Martha Bayliss, MSc – Vice President, Operations and Senior Scientist
Martha has 20 years of experience working with patient-reported outcomes (PROs), including the development, validation, and application of numerous generic and disease-specific health surveys. She was a founding member of the QualityMetric measurement science team in 1997. Martha applies qualitative and quantitative measurement methods in the development, customization, and implementation of PROs for use in clinical trials, program evaluation studies, promotional initiatives, and for many other purposes across the health care spectrum. She frequently consults with pharmaceutical companies on PRO strategy, applying state-of-the art methods required by regulatory agencies for clinical trial endpoints in early and late-phase studies. Martha holds a BA from Amherst College and an MSc from Harvard University School of Public Health.
Jakob Bue Bjørner, MD, PhD – Chief Science Officer
Dr. Bjørner specializes in applying modern psychometric theory to the measurement of health outcomes. Jakob has been an International Quality of Life Assessment (IQOLA) project collaborator of QualityMetric co-founder John E. Ware, Jr., PhD for over ten years and was a consultant to QualityMetric before joining the company in 2003. He was formerly a professor at the Danish National Institute of Occupational Health, and co-developed QualityMetric's Dynamic Health Assessment (DYNHA®) system and numerous computerized adaptive health assessments of generic and disease-specific health outcomes. An MD by training, Jakob also has a PhD in medical sociology from the University of Copenhagen. In addition, he is an award recipient for his research on quality of life and HIV.
Mark Kosinski, MA – Vice President and Senior Scientist
Mark has over 20 years of experience in developing and analyzing patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures. He was involved with the development and validation of the SF-36®, SF-12® and the SF-8™ health surveys, the Asthma Control Test™ (ACT)™, the Headache Impact Test™ (HIT-6™), other industry-sponsored PRO measures, as well as the development and analysis of item banks for computerized adaptive health assessments. Mark has co-authored more than 160 peer-reviewed journal articles related to the development and analysis of PRO measures used in clinical research, randomized controlled trials, and population health initiatives. He has also contributed to the writing of ten manuals and interpretation guides for various PRO measures including the SF-36, SF-12, and SF-8. Over the past 15 years, he has been actively involved in working with the pharmaceutical industry in the analysis of clinical trial data with PRO measures as secondary indicators of treatment efficacy. Mark received his MA in Psychology from Bridgewater State University.
Elayne Livote, PhD – Senior Outcomes Research Associate
Dr. Livote has 25 years of experience as a health care data analyst and statistician working with and for payers, providers, and insurers. Prior to joining QualityMetric, Elayne worked in health services research for the Veterans Health Administration with a focus on geriatrics and palliative care. She has also worked on a wide range of clinical research studies at the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. At Oxford Health Plans, which is now part of UnitedHealthcare, she was the manager of clinical improvement studies and disease management. Earlier in her career, Elayne was an actuary at Mercer, consulting to employers on the design and funding of health care benefits. She holds masters degrees in biostatistics and epidemiology and a PhD in Educational Psychology with a concentration in quantitative methods from the City University of New York Graduate Center. Elayne’s current interests include the application of psychometrics in health care and the use of patient-reported outcomes in clinical care.
Mark E. Maruish, PhD – Director and Scientist
Dr. Maruish has more than 25 years of experience with the development and implementation of psychological assessments and health outcomes surveys, as well as consultation and editorial services for psychological test publishers and book publishers. Mark also has several years of experience in providing psychological assessment and treatment services to mental health and medical patients. Prior to joining QualityMetric in 2004, he served as the Director of Survey Research at Ingenix Pharmaceutical Services, where he was responsible for surveys of patient populations pertaining to their well-being, symptoms, quality of life, and functioning. Before that, he served as the Director of Quality Improvement at Optum Behavioral Health. Mark received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from Alliant International University in San Diego and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He is a licensed clinical psychologist, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a Diplomate of the American Board of Assessment Psychology.
Kate Miller, PhD, MPH – Scientist
Dr. Miller has 15 years of experience with population-based research in women’s reproductive health. Prior to joining QualityMetric in 2011, Kate worked as a Senior Associate at Ibis Reproductive Health in Cambridge, MA, where she oversaw the quantitative methodology on all research projects at the institution. She also worked as a Data Analyst at the Population Council in NYC, where she contributed to the development and validation of a quality-of-care instrument that was used throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Kate’s content expertise is in contraception, abortion, reproductive cancers, and infertility. Her methodological interests include instrument development and psychometrics in a range of health topics. Kate received her PhD in demography from the University of Pennsylvania and her master’s degree in Public Health from Columbia University.
Regina Rendas-Baum, MS – Scientist
Regina joined QualityMetric as a Senior Outcomes Analyst in 2007. Since joining QualityMetric, Regina has worked on the development and validation of patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments, statistical analyses of clinical trial data, cost-effectiveness analyses, and the development of reports to support PRO-based labeling claims of medical products. Her research interests include the development of statistical methods that enhance cross-national comparisons of PRO-based scores and the use of PRO measures to evaluate the effect of interventions. Prior to joining QualityMetric, Regina was a PhD student at Brown University, where she investigated the use of nonlinear mixed models to study cancer diagnostic accuracy. Regina also worked as a statistician at the Center for Statistical Sciences at Brown University, participating in the planning, data collection, and analysis for several multi-site studies aimed at investigating alternative cancer diagnostic imaging methods. In addition, she served as consulting statistician at the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Regina received both her BS and MS in Statistics from the University of Connecticut.
Sandra L. Tunis, PhD – Senior Scientist
Dr. Tunis has 30 years of experience conducting health outcomes research. Sandra has designed and conducted numerous prospective, retrospective, and economic modeling studies of pharmacological treatment and other interventions. Prior to joining QualityMetric, she led research in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1997 to 2005, she was a senior level Research Scientist in the U.S. Health Economics and Outcomes Research Department at Eli Lilly and Company. Sandra also spent four years at IMS Consulting, where she led projects to model the cost-effectiveness of interventions for diabetes. During this time, she authored many papers resulting from IMS-CORE Diabetes Model analyses, including many from the perspectives of health care payers. Sandra has a long history of publishing in top-tier journals, and has recently published two invited articles in the journal Pharmacoeconomics on methodological issues in cost-effectiveness research. She is widely recognized for her analytic expertise, as well as her understanding of how sound research can optimally inform payers and other stakeholders in a variety of disease states. Sandra received her PhD in Social Psychology from Temple University.
Michelle K. White, PhD – Director and Scientist
As Director and Scientist, Dr. White manages a team of scientists and analysts in developing, analyzing, and interpreting patient-reported outcomes (PRO) across a broad range of therapeutic areas. She has conducted more than a dozen qualitative studies, three dozen quantitative studies, and has co-authored several instrument manuals. Prior to joining QualityMetric in 2008, Michelle spent a decade conducting addiction treatment outcome studies and implementing surveys for addiction and mental health treatment. In addition to publishing work related to multiple NIDA/NIH addiction grants, she oversaw the implementation of the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs (GAIN) bio-psychosocial assessment in 14 states and with dozens of individual treatment providers, and provided training and support for eight Center for Substance Abuse Treatment multi-site grant programs. Specifically, Michelle provided research training on selecting and designing assessment programs and quality assurance of assessment data. She also provided clinical training on using assessment data for diagnoses, treatment placement decisions, and treatment planning. Prior to this, she worked with individuals with behavioral disorders in residential treatment and detention centers, as well as other behavioral health clinical settings. Michelle has also held adjunct positions at Illinois State University and the University of Illinois, where she received her MS and PhD in Sociology, respectively.
Aaron Yarlas, PhD – Scientist
Dr. Yarlas joined QualityMetric in 2008, where his work has included developing and validating patient-reported outcome instruments and conducting statistical analyses concerning treatment effectiveness and cost-utility. His research has been conducted across various disease areas, including rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, asthma, HIV, hemophilia, and chronic kidney failure. Prior to joining QualityMetric, Aaron spent seven years as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Grand Valley State University, where he taught classes including Research Methodology and Cognitive Psychology, and conducted an independent, externally funded research program examining models of mental representation of knowledge. Aaron received his doctorate in Cognitive Psychology from UCLA in 1998, and conducted postdoctoral research at the Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State University. He has won several honors and awards, including an NSF Graduate Fellowship, and has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles, technical reports, and conference presentations.