Overview
Cleveland Clinic Community Care's Center for Value-Based Care Research (CVCR) conducts research on novel interventions that improve value in healthcare by increasing quality and/or decreasing costs. We seek to deliver the right care, at the right time, to the right patients, at lower cost. Established in 2013, CVCR includes nine full-time investigators (MDs and PhDs) with primary appointments as well as adjunct faculty from health services and outcomes research groups from across Cleveland Clinic. CVCR researchers will employ multidisciplinary teams and community partnerships to conduct research focused on identifying and disseminating high value healthcare.
Mission and vision
Mission
To make quality healthcare possible for all Americans by conducting research to identify value in healthcare.
Vision
Cleveland Clinic Community Care's Center for Value-Based Care Research (CVCR) will be leaders in the development, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of value-based, patient-centered healthcare. CVCR will focus on the following areas:
- Development and use of personalized risk assessment and shared decision-making tools.
- Delivery system changes, including new care structures, payment models, incentive programs and care paths.
- Observational studies that take advantage of variation in care among a large number of providers to assess comparative effectiveness of interventions and to identify best practices to improve the quality of care.
- Novel uses of health IT, including decision support at the point of care, incorporating patient-reported information into medical decision-making, smart reminder systems and patient education.
- End-of-life care, with an emphasis on improving quality of life, patient autonomy, dignity and comfort.
A unique environment for value-based care research
Cleveland Clinic Community Care has a number of resources that make it uniquely positioned to pursue this work:
- The culture of Cleveland Clinic has always embraced innovation, and there are multiple initiatives under way to improve value-based care across the enterprise.
- As a staff model, integrated healthcare system using a shared electronic health record (EHR), Cleveland Clinic can both implement new programs and collect data on clinical outcomes through its EHR. With more than ten million visits annually, the EHR provides valuable information for comparative effectiveness and quality of care research.
- With nearly 400 primary care providers practicing in 70 locations throughout Northeast Ohio, Cleveland Clinic Community Care provides an ideal setting for conducting research about how to better structure primary care delivery. Innovative structures being studied include team care, in which medical assistants take on a larger role in the visit, including scribing, and the hiring of case managers to assist with care coordination.
- CVCR investigators work closely with statisticians in Quantitative Health Sciences to build personalized risk calculators based on data obtained from the EHR. These mathematical models can predict which patients will benefit from particular treatments and recommendations from the models can be incorporated into the EHR for use at the point of care.
Staff
Michael Rothberg, MD, MPH
Director
Michael B. Rothberg, MD, MPH, is the Vice Chair for Research in Cleveland Clinic Community Care and Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. He practices general internal medicine and directs the Center for Value-Based Care Research. His research examines quality of care and decision making for common medical conditions, with an emphasis on tailoring treatment to patients based on individual risk and preferences. His methods include large observational studies, risk modeling and cost-effectiveness analysis. His areas of interest include pneumonia and influenza, venous thromboembolism, coronary artery disease and public reporting of healthcare quality. The goal of his research is to help physicians and patients make better healthcare decisions in order to improve outcomes and control costs.
Dr. Rothberg completed a research fellowship in Medical Informatics from the National Library of Medicine and has received research funding from AHRQ, NHLBI, NIA, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation. Dr. Rothberg received his medical degree from New York University and his Master’s in Public Health from Harvard University.
To contact Dr. Rothberg, email rothbem@ccf.org.
Jordan Alpert, PhD
Investigator
Jordan Alpert, PhD is Associate Staff at Cleveland Clinic Community Care. Dr. Alpert is a health communication scientist focused on enhancing the quality of the interaction that occurs between patients, providers, and caregivers. His research has concentrated on the influence of health information technology to facilitate patient-provider communication. Dr. Alpert has explored how technology such as electronic health records, patient portals, and wearable devices affect patterns of communication among patients and providers. He utilizes mixed methodology, with a particular focus on qualitative methods.
Before joining the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Alpert was an assistant professor at the University of Florida. He received his PhD from George Mason University and was a postdoctoral fellow in cancer prevention and control in the Department of Health Behavior and Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.
To contact Dr. Alpert, email alpertj@ccf.org.
Abhishek Deshpande, MD, PhD
Investigator
Abhishek Deshpande, M.D., Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and Associate Staff in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Infectious Diseases, Cleveland Clinic.
His diverse research interests include evidence synthesis, comparative effectiveness, health services research outcome studies, clinical practice guideline development and infectious diseases epidemiology. His research focuses on prevention of healthcare-associated infections with an emphasis on Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). His methods include large observational studies, evidence synthesis including meta-analyses, outcomes research and clinical trials. His areas of interest include hospital-acquired infections, pneumonias and infection control. The overall goal of his research is to help reduce the burden and prevent hospital-acquired infections.
Dr. Deshpande has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles, scientific presentations and book chapters in medical and health services research journals. His research is funded by extramural grants from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and private industry sources. He is as a member of the Health Care Research Training (HCRT) Study Section, AHRQ and serves as an Academic Editor for PLOS One.
To contact Dr. Deshpande, email deshpaa2@ccf.org.
Hamlet Gasoyan, DMD, PhD, MPH
Investigator
Hamlet Gasoyan, DMD, PhD, MPH is an Associate Staff in Cleveland Clinic Community Care. His research focuses on value-based care, health insurance design, health disparities, and health outcomes with applications to obesity, obesity-related chronic diseases, and obesity-related cancers. The goal of his research is to help develop evidence-based recommendations for patient-centered care, improve population health outcomes, and control health care costs. His methods include large observational studies, evidence synthesis, and outcomes research. Dr. Gasoyan’s work has appeared in the leading academic journals in his field, including Health Affairs, Medical Care, and Obesity.
Dr. Gasoyan received a PhD degree in health policy and health services research from Temple University, Masters in Public Health degree with a concentration in health care organizations and management from the University of South Florida, and a Doctor of Stomatology (Dental Medicine) degree from Yerevan State Medical University in Armenia. He also completed postdoctoral training in health services research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
To contact Dr. Gasoyan, email gasoyah@ccf.org.
Phuc Le, PhD, MPH
Investigator
Phuc Le is Staff at Cleveland Clinic Community Care and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. Her research focuses on the application of decision science and health economics to support evidence-based medical decision making and inform public health policy. Her methods include costing, disease modeling, cost-effectiveness analysis, and observational data analysis. Dr. Le currently leads multiple health economics and disease modeling studies in different areas including Haemophilus influenzae type b and herpes zoster vaccines, venous thromboembolism prophylaxis, antibiotics use in patients with community acquired pneumonia, comparative cost-effectiveness of screening and treatment for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in patients with diabetes and pre-diabetes.
She was awarded the Lee B. Lusted prize for the best abstract in Applied Health Economics and the Best Paper by a Young Investigator Award, both from the Society for Medical Decision Making.
Dr. Le obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences in Vietnam. She then earned her MPH in Community Health and Ph.D in Health Economics at the University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston. Dr. Le received the Steven M. Teutsch Prevention Effectiveness Fellowship and AcademyHealth Delivery System Science Fellowship for her postdoctoral training. Her research has been funded by the NIH Fogarty International Center, International Society for Infectious Diseases, American Academy of Implant Dentistry Foundation, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
To contact Dr. Le, email lep@ccf.org.
Kathryn Martinez, PhD
Investigator
Kathryn A. Martinez, PhD, MPH is Staff at Cleveland Clinic Community Care. Dr. Martinez is a health services researcher with an emphasis on medical decision making. Her specific interest is in how patients and physicians use information about risks and benefits of different treatment strategies to inform patient-centered and evidence-based decisions.
Dr. Martinez holds a BA from Carnegie Mellon University, an MPH from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in Health Services Research and Policy from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her dissertation work was funded by the Medical Outcomes Trust for advancing the science of patient-centered outcomes research. Following her PhD, Dr. Martinez completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the VA Ann Arbor Center for Clinical Management Research and the University of Michigan in the Division of General Medicine, where she was a member of the Cancer Surveillance and Outcomes Research Team.
To contact Dr. Martinez, email martink12@ccf.org.
Matthew Pappas, MD, MPH
Investigator
Matthew Pappas, MD, MPH is a Staff Physician in the Department of Hospital Medicine and an Assistant Professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. Dr. Pappas is a hospitalist and health services researcher whose goal is to make medicine simultaneously more personalized and more rigorously grounded in the best-available evidence. His ongoing work focuses preoperative testing and perioperative outcomes.
Prior to the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Pappas was at the University of Michigan, where he completed medical school, residency, and was on faculty as a Clinical Lecturer. He also completed a health services research fellowship through the Ann Arbor VA and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Clinical Scholars Program curriculum. Dr. Pappas’ published research has focused on the balance of benefits and harms for common decisions facing general internists and hospitalists.
To contact Dr. Pappas, email pappasm@ccf.org.
Elizabeth Pfoh, PhD, MPH
Investigator
Elizabeth R. Pfoh, PhD, MPH is Staff at Cleveland Clinic’s Medicine Institute and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Pfoh is a Health Services Researcher interested in understanding how best to deliver high quality outpatient care, particularly for patients with multiple chronic conditions. She has expertise in evaluating the impact of system changes on process measures of care and patient outcomes, the impact of health information technology on patient safety and physician satisfaction, and long-term physical and mental health outcomes after hospital discharge. Dr. Pfoh has used both quantitative and qualitative methods in her work. She is currently working on several projects related to increasing patient-centered, evidence-based care in the primary care setting. In 2021, Dr. Pfoh received the Excellence in Research Award from Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.
Prior to coming to Cleveland Clinic, Elizabeth was a General Internal Medicine postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She received her PhD in Health Services Research and Policy from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2014. Her dissertation, “The Value of Measuring Quality of Primary Care using Patient-Reported Depression Collected Through Electronic Health Records”, has been published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and Psychiatry Services. In 2010, she received a MPH from Columbia Mailman School of Public Health where her focus was health promotion. She was supported on a pre-doctoral institutional training grant from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and a post-doctoral institutional training grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration. Her dissertation work was fully supported by the Alvin R. Tarlov & John E. Ware Jr. Doctoral Award in Patient Reported Outcomes from the Health Assessment Lab.
To contact Dr. Pfoh, email pfohe@ccf.org.
Glen Taksler, PhD
Investigator
Glen Taksler is Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and Associate Staff at Cleveland Clinic’s Medicine Institute. His research focuses on disease prevention, with particular attention to improving the understanding of factors that improve long-term health. Some of Dr. Taksler’s recent work includes developing methods to personalize major preventive health care guidelines based on the unique risk factors of individual patients, prioritizing preventive health care services based on their potential to improve longevity, analyzing communitywide (herd immunity) benefits of influenza vaccination, and explaining racial disparities in vitamin D deficiency and prostate cancer mortality. His methods include decision analytic modeling, predictive risk modeling, economic analysis and observational study designs using large datasets.
He was awarded the Most Outstanding Paper by a Young Investigator Award by the Society for Medical Decision Making and the Milton W. Hamolsky Award for Most Outstanding Junior Faculty Abstract by the Society of General Internal Medicine.
Dr. Taksler holds a BA in Economics and Mathematical Sciences from Johns Hopkins University, an AM and PhD in Economics from Harvard University, and a postdoctoral fellowship in Population Health and Medicine from New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Taksler’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Cleveland, New York State Health Foundation, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
To contact Dr. Taksler, email taksleg@ccf.org.
Adjunct Staff
Andrei Brateanu, MD, FACP
Investigator
Andrei Brateanu, MD, FACP, is the Senior Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program in the Medicine Institute of Cleveland Clinic and Associate Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic Lerner School of Medicine. He practices general internal medicine and directs the Cleveland Clinic Internal Medicine Residency Program Evaluation Committee. His research focus is in the area of clinical education, with particular interest in emerging strategies to improve residents’ teaching and evaluation. Over the course of his academic career, he was the principal investigator of several research grants, co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles, three book chapters and co-edited two books. On multiple occasions, he chaired sessions at national and regional professional meetings and led workshops aimed at resident education and competency assessment. He is currently a member of three Medicine Institute committees and two Cleveland Clinic research awards committees, including the William E. Lower Award.
Dr. Brateanu received his medical degree from Iasi Medical University, Romania and completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the Center for Value, Quality and Effectiveness Research at Cleveland Clinic.
To contact Dr. Brateanu, email abratean@ccf.org.
Jarrod Dalton, PhD
Investigator
Dr. Dalton is Associate Staff with expertise in data science, risk prediction modeling, econometric analysis, and simulation. My research is focused on collaborative, systems-based approaches to understanding heterogeneity in risk, treatment effectiveness and outcomes among populations. He has developed methods for evaluating real clinical treatment decisions within the context of model-recommended treatments which optimize outcome risk, and shown through this methodology that hospitals with greater rates of discordant therapy in relation to model recommendations have worse risk-adjusted outcomes.
After completing an NIH-funded post-doctoral (KL2) training scholarship in translational science within the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Cleveland, Dr. Dalton partnered with investigators at MetroHealth System on an NIA-funded R01 project to develop forecasting models for atherosclerotic risk in heterogeneous populations defined according to SEP and age. In another population health research effort, he is partnering with Maryam Valapour, MD, who is a Cleveland Clinic transplant pulmonologist with health policy expertise, on an NHBLI-funded R01 project to improve the methodology used to build risk-predictions for the lung transplant population focusing on illness severity, timing of transplant, and maximizing of post-transplant survival benefit.
His scientific contributions have earned the designation of Top-Ranked Abstract at 3 recent Annual Meetings of the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM; 2014, 2016 and 2018), and, in 2018, the 2018 SMDM Outstanding Paper by a Young Investigator Award for his Annals of Internal Medicine paper on neighborhood-level risk variation in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. He currently has 89 peer-reviewed publications with a total of 3,207 citations (h-index: 31).
To contact Dr. Dalton, email daltonj@ccf.org.
Aaron Hamilton, MD, MBA, FACP, SFHM
Investigator
Dr. Aaron Hamilton is a practicing Hospitalist and he currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer at Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest Hospital.
As CMO at Hillcrest, Dr. Hamilton works with Hillcrest’s Executive Leadership team to help direct, coordinate and evaluate the operation of the hospital. Fiscal Responsibility, driving high reliability in Quality and Safety, Culture and Process Improvement, Patient and Family Centered Care for better patient outcomes including active research studies on VTE prevention, inpatient pneumonia care and patient mobility are key areas of focus. In addition supporting the integrity of our culture and caregivers at Hillcrest and throughout the health system is also a top priority.
He is an active leader nationally and locally in several professional organizations including: American Society for Healthcare Risk Management and the Society of Hospital Medicine.
Dr. Hamilton earned both his medical and business degrees from the University of Chicago. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Dr. Hamilton has leaned into the Hillcrest’s DI Council and also the healthcare partners group – representing the hospital leadership team.
To contact Dr. Hamilton, email hamilta3@ccf.org.
Jessica Hohman, MD, MSc, MSc
Investigator
Jessica Hohman, MD MSc MSc is the President and Medical Director of the Cleveland Clinic Accountable Care Organization. In this capacity, Dr. Hohman oversees 90,000 beneficiaries, with a particular focus on designing interventions to improve healthcare quality and value. She has led a portfolio of population health initiatives—including the development of a data-driven performance management program, new home-based post-acute care models, and collaborative approaches to improve end-of-life care.
Dr. Hohman is also a physician investigator in the Center for Value-Based Care Research. She is a grant-funded researcher who has presented at national meetings and co-authored publications on health IT, telemedicine, healthcare financing, and post-acute care. She maintains an active clinical practice in Internal Medicine, seeing both outpatients and inpatients and is involved in the teaching and mentorship of Case Western and Cleveland Clinic Lerner School of Medicine students and residents.
Previously, Dr. Hohman was the Founder and Chief Medical Officer of CarePort Health, an end-to-end platform managing patient transitions across the care continuum and early pioneer in post-acute outcomes management. Her prior work experience spans health technology, academic, and governmental sectors, including positions at LSE Health, the Massachusetts Health Connector, and the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. Her co-authored studies of value-based initiatives have been published in the Harvard Business Review and are used as core teaching materials in Harvard Business School’s healthcare curriculum.
Dr. Hohman earned an MSc Health Policy, Planning, and Financing and an MSc Social Research Methods (Health Economics) as a Marshall Scholar at the London School of Economics. She graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed Internal Medicine-Primary Care residency at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) followed by General Internal Medicine Fellowship at Harvard.
To contact Dr. Hohman, email hohmanj@ccf.org.
Joshua K. Johnson, DPT, PhD
Investigator
Joshua K. Johnson, DPT, PhD is a physical therapist researcher with a primary professional staff appointment in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He treats patients hospitalized across the various clinical institutes at Cleveland Clinic Main Campus. His research focuses on using patient outcomes and clinical process measures to evaluate and improve the value of health services provided by rehabilitation clinicians across the continuum of care. His work incorporates principles of a learning health system in which internal clinical data and experience is combined with external evidence to facilitate enhanced value-based care. In those efforts, Dr. Johnson primarily employs observational study designs while incorporating components of implementation science in partnership with health system administrators and clinicians across multiple disciplines.
Dr. Johnson completed his undergraduate training at Brigham Young University. He holds a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from Arcadia University and a PhD in Rehabilitation Science with an emphasis in evidence-based practice from the University of Utah. Dr. Johnson’s research has been funded by the Foundation for Physical Therapy Research, the Center on Health Services Training and Research (CoHSTAR), the Academy of Acute Care Physical Therapy, the Learning Health System Rehabilitation Research Network (LeaRRn), and the Cleveland Clinic Neurological Institute.
To contact Dr. Johnson, email johnsoj8@ccf.org.
Andrew Kern-Goldberger, MD, MSCE
Investigator
Andrew Kern-Goldberger, MD, MSCE is an Associate Staff Physician in the Department of Pediatric Hospital Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Children’s and a research investigator in the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Value-Based Care Research. Dr. Kern-Goldberger is a pediatric hospitalist whose research is broadly dedicated to understanding and improving the delivery of healthcare to hospitalized children and leverages rigorous observational methods, clinical informatics, qualitative approaches, and implementation science. His ongoing work is focused on understanding and improving value in inpatient subspecialty consultation.
Dr. Kern-Goldberger completed the Honors Program in Medical Education at Northwestern University and received his medical degree from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He completed his pediatric residency training at Columbia University Medical Center – New-York Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. He then matriculated into a Pediatric Hospital Medicine fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he completed the Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology (MSCE) degree program at the University of Pennsylvania. During his fellowship training, he also served as an Editorial Fellow at the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
- Current Projects
- Completed Publications
To contact Dr. Kern-Goldberger, email kerna3@ccf.org.
Anita Misra-Hebert, MD, MPH
Investigator
Anita D. Misra-Hebert, MD, MPH is Director of the Healthcare Delivery & Implementation Science Center at Cleveland Clinic and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. She is a practicing physician in the Department of Internal Medicine and a clinician investigator in the Center for Value-Based Care Research, both in Cleveland Clinic Community Care. Her research involves studying initiatives to improve population health through primary care redesign efforts using mixed methods, funded by a K08 grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Dr. Misra-Hebert holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, where she focuses on diabetes outcomes research with a multidisciplinary team using electronic medical record data. Her methods include observational studies and implementation research using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods.
Dr. Misra-Hebert completed her undergraduate training at Northwestern University, obtained her medical degree from the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, completed her residency training at the University of Cincinnati Hospitals, and previously served as clinical faculty in General Medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals. She completed the Veterans Affairs National Quality Scholars Fellowship program and earned a master’s degree in public health at Case Western Reserve University in 2013.
To contact Dr. Misra-Hebert, email misraa@ccf.org.
Robert Saper, MD, MPH
Investigator
Dr. Saper is Chair, Department of Wellness and Preventive Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1988 and completed family medicine residency and chief residency at UCSF in 1992. After being in private practice for eight years in the San Francisco Bay Area, he completed the Harvard NIH-funded research fellowship in integrative medicine research. In 2004 Dr. Saper joined the faculty of Boston University and Boston Medical Center and founded the Program for Integrative Medicine and Health Disparities. Dr. Saper was Professor of Family Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and held many roles including Director of Integrative Medicine, Chair of Appointments and Promotions, Academic Fellowship Director, and Patient Experience Champion. His research studies the safety and effectiveness of integrative medicine approaches for common primary care problems such as back pain, particularly in underserved populations. Dr. Saper’s JAMA 2004 and 2008 publications demonstrating the presence of lead, mercury, and arsenic in traditional Indian medicines are highly cited and catalyzed reform in dietary supplement regulation nationally and internationally. His 2017 Annals of Internal Medicine paper demonstrating non-inferiority of yoga to physical therapy for chronic low back pain has contributed to the growing evidence base for nonpharmacologic therapies for chronic pain. He has authored over 65 peer-reviewed publications and received NIH career development, R01, U01 and PCORI grant funding. Dr. Saper is a past chair of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health. He teaches and mentors medical students, residents, fellows, and junior faculty.
To contact Dr. Saper, email saperr@ccf.org.
View all current projects for Center for Value-Based Care Research here.
eNewsletters
Value Added – The Quarterly Newsletter of the CVCR
2024
2023
2022
- First Quarter 2022 newsletter
- Second Quarter 2022 newsletter
- Third Quarter 2022 newsletter
- Fourth Quarter 2022 newsletter
2021
eNewsletters 2017-2020
2020
- First Quarter 2020 newsletter
- Second Quarter 2020 newsletter
- Third Quarter 2020 newsletter
- Fourth Quarter 2020 newsletter
2019
2018
2017
Fellows Program
Cleveland Clinic Community Care's CVCR Fellows Program engages clinicians and staff in clinical research. The program includes didactic lessons and hands-on research experience through collaborations with seasoned research personnel. Fellows are appointed for an 18-month period, are expected to attend weekly meetings where they contribute their knowledge to colleagues' projects and complete at least one research project of their own.
Those interested in the program may contact Elizabeth Pfoh, PhD, MPH at pfohe@ccf.org.
