Dr. Allyson Ross Davies, Healthcare Quality Expert, to Lead Abt Associates Domestic Health Policy Practice

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Allyson Ross Davies, Ph.D., M.P.H., has joined Abt Associates as Vice President and leader of its Health Policy Practice within its Domestic Health Division.  Dr. Davies is a nationally recognized expert in the development of patient-based assessments of health status and quality of care, and their use for performance evaluation and quality improvement.

In her new role, Dr. Davies will focus on identifying and securing new business opportunities for the company's Health Policy Practice; recruiting and retaining a research and consulting staff whose skills and experience meet the ever-changing needs and requirements of public and private clients; and monitoring project performance and quality. She is also directly involved in projects prompted by healthcare reform initiatives that draw on her expertise in multi-site program evaluation, quality measurement, and performance improvement.

"We are thrilled to have someone as highly qualified and well regarded as Allyson join as the leader of our Health Policy Practice," said Dr. Scott Royal, Division Vice President for Domestic Health. "With exciting changes ahead in health care financing, health information technology, and comparative effectiveness research, we know that having a strong health policy leader is essential for our continued growth in this area."

For most of the last 15 years, Dr. Davies led ARD Consulting LLC, providing services to public and private clients nationwide related to measuring patient-reported health outcomes and satisfaction; designing and implementing health care performance monitoring and improvement activities; and program evaluation. Before beginning her consulting practice, Dr. Davies founded and directed the Department of Quality Assessment at New England Medical Center, and served as a senior program advisor to the Measurement and Monitoring Initiative in the office of the president. She spent much of her early career at the RAND Corporation, where she was a major contributor to the analysis and reporting of results from the Health Insurance Experiment, and served as Associate Director of the RAND/UCLA Center for Health Policy Study.

Dr. Davies served as the first non-physician chair of the Board, as well as Executive Vice President and interim CEO, of MassPRO, Inc., one of several Quality Improvement Organizations funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She is a founding Board member of QualityMetric Incorporated, a leading provider of health status and outcomes measurement products and services, where she held executive positions in business development, and is completing a term as Executive Chair.

Dr. Davies has authored and co-authored more than 90 publications in leading clinical and health services research journals and monographs.  She has also taught and lectured extensively to clinical and health services research audiences, both national and international, on patient-reported outcome measures, and quality improvement tools and methods.

Dr. Davies earned her M.P.H. and Ph.D. degrees from the UCLA School of Public Health, and a B.A. from Goucher College.

"I have long been an admirer of Abt's health policy consulting, and look forward to using my experience in policy research, program leadership, and process improvement to support the health policy research team," Dr. Davies said.  "National and local healthcare reform offers many exciting and challenging opportunities to our consulting practice.  We're working hard to capture those opportunities, and to continue improving the quality of the research and technical assistance we provide to our clients."

Abt Associates, an employee-owned company, applies scientific research, technical assistance, survey, and consulting expertise to a wide range of social, economic and health policy issues; international development; clinical trials and registries; and complex business problems. Founded in 1965, the company provides services to U.S. federal, state and local governments; universities and foundations; media; and major corporations. In fiscal year 2009, the company had revenue of $264 million. Its staff of over 1,500 is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Atlanta, Georgia; Bethesda, Maryland; Durham, North Carolina; Lexington, Massachusetts (Abt Bio-Pharma Solutions, Inc.); New York, New York (Abt SRBI); and in Africa, Asia, Central Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

SOURCE Abt Associates