People

Howard Degenholtz, PhD

Dr. Degenholtz is Associate Professor of Health Policy & Management, and Associate Director of Research, Center for Bioethics and Health Law. Dr. Degenholtz is a health services researcher who focuses on long-term care and aging. He is currently directing two major studies supported by the Commonwealth Fund: Improving Quality of Life in Nursing Homes and Availability and Use of Health Information Technology in Nursing Homes. He is a member of the Academy for Health Services Research, and the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Degenholtz teaches, "Managing the Health of Populations" to second-year MHA students.

Natalie Bulger, BASW

Natalie Bulger is a Research Assistant in the Department of Health Policy & Management at the University Of Pittsburgh Graduate School Of Public Health. She conducted the field work including the resident interviews, staff satisfaction surveys and created the care plans used throughout the research phase of the Improving Quality of Life in Nursing Homes Through the Use of Structured Resident Interviews study. She received a Bachelors in Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh in April of 2008. Ms. Bulger is currently a MHA candidate at University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health.

Lichun (Rebecca) Chia, PhD, RN

Dr. Chia is currently a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Center for Research on Health Care, University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests are health disparities and improvements of care managements in elderly adults with complex medical conditions and treatments. Dr. Chia received her PhD in Nursing from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Nursing.

Judy Lave, PhD

Dr. Lave is Professor of Health Economics, Director of the Health Administration Program, Director of the Pennsylvania Medicaid Policy Center and co-director of the Center for Research on Health Care at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to coming to the University of Pittsburgh, she was the Director of the Office of Research at the Health Care Financing Administration, now CMS. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy for Social Insurance and is a distinguished fellow of AcademyHealth. She is on the Technical Advisory Group for the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council and on the Board of Health Services for the Institute of Medicine. She was a commissioner on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and its predecessor commission - the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission. She is the author of more than 140 scientific publications.

Jules Rosen, MD

Dr. Rosen is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Katz Graduate School of Business. He serves as the Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry Services at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and is the Director of the ACGME - approved Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Program and Co-Director of the Hartford Foundation Center of Excellence in Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship, Clinician-Educator Track. He went to medical school at the University of Cincinnati and completed his psychiatry residency at the University of Michigan. In 2003, he was named Educator of the Year by the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry. In 2006, he was honored with induction into the “Academy of Master Educators” at the University of Pittsburgh and was awarded the “Golden Apple Teacher of the Year Award” in 2008 by the residents and fellows at the University of Pittsburgh, Dept. of Psychiatry. He has authored over 75 peer-reviewed articles in his subspecialty of geriatric psychiatry. His areas of research interest include pharmacological and behavioral treatment of behavioral disturbances in dementia, nursing home depression, and organizational changes in nursing homes to enhance quality of life.

Technical Advisory Panel

Rosalie A. Kane, PhD    University of Minnesota

Lois J. Cutler, PhD      University of Minnesota

M. Debra Saliba, MD, MPH      VMAC/RAND Corporation, UCLA

Barbara J. Bowers, PhD, RN, FAAN       University of Wisconsin

Robert Connolly, MSW      Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Retired

Mary Jane Koren, MD, MPH      The Commonwealth Fund