Five Questions with Faculty: Diane Dewar

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ALBANY, N.Y. April 19, 2017 — Diane M. Dewar is the director of the Institute for Health System Evaluation at UAlbany, as well as an associate professor in the departments of Health Policy, Management and Behavior, and Economics.
“The Department of Health Policy, Management and Behavior was very young and growing when I was told that there was a tenure track position open in it, and I was intrigued by the prospect of being in a department that was still forming,” Dewar said, describing her start at UAlbany in 1994. “I was encouraged to apply, applied, got the job, and have been on the faculty of this department, with a joint appointment with the Department of Economics.”
What are your working on now?
I think that the health care sector domestically and globally are huge components in countries’ GDP, and need to be evaluated. While I do a lot of evaluations of various system level reforms through the institute that I direct, my current work about health care reform is really front and center in my third book, which is under contract with Routledge Publishers and slated to be in print later this year.
This book is on health reform, using an international perspective focuses on the basic similarities of population and system problems across the world and how we are all addressing them. Specifically, it looks at the paradigms for equity and efficiency in health care as well as what the U.S. can learn from other countries as we pursue reform efforts.
The U.S. has a very challenging and fragmented system of health care. What can we do locally and nationally to streamline delivery of services, improve access and health outcomes and change the mindset of the American public to think more collectively about health care resource allocation and the health for the population?
What made you decide to pursue ...

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