Health Program Design and Implementation
The staff of UMass Medical School’s Commonwealth Medicine division works with state governments and public agencies to create new health programs — and adapt those that already exist — to meet the evolving needs of the populations they serve.
In the Commonwealth Medicine division, our Center for Health Law and Economics has both the technical knowledge to design public health programs and the essential strategic and legal expertise to implement them, addressing essential issues for our clients in the process:
- Compliance with existing policies and laws
- Identification of delivery service systems
- Recommendations on eligibility requirements
- Advice on choosing and obtaining services and providers
- Identification of agencies to implement the program, including a lead agency
- Definition of roles and responsibilities for each agency
- Design of structuring and implementing incentives for providers and program clients
- Recommendation of potential changes to regulations
- Monitoring, evaluation, and recommendation of improvements to the program
The researchers in our Center for Health Policy and Research establish a base of reliable, current evidence to support, modify, and improve public health care programs. Our health program research studies draw on our expertise in several additional areas:
- Statistical modeling and biostatistics
- Risk adjustment and population stratification
- Survey research
The Commonwealth Medicine division recognizes that various stakeholders — decision makers, advocates, taxpayers, members, and others — have strong interest in new and modified health programs. We work with all constituencies to build support for and reduce resistance to the potential change, and we make thorough presentations of the program’s features and potential effects. To address the concerns of particular interest groups, we tailor our presentations to provide and collect appropriately-targeted information, bolstering support for the eventual unveiling of the program.