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Photo Page: LDI at AcademyHealth 2016 Annual Research Meeting
Images From a Variety of Boston Venues
BOSTON — “Today’s Research Driving Tomorrow’s Outcomes” was the theme of this AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting (ARM) and the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics’ scientists and students seemed to epitomize that goal. In front of the largest audience of attendees in AcademyHealth history (above), LDI Senior Fellow and Penn Nursing School Professor Mary Naylor, PhD, RN, received the organization’s “Distinguished Investigator” award (presented here by LDI Senior Fellow and Nursing School Professor Linda Aiken, PhD, RN). Two other Senior Fellows and Penn Medicine Professors — Kevin Volpp and David Asch — won the AcademyHealth “Article-of-the-Year” award and the in-progress research of yet another — Amol Navathe — was selected as a “Best of ARM” presentation. In another separate but related event LDI Senior Fellow Guy David received HSR Journal’s “Article-of-the-Year” award. HSR is an AcademyHealth journal.
Invited to the podium by AcademyHealth President Lisa Simpson (above, left), Mary Naylor addressed an audience of health care delivery research scientists from around the country. She described how during her first week at Penn more than two decades ago the dean of the nursing school connected her with the executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute. She described both as “special places where amazing scholars from many disciplines gather to generate big ideas and work tirelessly to use their findings to impact the health of the public.” Much of Naylor’s remarks addressed the new generation of researchers who she encouraged to be bold, imaginative, tenaciously focused and cognizant of the fact that failures are often normal events along paths that ultimately lead to research success. Listening in the audience (above, right) were LDI’s current crop of 19 Summer Undergraduate Minority Research (SUMR) scholars who are engaged in a three-month immersion in the world of health services research.
Noting ongoing threats to research funding, AcademyHealth President Lisa Simpson, MB, BCh, (above, left) said too few policymakers and members of the public understand the full scope of what health services researchers do. She urged attendees to be more visible in telling the story of what they do and why it matters. Above, right, Perelman School of Medicine Assistant Professor and LDI Senior Fellow Amol Navathe, MD, PhD, presents his latest work. His was one of eight research projects selected as “Best of ARM” out of more than 2,600 submitted for this year’s conference.
Penn Medical School Professor and LDI Policy Director David Grande, MD (above, left), explains a poster about his study that found a tenfold variation in primary care geographic availability across the census tracts of Philadelphia. Above, right, in lively discussions at LDI’s expo hall booth are (l to r) Janet Weiner, PhD, MPH, LDI Associate Director of Health Policy; Austin Frakt, PhD, Associate Professor at Boston University, LDI Adjunct Senior Fellow and famed “Incidental Economist” blogger; Rebecka Rosenquist, MSc, LDI Assistant Director of Health Policy and Communications; and medical student Allan Joseph of the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University.
Perusing the poster hall (above, left) are Perelman School of Medicine Assistant Professor and LDI Senior Fellow Meghan Lane-Fall, MD, MSHP, and Penn Medicine’s Jason Saucier, MSN, CRNP. Above, right, LDI Deputy Director Joanne Levy, MBA, MCP, chats with Jordan Sanders, a Research Assistant at Penn’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research.
The LDI AcademyHealth party took place in Boston’s Back Bay Social Club (above, left) that has the look and feel of a 1930’s speakeasy.
LDI Executive Director and Wharton School Professor Daniel Polsky, PhD, welcomed party guests. Above left (l to r) is Austin Frakt, Polsky and Sean Murphy, PhD, an Associate Professor at Washington State University. Above, right, Penn Medical School Professor and Executive Director of the Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation David Asch, MD, MBA, chats with Molly Frean, a data analyst at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She will be be pursuing a PhD in the Wharton School Health Care Management program this fall. Asch is, along with fellow LDI Senior Fellow Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, the winner of this year’s AcademyHealth “Article-of-the-Year” Award.
Talking health policy over the broccoli dip (above, left) are Rebecka Rosenquist and Austin Frakt. Above, right, former Penn RWJF Clinical Scholar and LDI Fellow Pooja Mehta, MD, discusses old times with Penn Medical School Professor and LDI Senior Fellow Rachel Werner, MD, PhD. Mehta is currently an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine.
David Grande greets old friend Dawn Alley, PhD, a former Penn RWJF Health & Society Scholars student (above, left). Alley is currently Acting Deputy Director of the Preventive and Population Health Care Models Group at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). Above, right, the behind-the-scenes team that puts together LDI’s events: (l to r) Alexa Magyari, a new Penn graduate who will be studying health economics at Berkeley in the fall; Megan Pellegrino , LDI Multimedia Manager and photographer; Jennifer Magazzu, LDI Executive Assistant; and LDI Research Coordinator and Coordinator of the Summer Undergraduate Minority Research (SUMR) program, Safa Browne.