Resources for Investigators

Office of Health Services Research

The Office of Health Services Research (OHSR) fosters the development and application of health services research that improves the health and well being of rural and underserved populations and is responsive to the emerging needs of rural health care providers and health care delivery systems. OHSR meets this mission both by independently developing and conducting projects and evaluations and by collaborating with Marshfield Clinic physicians and Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation (MCRF) scientists and staff. Generally, OHSR staff research and evaluation efforts focus on investigations of how social and organizational factors, financing systems, health technology and personal behaviors affect access to health services, and / or the cost, quality and safety of those services.

John Schmelzer, Ph.D., provides research support, planning and development assistance, and expert consultation services to a wide range of research and Marshfield Clinic projects. Significant among these efforts has been planning and developing support for the nation's first pay-for-performance demonstrations for the Medicare program, conducting the initial planning and feasibility assessment for a pay-for-performance demonstration to lower cost and improve health care quality for Wisconsin's Medicaid program, and developing a grant, funded by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, for infrastructure planning for a regional prescription network modeled after the Clinic's immunizations network, the Regional Early Childhood Immunizations Network (RECIN).

In addition to independent research activities, OHSR staff may engage in the following activities as consistent with OHSR's mission, and when resources are available:

• Collaborations among internal and/or external scientists to develop and/or support research and evaluation activities that are tangential or complementary to health services research
• Technical support for Marshfield Clinic and Security Health Plan initiatives that have significant planning, operational, and/or management implications
• Health-related policy analyses that have direct bearing on Marshfield Clinic, MCRF, Security Health Plan, Family Health Center of Marshfield, Inc., and the individuals and communities served by those entities

1-800-782-8581, ext. 9-3009
e-mail address: schmelzer.john@mcrf.mfldclin.edu