Bio: Richard Hamblin, a 2006-07 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy, is head of analytic support at the Healthcare Commission, the English health services regulator where his primary responsibility was ensuring a rigorous analytic and evidential base for regulatory activities. His previous career encompasses NHS management and health services research, including as a research officer at the King's Fund, where he produced studies on London's health care system, the effect of the introduction of the internal market into the NHS in the 1990s and methods of modeling waiting list dynamics. He joined the Healthcare Commission's predecessor body, the Commission for Health Improvement, at its inception to develop its analytic methods. His particular interest is in health informatics and the use of rigorous analysis of performance data as a tool for improvements in quality and efficiency of health services. He is a 1992 graduate of University College London.
Placement: Group Health Cooperative
Mentors: Eric Larson, M.D., M.P.H.
Project: Informing for Improvement: The Who, How and What of Using Information to Improve the Provision of Healthcare
Description: Richard Hamblin explored the different ways in which patients use information on provider performance and quality, whether different types of information is used by patients in different ways, and assessed the shortfalls of the performance information currently available. In combination with a review of existing evidence, interviews with clinical and patient experts, and a review of pre-existing performance data, his study included a survey of enrollees in Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound on their use of health information.