Scanlon Receives Fran and Holly Soistman Faculty Development Award
Press Release - November 7, 2005
(University Park, Pa)- Dr. Dennis P. Scanlon, Associate Professor of Health Policy and Administration at Penn State, has won the 2005 Fran and Holly Soistman Faculty Development Award.
The award recognizes a faculty member who is actively engaged in teaching or conducting innovative research related to the design, development, delivery, administration and/or evaluation of healthcare services.
Scanlon's research focuses on the power of information to improve quality and efficiency in health care markets. He also studies what large employers like Boeing Corporation and General Motors, and quality advocacy groups such as the Leapfrog Group, are doing to improve health care quality in communities. The Leapfrog Group encourages employers to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality and affordability of healthcare for Americans by setting quality standards in their contracts with hospitals. Scanlon is sought after by public interest groups and corporations alike for analysis of local health care markets and strategies to improve both individual health and health care quality.
Some of Scanlon's most recent studies suggest that individual health care consumers are more likely to make health care decisions based on price than on quality, even when they have access to information about quality. However, he finds that consumers do pay enough attention to quality to avoid organizations consistently scoring poorly on quality indicators. Scanlon is also completing an evaluation of the impact of diabetes care management programs on individual health status and health care costs.
Says Dennis Shea, "[Scanlon] is well known and well respected by practitioners, policymakers, and scholars alike. His research is innovative, often technically sophisticated and highly influential."
Scanlon's research has appeared in some of the most respected journals in the health care field and he was previously honored with the 2002 John D. Thompson Award for Young Investigators from the Association of University Programs in Health Administration.