Staff

Staff

Founder and Senior Scientist- Bibliography

John E. Ware, Jr., Ph.D.

Dr. Ware is the founder of the Health Assessment Lab, as well as its corporate partner QualityMetric, Incorporated. He spent 12 years as Senior Scientist at The Health Institute, New England Medical Center (NEMC) and 13 years prior to that as Senior Research Psychologist at the RAND Corporation. Dr. Ware was the Principal Investigator for the landmark Medical Outcomes Study and developer of the SF-36^® Health Survey and other tools widely used to monitor patients' outcomes. An internationally-recognized leader of the field of patient-reported outcomes assessment, he serves on the faculty of Tufts University School of Medicine and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists:

The Health Assessment Lab draws from a national and international group of specialists and psychometricians:

Jakob B. Bjørner, MD, Ph.D, Senior Scientist - Bibliography

Dr. Bjorner is one of the pioneers in applying modern psychometric theories to health status measurement. His research focuses on development of item banks, modern psychometric methods, and software applications for psychometric analyses and computerized assessment. In collaboration with Dr. John E. Ware, Jr. through the past 10 years, Dr. Bjorner has led the development of numerous computerized adaptive tests of generic and disease-specific health outcomes, including DYNHA^®, the first commercialized CAT system for assessing health outcomes. To date, Dr. Bjorner has published more than a dozen peer-reviewed papers about item bank and CAT construction, one of which won the 2004 Article of the Year Award from the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL). Dr. Bjorner was a senior research fellow at the Danish National Institute of Occupational Health and has previously worked at the University of Copenhagen, where he received a gold medal for research on Quality of Life and HIV. He received his MD and a PhD in medical sociology from the University of Copenhagen.

Barbara Gandek, M.S., Scientist - Bibliography

Ms. Gandek. has worked with the SF-36^® Health Survey and other SF surveys for the past 16 years, focusing on translations and international research. She was guest editor, with Dr. John Ware, of a 300-page special issue of the Journal of Clinical Epidemology entitled “Translating functional health and well-being: International Quality of Life Assessment (IQOLA) Project studies of the SF-36^® Health Survey.” Ms. Gandek has co-authored more than 35 articles related to the development and analysis of patient-based health status measures and three manuals for the SF‑36^®Health Survey, SF-12^® Health Survey and SF-8^TM Health Survey. She also has developed participation measures for use in rehabilitation research, and provided technical assistance to the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey. An Instructor at Tufts University School of Medicine, Ms. Gandek received an M.S. in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health and a B.A. in Economics from Swarthmore College.

Anastasia E. Raczek, MEd, Senior Scientist - Bibliography

Ms. Raczek has been involved in educational, psychological, and health measurement for the past 19 years. She currently serves as Co-Investigator for two NIH-funded grants (Principal Investigator John E. Ware, Jr. PhD) to develop conceptual frameworks and computerized adaptive test (CAT) systems for children’s health. Ms. Raczek has led several studies on the measurement of health outcomes, including the design and development of a CAT system for health-related quality of life (HRQOL) assessment in chronic kidney disease, development and validation of the COPD Population™ Screener, and norm and validation studies for the SF-10™ Health Survey for Children (a parent-completed short-form survey designed to measure physical and psychosocial functioning in pediatric populations). She also was part of the team of researchers at New England Medical Center's Health Institute devoted to the measurement of patient-reported health outcomes, and participated in validation studies of the SF-36^® Health Survey. She previously served as a Research Associate in the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy (CSTEEP) at Boston College, conducting research studies of large-scale assessments with complex sampling designs, policy research, and program evaluations.

Matthias S. F. Rose, MD, Ph.D, Senior Scientist - Bibliography

Dr. Rose has been a Senior Scientist at Health Assessment Lab and QualityMetric Incorporated since December 2004. Before that he worked as an Associate Professor and Assistant Medical Director at the Clinic for Internal Medicine, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Charité University Medicine Berlin. He has a board certification for Internal Medicine and 15 years of clinical experience, working in different departments for internal medicine in three university hospitals in Berlin, and since 1998 as a psychotherapist. His scientific work is focused on exploring the value of Patient-reported Outcome (PRO) assessments for the treatment of chronic conditions. One of his articles, exploring the determinants of PROs of patients with diabetes, was awarded with the Heinrich Bauer Award from the North German Diabetes Society in 1999. In 1997, his development of a German questionnaire assessing the health-related quality of life of patients with diabetes won the Lilly Quality of Life Award. Dr. Rose established his own work group at the Charité applying the Item Response Theory (IRT) to the development of Computer Adaptive Tests (CAT) six years ago, and was the first researcher to receive support from the government-funded German Research Society (DFG) for the development of CATs in health care. They were the first which established CATs on Personal Digital Assistants for use in daily clinical contexts as part of an ePRO system he and his co-workers developed more than a decade ago. Following an initiative from the Berlin Senate, this software system is currently implemented in various German hospitals. Today, he consults with national and international companies developing mobile computer-assisted PRO assessment systems for clinical practice.

Administrative Staff:

Martha Byington, Executive Director

Ms. Byington has been the Executive Director for Health Assessment Lab since June 2005. She has a background in process and quality improvement, health measurement, and healthcare administration at a number of hospital systems in the Boston area. She is a graduate of Smith College and received her MBA with highest honors from Suffolk University. She can be reached at mbyington@hal-health.org.

Blandyna Williams, Office Administrator

Ms. Williams has been with Health Assessment Lab since April 2004. She has her BA with honors from the University Of Western Australia and a post-graduate degree in Library and Information Science from Curtin University in Western Australia. She has worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Polaroid, Waratah Pharmaceuticals and PAREXEL International. She can be reached at bwilliams@hal-health.org.






	Staff Founder and Senior Scientist- Bibliography John E. Ware, Jr., Ph.D. Dr. Ware is the founder of the Health Assessment Lab, as well as its corporate partner QualityMetric, Incorporated. He spent 12 years as Senior Scientist at The Health Institute, New England Medical Center (NEMC) and 13 years prior to that as Senior Research Psychologist at the RAND Corporation. Dr. Ware was the Principal Investigator for the landmark Medical Outcomes Study and developer of the SF-36^® Health Survey and other tools widely used to monitor patients' outcomes. An internationally-recognized leader of the field of patient-reported outcomes assessment, he serves on the faculty of Tufts University School of Medicine and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists: The Health Assessment Lab draws from a national and international group of specialists and psychometricians: Jakob B. Bjørner, MD, Ph.D, Senior Scientist - Bibliography Dr. Bjorner is one of the pioneers in applying modern psychometric theories to health status measurement. His research focuses on development of item banks, modern psychometric methods, and software applications for psychometric analyses and computerized assessment. In collaboration with Dr. John E. Ware, Jr. through the past 10 years, Dr. Bjorner has led the development of numerous computerized adaptive tests of generic and disease-specific health outcomes, including DYNHA^®, the first commercialized CAT system for assessing health outcomes. To date, Dr. Bjorner has published more than a dozen peer-reviewed papers about item bank and CAT construction, one of which won the 2004 Article of the Year Award from the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL). Dr. Bjorner was a senior research fellow at the Danish National Institute of Occupational Health and has previously worked at the University of Copenhagen, where he received a gold medal for research on Quality of Life and HIV. He received his MD and a PhD in medical sociology from the University of Copenhagen. Barbara Gandek, M.S., Scientist - Bibliography Ms. Gandek. has worked with the SF-36^® Health Survey and other SF surveys for the past 16 years, focusing on translations and international research. She was guest editor, with Dr. John Ware, of a 300-page special issue of the Journal of Clinical Epidemology entitled “Translating functional health and well-being: International Quality of Life Assessment (IQOLA) Project studies of the SF-36^® Health Survey.” Ms. Gandek has co-authored more than 35 articles related to the development and analysis of patient-based health status measures and three manuals for the SF‑36^®Health Survey, SF-12^® Health Survey and SF-8^TM Health Survey. She also has developed participation measures for use in rehabilitation research, and provided technical assistance to the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey. An Instructor at Tufts University School of Medicine, Ms. Gandek received an M.S. in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health and a B.A. in Economics from Swarthmore College. Anastasia E. Raczek, MEd, Senior Scientist - Bibliography Ms. Raczek has been involved in educational, psychological, and health measurement for the past 19 years. She currently serves as Co-Investigator for two NIH-funded grants (Principal Investigator John E. Ware, Jr. PhD) to develop conceptual frameworks and computerized adaptive test (CAT) systems for children’s health. Ms. Raczek has led several studies on the measurement of health outcomes, including the design and development of a CAT system for health-related quality of life (HRQOL) assessment in chronic kidney disease, development and validation of the COPD Population™ Screener, and norm and validation studies for the SF-10™ Health Survey for Children (a parent-completed short-form survey designed to measure physical and psychosocial functioning in pediatric populations). She also was part of the team of researchers at New England Medical Center's Health Institute devoted to the measurement of patient-reported health outcomes, and participated in validation studies of the SF-36^® Health Survey. She previously served as a Research Associate in the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy (CSTEEP) at Boston College, conducting research studies of large-scale assessments with complex sampling designs, policy research, and program evaluations. Matthias S. F. Rose, MD, Ph.D, Senior Scientist - Bibliography Dr. Rose has been a Senior Scientist at Health Assessment Lab and QualityMetric Incorporated since December 2004. Before that he worked as an Associate Professor and Assistant Medical Director at the Clinic for Internal Medicine, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Charité University Medicine Berlin. He has a board certification for Internal Medicine and 15 years of clinical experience, working in different departments for internal medicine in three university hospitals in Berlin, and since 1998 as a psychotherapist. His scientific work is focused on exploring the value of Patient-reported Outcome (PRO) assessments for the treatment of chronic conditions. One of his articles, exploring the determinants of PROs of patients with diabetes, was awarded with the Heinrich Bauer Award from the North German Diabetes Society in 1999. In 1997, his development of a German questionnaire assessing the health-related quality of life of patients with diabetes won the Lilly Quality of Life Award. Dr. Rose established his own work group at the Charité applying the Item Response Theory (IRT) to the development of Computer Adaptive Tests (CAT) six years ago, and was the first researcher to receive support from the government-funded German Research Society (DFG) for the development of CATs in health care. They were the first which established CATs on Personal Digital Assistants for use in daily clinical contexts as part of an ePRO system he and his co-workers developed more than a decade ago. Following an initiative from the Berlin Senate, this software system is currently implemented in various German hospitals. Today, he consults with national and international companies developing mobile computer-assisted PRO assessment systems for clinical practice. Administrative Staff: Martha Byington, Executive Director Ms. Byington has been the Executive Director for Health Assessment Lab since June 2005. She has a background in process and quality improvement, health measurement, and healthcare administration at a number of hospital systems in the Boston area. She is a graduate of Smith College and received her MBA with highest honors from Suffolk University. She can be reached at mbyington@hal-health.org. Blandyna Williams, Office Administrator Ms. Williams has been with Health Assessment Lab since April 2004. She has her BA with honors from the University Of Western Australia and a post-graduate degree in Library and Information Science from Curtin University in Western Australia. She has worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Polaroid, Waratah Pharmaceuticals and PAREXEL International. She can be reached at bwilliams@hal-health.org. Home \| Research Projects \| Surveys \| Publications \| Staff \| Contact Us