RWJ Outcomes Research and Evaluation CORE

This program provides expertise in evaluating and improving quality of care, determining cost-effective strategies, tracking trends in patterns of care, developing and evaluating disease management and decision support tools, profiling hospital performance, and evaluating the effectiveness of health care strategies. The focus is on improving health care (e.g. cardiovascular disease in diabetes) by examining the balance of safety, effectiveness, and costs of health care delivery. A key goal of the program is to analyze large, complex observational data and translate findings to improve the quality of health care to guide decisions about the allocation of health care resources. The Core, led by Harlan Krumholz (a DERC member), consists of clinical investigators, statisticians, computer scientists, economists, epidemiologists, management experts, and administrative staff. They create and manage large national databases as well as coordinate research efforts with collaborative partners, including CMS, the Department of Defense, NHLBI, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the CDC.