Jeffrey H. Silber

Past Courses

• BIBB399 - INDEPENDENT RESEARCH

  Individual research of an experimental nature with a member of the standing faculty leading to a written paper. The grade is based primarily on a serious term paper describing original research carried out by the student. Students must submit a proposal prior to registering. During the semester, students must attend two seminars to discuss planning and independent research project, ethical concerns in research and writing a scientific paper. Attendance at the meetings is mandatory. Students doing more than one credit of independent study will be required to present a poster at the annual BBB Symposium.

• BIBB499 - ADV INDEPENDENT RESEARCH

  Continuation of BIBB 399 research. Students will be required to give an oral presentation of their research at the annual BBB symposium Honors Seminar and attend weekly seminars.

• EPID580 - OUTCOMES RESEARCH

  This course is divided into two main parts. The first part addresses issues related to the measurement of quality in health care. Included is a review of theclassical structure-process-outcome quality paradigm. The paradigm's strengths and limitations are addressed. This part especially focuses on outcome measure of quality and examines the validity of alternative measures. The second part deals with observational, or quasi-experimental, research studies. It addresses the advantages and limitations of alternative designs, and covers the role of clinical risk adjustment in observational studies of medical interventions. It focuses on the problem of selection bias, and reviews recent methods for dealing with this bias, such as instrumental variables.

• HCMG212 - HC QUALITY & OUTCOMES

  This course will familiarize students with methods used to assess the quality of hospital or provider health care using outcomes data, and to understand and evaluate studies involving health care outcomes. Students are exposed to the mechanics of hospital quality evaluation and challenged to evaluate the medical and health services research literature on health care evaluation, as well as to make inferences regarding hospital quality and the comparison or rankings of hospitals or providers. Topics will include the history of health care outcomes analysis; the conceptual framework for outcome studies; consumer demand for information; an overview of medical data and data collection systems; a description of outcome statistics and severity adjstments currently in use; the study of excess variation in outcomes; and the use of guidelines to assess outcomes. By the end of the course, students will have developed a thorough appreciation of the current methods used by policy makers, researchers, and health care providers to evaluate medical outcomes, as well as those used by consumers to choose hospitals and providers.

• HCMG900 - PROSEMINAR IN HSR

  This course is intended to provide entering doctoral students with information on the variety of health economics models, methods, topics, and publication outlets valued and used by faculty in the HCMG doctoral program and outside of it. The course has two main parts: the first, to acquaint students with theoretical modeling tools used frequently by health economists. This part of the course involves a number of lectures coupled with students' presentations from the health economics, management and operations research community at Penn on a research method or strategy they have found helpful and they think is important for all doctoral students to know.

• HPR 580 - OUTCOMES RESEARCH

  This course is divided into two main parts. The first part addresses issues related to the measurement of quality in healthcare. Included is a review of the classical-structure-process-outcome quality paradigm. The paradigm's strengths and limitations are addressed. This part especially focuses on outcome measures of quality and examines the validity of alternative measures. The second part deals with observational, or quasi-experimental, research studies. It addresses the advantages and limitations of alternative designs, and covers the role of clinical risk adjustment in observational studies of medical interventions. It focuses on the problem of selection bias, and reviews recent methods for dealing with this bias, such as instrumental variables.

• Nancy Abramson Wolfson Endowed Chair of Health Services Research, 2013
• AcademyHealth Article-of-the-Year, 2011
• AcademyHealth Abstract-of-the-Year, 2007
• The Hummeler Research Prize (Article-of-the-Year), Joseph Stokes, Jr. Research Institute, 2003
• AcademyHealth (formerly Association for Health Services Research) Article-of-the-Year, 2003
• Samuel P. Martin Health Services Research Award, 2000
• Ethel Brown Foerderer Fund for Excellence Award, 1997

• Check Up: Breast cancer: Why blacks fare worse, Philadelphia Inquirer - 08/25/2013
• Study finds why black women less likely to survive breast cancer, CBS News - 07/24/2013
• Health at diagnosis may drive breast cancer survival gap, Reuters - 07/23/2013
• Black-White Divide Persists in Breast Cancer, New York Times - 07/23/2013
• Failure and Rescue, The New Yorker - 10/07/2012
• How aggressive is your hospital?, New York Times - 02/03/2011
• What and where is the “waste” in health care?, The Incidental Economist - 01/12/2011
• Children’s hospitals may face financial hardship, Pittsburgh Business Times - 03/08/1999

Knowledge @ Wharton

• Grading Hospital Quality with a Level Playing Field, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/20/2014