staff
Suzanne Burge
Martha Smith
Kathy Stroffolino
Rebeca Townsend
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