Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion
Rachel Werner, MD, PhD

CHERP COIN Investigator
Robert D. Eilers Professor, Health Care Management, Wharton School
Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Profile
Rachel Werner, MD, PhD, directed the VISN4 Center for the Evaluation of Patient Aligned Care Teams (CEPACT), one of five national centers to evaluate the effectiveness of the medical home by the Veterans Health Administration, from 2010 to 2019. Dr. Werner's research seeks to understand the effect of health care policies and delivery systems on quality of care. In particular, she has examined the role of quality improvement incentives on provider behavior, the organization of health care, racial disparities, and overall health care quality.
Her work has empirically investigated numerous unintended consequences to quality improvement incentives and was among the first to recognize that public reporting of quality information may worsen racial disparities. She is currently principal investigator of an R01 from the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality (examining how pay-for-performance in hospitals changed the value of health care) and an R01 from the National Institute of Aging (examining the effect of Medicaid pay-for-performance for nursing homes on delivery of nursing home care). She also directs She has received numerous awards including the Dissertation Award and the Alice Hersh New Investigator Award from AcademyHealth and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Her research has been published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, including JAMA, Health Services Research, and Health Affairs.
Published Research
Trends in Post-Acute Care Use after Admissions for Sepsis. Annals of the American Thoracic Society (2020)Patient Engagement, Access to Care, and Perceptions of Competing Priorities in the VA Primary Care Setting. Journal of general internal medicine (yyyy)
The Nursing Home Compare Report Card: Perceptions of Residents and Caregivers Regarding Quality Ratings and Nursing Home Choice. Health Services Research (2016)
Research Areas
- Quality Improvement Incentives