Title: “The Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network: Partnering with states to support evidence-based policy.”
Abstract: The Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network (MODRN) conducts multi-state Medicaid research at the direction of partnerships between 15 state Medicaid agencies and their university collaborators to improve outcomes for their beneficiaries and the programs that serve them. Established at the height of the opioid crisis, the network’s initial research focus was on assessing the prevalence, treatment and outcomes of opioid use disorder within the Medicaid population. While the network retains a central focus on opioid use disorder research within the Medicaid program, the research infrastructure supports an increasingly diverse portfolio of Medicaid research including work on doula services, school-based health care, and reentry from carceral settings. This seminar will provide an overview of the MODRN and a sampling of its work – past, current, and future research.
Bio: Dr. Marguerite Burns is a professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health, and faculty affiliate with the Institute for Research on Poverty, the Health Innovation Program, the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Burns previously served on the faculty in the Department of Population Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute.
Dr. Burns holds a PhD in Population Health Sciences from the University of Wisconsin, where she studied health services research and health economics. Her overarching research interest is in the role that public health insurance plays in furthering the health and welfare of disadvantaged adults- particularly adults with mental illness, addiction disorders, and those who have a history of criminal justice involvement. Her research portfolio includes studies that have examined the effects of federal, state, and organizational policies on access to Medicaid; research on the effects of access to Medicaid on participation in the Supplemental Security Income program; studies on the impact of Medicaid coverage, the scope of its benefits, and its delivery system on health care use; and research on the effects of Medicaid coverage on criminogenic, employment, and health care use among formerly incarcerated adults. An additional stream of work examines treatment access, quality and outcomes for opioid use disorder among Medicaid beneficiaries within a research collaboration between university-Medicaid agency partnerships in 14 states.
