| Release
Distinguished
Professor Outlines Research to Improve Health
Care
Contact: Karl Luntta (518) 437-4980
ALBANY, N.Y. (April 28, 2004) -- Edward L. Hannan
will present "Using Outcomes Research to
Assess and Improve the Quality of Health Care"
at the annual University at Albany Distinguished
Professor Lecture series. The lecture, free and
open to the public, is Friday, April 30, 2004,
2 p.m. at the Edward and Frances Gildea George
Education Center at the UAlbany School of Public
Health, East Campus, Rensselaer.
Hannan, who received the University's highest
honor of Distinguished Professor in 2003, is acclaimed
for bringing evidence-based medicine to the attention
of practicing clinicians, and is a leading expert
in the country on health care quality and outcomes.
His work has led to tangibly better outcomes of
care for those undergoing cardiovascular diagnosis
and treatment because of his unique mathematical
and methodological skills. While attracting external
funding that exceeds $2.6 million annually, he
is widely known as excellent teacher with a strong
service record whose courses are highly sought
after by graduate students. Hannan is also known
for mentoring students, and teaching them how
to read the literature in medicine and healthcare
delivery.
In his letter nominating Hannan for a Distinguished
Professorship, School of Public Health Dean Peter
Levin wrote that Hannan "�was one of the
first investigators to demonstrate the inverse
relationship that exists between volume and outcome
as they relate to specific surgical procedures,
both cardiac and non-cardiac, as well as to cardiac
interventions. Thus, he proved that safer surgery
and fewer complications from high-risk cardiovascular
procedures occur in those institutions where physicians
perform a higher volume of these complex procedures.
More recently, he designed the methodology for
and co-authored a Journal of the American Medical
Association article, �Mortality in Medicare Beneficiaries
Following Coronary Artery By-Pass Graft Surgery
in States with and without Certificate of Need
Regulation.� His discovery documents, for the
first time, that states which regulate the number
of hospitals allowed to perform cardiac surgery,
and thus have greater numbers of cases per hospital,
also have better outcomes.�
For the last several years, Dr. Hannan has developed
the use of clinical and administrative databases
for cardiac surgery, angioplasty, trauma care,
carotid endarterectomy, cancer and hip fractures.
His databases have been used to identify risk
factors related to mortality and complications,
to predict the occurrence of these adverse events,
and to assess provider performance. Articles describing
this work have appeared in The Journal of the
American Medical Association, The New England
Journal of Medicine, Medical Care, The Annals
of Thoracic Surgery, The Journal of Trauma, Health
Services Research, The Journal of the American
College of Cardiology, and numerous other journals.
He has been appointed a full fellow of the American
College of Cardiology, a rare honor for a non-physician.
Professor Hannan, who chairs the Department of
Health Policy, Management and Behavior in the
School of Public Health and is on the faculty
of the Department of Public Administration and
Policy in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs,
earned his Ph.D. in industrial engineering and
operations research from the University of Massachusetts.
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