Center for Delivery, Organization, and Markets (CDOM): Staff Biographies

Irene Fraser

Irene Fraser, Ph.D., is a political scientist who has specialized in research on Medicaid, private health insurance, and health care delivery. Since 1995, she has been at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, where she is Director of the Center for Delivery, Organization, and Markets. The focus of this Center and Dr. Fraser's current work is on improving the quality and value of health care by improving the organization, structure, and financing of health care organizations and markets. The Center develops and maintains measures of quality and efficiency, and leads and supports research on financial and organizational strategies to improve quality and value. In addition, the Center manages two large-scale mechanisms to facilitate implementation of evidence-based strategies: A provider-based research and implementation network (Accelerating Change and Transformation in Organizations and Networks II, or ACTION II) with 17 large partnerships across the country, and a national network of 24 multi-stakeholder community quality collaborative, the Chartered Value Exchanges.

Dr. Fraser also spent eight years working on access and delivery issues at the American Hospital Association. As Senior Associate Director for Policy at the American Hospital Association, she served as the issue manager and senior policy person on indigent care, Medicaid and health care reform. As Director of Ambulatory Care at the AHA, she led a group which focused on the delivery side of health care reform—managed care and integrated delivery, preventive care, home care, primary care, and other ambulatory care issues. Earlier in her career, Dr. Fraser was Associate Professor of Political Science and director of the Public Policy Program at Barat College and adjunct faculty to the Institute for Health Law at Loyola School of Law.

Dr. Fraser's work has appeared in journals including Health Affairs, Inquiry, Health Care Financing Review, Medical Care Research and Review, Journal of Healthcare Management, Journal of Ambulatory Care Management, Health Services Research, and Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. A monograph series on the uninsured includes volumes on state Medicaid expansions, programs to promote private health coverage for the employed uninsured, and uncompensated care pools. Dr. Fraser has a B.A. in Political Science and Spanish from Chatham College, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Illinois.

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