Health Economics Outcomes Research (HEOR) Series

Dr. Thomas Summerfelt, PhD, is the President, North America at Convergence CT, which works collaboratively with health care providers, life science companies and payers to leverage real world data within their Global Healthcare Data NetworkTM to improve outcomes for stakeholders across the healthcare ecosystem, especially patients. Prior to this role, Dr. Summerfelt was the Vice President of Research & Innovation at Advocate Health Care, where the team conducted clinical research aimed at improving patient and provider system outcomes. Dr. Summerfelt earned his PhD from Vanderbilt University and focused his doctoral and post-doctoral training on Health Services Research. He has held faculty appointments at Vanderbilt, Michigan State, and University of Chicago. His scholarly work focuses on effectiveness research, program evaluation, and value-based analysis.

Dr. Snider is the Senior Director in Policy & Economics at Precision Health Economics (PHE). At PHE, Dr. Snider has led numerous studies in oncology, diabetes, and nutrition, including a study that was awarded third place out of 573 accepted abstracts at the 2013 annual congress of the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN). An avid public speaker, Dr. Snider has presented her research in numerous settings, including giving presentations on HIV/AIDS and robotic surgery at Health Affairs issue briefings in Washington, DC. Dr. Snider joined PHE from the UCLA Anderson Forecast, where she contributed to the highly respected quarterly economic forecast by providing expertise on the healthcare sector, among other things. Dr. Snider has previously worked as a researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and at the World Bank branch offices in Buenos Aires and Moscow. She has been featured in the popular press, including the Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, and the Daily Finance, on a variety of topics.

Dr. Wischmeyer is a perioperative physician who specializes in enhancing preparation and recovery from surgery and critical care. Specifically, at Duke he practices on the Critical Care and Nutrition clinical teams. He serves as a Professor of Anesthesiology and Surgery, the Director of Perioperative Research for the Duke Clinical Research Institute, and Associate Vice Chair for Clinical Research in the Dept of Anesthesiology. He also serves as the Director of the Nutrition Support Team at Duke. Dr. Wischmeyer earned his medical degree with honors at The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, where he was elected into the honor society of Alpha Omega Alpha for outstanding academic achievement. He completed his pediatric internship at University of Colorado Children’s Hospital and his anesthesiology/critical care residency training at the University of Chicago. He also completed a Clinical Pharmacology fellowship and the NIH K30 Clinical Research Scientist Training Program while at University of Chicago. Dr. Wischmeyer’s clinical and research focus is in perioperative care, critical care, and nutrition to help patients prepare and recover from illness and surgery.

Gretchen VanDerBosch is the Regional Clinical Leader of the Food and Nutrition Department at Advocate Health Care. Gretchen earned a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics from the University of Illinois. She has an immense amount of clinical experience and has been involved in a number of professional presentations and publications. Her research focuses on nutrition-focused quality improvement programs for malnourished patients across the continuum of care.