Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation has promoted Jeffrey Wasserman to vice president and director of the health research division.
Wasserman was previously Rand Corporation’s health policy expert who had led efforts to strengthen the United States’ preparedness for a major health event.
RAND President and CEO Michael D. Rich said Wasserman would provide the leadership and vision necessary to guide and strengthen the important work done by RAND Health.
“During this period of rapid change in the U.S. health care system, the work done by RAND health is important to helping the nation chart the right path forward,” Rich said.
Wasserman is a longtime RAND researcher and a widely recognized expert on health policy issues. He has led efforts to create the National Health Security Strategy, a federal project to prepare the nation’s health system to respond to large-scale incidents, such as a terrorist attack or a pandemic disease outbreak, that could pose a major threat to the public’s health.
He was co-principal investigator of RAND’s Comprehensive Assessment of Reform Efforts (COMPARE) initiative, created to help evaluate health care reform proposals. The health system models created by that project are being used by many government agencies to help guide adoption of the federal Affordable Care Act.
He previously led projects related to tobacco control policy, public health entrepreneurship, the health benefits of better diagnostic tools in the developing world, veterans’ health, and the relationship between law and public health emergency preparedness.
“I look forward to working with the RAND staff to sustain the quality of RAND’s health research,” Wasserman said. “Health care in the United States is facing large issues, but health reform is providing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address those challenges. RAND Health has played, and will continue to play, a vital role as health reform moves forward.”
RAND Health, a division of the RAND Corporation, is the nation’s largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on quality, costs and health services delivery, among other topics.
