US Health Care Delivery Initiative

Health care delivery shapes the quality of every American’s life, yet in many ways it is inefficient, ineffective, and inequitable. On average, the US spends more than twice as much per person on health compared to other wealthy countries. Often, there are stark disparities in health outcomes and access related to factors like a person’s income or race. Health care leaders run innovative programs and implement new policies to address these challenges every day. But the effects of many of these policies and programs are not known, making the path forward unclear. 

Randomized evaluations in health care delivery inform policy debates on how to improve the health care system. Yet the partnerships that make such studies possible are too rare. Academics often cannot easily identify partners interested in rigorous evaluation, and health care leaders often cannot find an interested, experienced academic to lead evaluation design. Both may not have the evaluation funding or the incentives to invest the upfront time and resources needed to develop successful research partnerships.