Date of Conferral

2020

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Health Services

Advisor

Magdeline Aagard

Abstract

Despite many health reforms, the United States continues to struggle with limited healthcare access, exponential healthcare costs, and poor quality of care. Overcoming these challenges requires healthcare leaders’ effective navigation of industry transformation towards population health and a shift in patient volume to ambulatory healthcare settings. Research has demonstrated that the use of managerial epidemiology, an application of epidemiology tools and principles to management decision-making within healthcare organizations, can better serve the health of the population and could improve the triple aim of inadequate access, high costs, and poor quality. However, the adoption of this practice is weak and its utilization by current healthcare leaders has not yet been studied. Diffusion of innovation theory framed this qualitative study to understand the perspectives of ambulatory healthcare leaders on using managerial epidemiology within their leadership approach as well as understand the spread of this practice and associated barriers. Twelve healthcare leaders participated in semistructured interviews. Findings from open-axial coding of the interview data indicated managerial epidemiology is critical and validated the importance of managerial epidemiology for impacting the triple aim, population health, and overall system performance. Additionally, this study provided steps to accelerate the adoption and highlighted the use of managerial epidemiology during a pandemic, which has worldwide implications for improving health and performance of healthcare globally therefore promoting social change.

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