Bio: Eyal Cohen, M.D., M.Sc., FRCP(C) is a 2015-16 Canadian Harkness/CFHI Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice. He is currently an associate professor of pediatrics, nursing, and health policy at the University of Toronto; an adjunct scientist at the University of Toronto Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences; an investigator at the CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research at McMaster University; and a staff physician at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). Cohen has also been involved with the Ontario Ministry of Health, which is launching a province-wide initiative focused on pediatric complex care informed by his work on structured complex care programs. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, which have primarily focused on applying and evaluating clinical and policy interventions aimed at populations with complex chronic conditions. Cohen completed his medical training at the University of Toronto in 2000, and trained in pediatrics at SickKids where he was also a chief resident.
Placement: Stanford University
Mentors: Arnold Milstein, Stanford University and Stanford Clinical Excellence Research Center; Paul Wise, M.D., M.P.H., Stanford University School of Medicine
Project: Exploring Optimal Models of Service Delivery for Publicly Insured Children with Chronic Conditions in the United States
Description: The passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has provided many benefits to children in the U.S., however, relatively little attention has been given to particularities of child health service delivery in the context of health care reform. Cohen's research will have three main objectives. The first will examine the evolution of novel systems for children with complex chronic conditions post-ACA. Next, he will aim to identify patterns of health care use in order to provide analytic guidance for state Medicaid programs undergoing reform such as the California Children's Service, the largest Title V public insurance program for children in the U.S., which is undergoing restructuring. Data will be used from the California Children's Services dataset housed at Center for Policy Outcomes and Prevention (CPOP) at Stanford University (data from 2009-2014), and supplemented by a multistate Medicaid dataset from the same time period. Finally, working with the Clinical Excellence Research Center at Stanford University, Cohen will seek to develop a high-value model of health service delivery focused on high-risk and low-income mothers insured by Medicaid and their young children. This will provide a design-based solution that holds promise to incorporate the critical link between maternal and child well-being for optimal child health, with the expectation that the model will be piloted and, if successful, implemented more broadly.