Bio: Rubin Minhas, M.B.Ch.B., a 2008-09 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, is a general practitioner and Honorary Senior Lecturer within the Faculty of Science, Technology and Medical Studies at the University of Kent. He serves as current chair of the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) Familial Hypercholesterolemia Guideline, and has co-authored NICE guidelines for both the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. He is an independent member of the NICE Technology Appraisals Committee, which he formally represents in the NICE Topic Selection process. Minhas is also an active member of several organizations and committees, including chair of the Cardiovascular Working Group of the South Asian Health Foundation, and technical advisor to the National Prescribing Centre. His interests include cardiovascular disease, evidence-based decision making and its translation into clinical policy. He has co-authored two cardiology textbooks and submissions to the House of Commons Health Select Committee, in addition to publications in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Heart, International Journal of Clinical Practice, British Medical Journal, Lancet, and the Journal of Clinical Pathology. Minhas holds a medical degree from the University of Leeds.
Placement: RAND Corporation
Mentors: Paul Shekelle, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., Elizabeth McGlynn, Ph.D.
Project: Integrating the Quality Tools: Barriers and Opportunities for Co-developing Guidelines and Performance Measures
Description: Minhas' project sought to: (1) assess the quality of a selection of U.S. clinical guidelines; and (2) explore the feasibility of developing clinical guidelines and performance measures through a single process. For the first part, he assessed the technical quality of guidelines on three different topics (e.g., diabetes, coronary heart disease, etc.), drawn from the U.S. National Guidelines Clearinghouse. For the second part of his project, he developed a theoretical model of the strengths and weaknesses of guidelines and performance measures for quality improvement, and conducted a search of the National Quality Measures Clearinghouse to identify existing examples of co-development of guidelines and indicators.