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Dr. Lawrence P. Casalino has been named chief of the Division of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research in the Department of Public Health at Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The Division focuses on evaluating the quality and efficiency of clinical care and of organized interventions to improve care, with the goal of developing sound health care systems and policies.

"I am very happy that Dr. Casalino has joined us to head the Division of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research," says Dr. Alvin I. Mushlin, the Nanette Laitman Professor of Public Health, professor of medicine, and chairman of the Department of Public Health. "His scholarship and extensive accomplishments in the field of health services research make him strongly suited to expand the scope and activities of the division, and to lead it forward."

Dr. Casalino's research focus is patient safety and quality, managed care, and health care disparities. His current projects include evaluating chronic disease management in small medical groups and physician organizations, the transformation of safety-net clinics into medical homes where patient care is coordinated, physician practice performance and health system improvement initiatives.

"I look forward to working with Dr. Mushlin and colleagues to further the excellent work being done by the Division of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research. One focus will be strengthening ties to the clinical programs of NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medical College," says Dr. Casalino. "We will also continue to encourage and support clinical outcomes research at this medical center, throughout the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and together with public health research initiatives nationally."

As part of his efforts, Dr. Casalino will recruit additional faculty and staff members to the Division.

Dr. Casalino holds a B.A. degree in philosophy from Boston College; an M.D. from the University of California at San Francisco; and an M.P.H. and a Ph.D. in health services research from the University of California at Berkeley. He comes to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell from the University of Chicago Department of Health Studies, where he was associate professor, and before that, assistant professor. Previously, he worked for 20 years as a family physician in private practice in Half Moon Bay, Calif.

He is the recipient of a prestigious Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and has been funded by government and private organizations, including the Commonwealth Fund and the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In addition to his research activities, Dr. Casalino has directed a required course in the social context of medicine for first-year medical students and has developed other courses for medical and graduate students in a variety of disciplines, including law, business, public policy, and sociology. He serves on a large number of advisory boards and expert panels, and as a reviewer for many medical and policy journals. He has published nearly 50 articles in leading journals and written 16 book chapters, monographs and reports.

Dr. Casalino was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and lives with his wife, the poet Mary Margaret Sloan in Manhattan.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, located in New York City, is one of the leading academic medical centers in the world, comprising the teaching hospital NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medical College, the medical school of Cornell University. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell provides state-of-the-art inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine, and is committed to excellence in patient care, education, research and community service. Weill Cornell physician-scientists have been responsible for many medical advances — from the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer to the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial for gene therapy for Parkinson's disease, the first indication of bone marrow's critical role in tumor growth, and, most recently, the world's first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally-conscious brain-injured patient. NewYork-Presbyterian, which is ranked sixth on the U.S.News & World Report list of top hospitals, also comprises NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/The Allen Pavilion. Weill Cornell Medical College is the first U.S. medical college to offer a medical degree overseas and maintains a strong global presence in Austria, Brazil, Haiti, Tanzania, Turkey and Qatar. For more information, visit www.med.cornell.edu.