June 22, 2015
Todd H. Wagner, PhD
Todd H. Wagner, PhD, is the new Director of HSR&D's Health Economics Resource Center (HERC) in Menlo Park, CA. HERC helps VA researchers determine the cost of VA healthcare, assess cost-effectiveness, and evaluate the efficiency of VA programs and providers to ensure that VA offers Veterans the best possible healthcare value. Dr. Wagner is a health economist who joined VA in 1999, contributing to HERC's initial success. He is interested in healthcare value and efficiency, with a particular focus on how information asymmetries affect consumers, purchasers, and markets. He has published more than 100 papers in health economic, health services, and medical journals. Dr. Wagner also has received research funding from VA, the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is on the editorial board of Medical Decision Making, and also serves on a number of VA committees.
When asked about his past work, Dr. Wagner noted "I've had the chance to work with some amazing researchers in the past 15 years, but two recent projects are highly memorable, in part because they involve working with operational partners to improve VA healthcare." The first project was a large collaboration with HSR&D researcher Rani Elwy, PhD, and colleagues from Clinical Public Health Group to help VA medical centers improve their response to adverse events. Working with VA's Operational Analytics and Reporting and the Office of Productivity, Efficiency, and Staffing, the second project focused on developing a new risk-adjustment model known as Nosos, which creates risk scores for VA patients so that researchers may adjust for risk when comparing treatments or outcomes.
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Wagner to his new role!