Mark Plunkett Email & Phone Number

Orange County, New York, United States

Leads a team of data scientists in predicting member experience outcomes. Focused primarily on CAHPS, HOS, and other member experience surveys. Works with stakeholders to target members for improvement in satisfaction and health status. Designs experiments to test outcomes of PI efforts that use in person, online, mail, and telephonic methods. Analyzes the results of performance improvement efforts.

Phoenix, Az

Perform advanced analytics and modeling using SAS on hospital quality data. Prototype statistical analyses to be rolled out in production reports for hospitals. Provide methodological and statistical support to internal clients. Serve as the statistical lead for Safety Networks to Accelerate Performance projects. Develop and document health care quality measures for use in the Hospital Engagement Network and Hospital Improvement Innovation Network. Provide assistance to state hospital associations and individual hospitals for data collection and analysis. Provide methodological/analytic support on external grants. Make presentations to nationwide groups of hospitals.

Phoenix, Arizona Area

Internal consultant focusing on scientific collection of data, program evaluation, statistical analysis, reporting and budgeting on federal and private contracts. Designs and performs research on healthcare quality/outcomes and quality improvement, including a mix of survey (Health Outcomes Survey (HOS), HCAHPS, CAHPS), claims, encounter and other data. Recent projects include working closely with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on an Affordable Care Act mandated project to assess the impact of all of CMS’ quality measures. Designed and implemented the analytic plan including complex statistical modeling and visualization in SAS. Worked with technical expert panels, wrote analytic chapters and managed analytic portion of project. Since the data analytic portion of this project included data on all CMS beneficiaries and providers, big data wrangling and other issues were addressed and resolved.Day-to-day management role providing scientific and methodological leadership performing tasks related to research. Other HSAG projects include—• Assessment of the trajectory of pressure ulcer patients from hospitals to home in the state of Arizona. Linking data from hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies to identify opportunities for quality improvement.• An 18-month assessment and visualization of poverty, hospital location and hospital quality for the states of California and Arizona.• Designed and implemented a statistical process to identify/predict fraud and abuse in Florida hospitals.• A 2015 assessment of disparities in Medicare quality outcomes for the United States. Data collection and predictive modeling.• 3-year assessment of quality in nursing homes in Arizona and California including network and statistical analyses to identify networks of hospital/nursing home alliances and patterns of healthcare outcomes.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

Oversaw all research, data analysis and reporting including direct management of analytic staff. Served as part of the three-person management team that administered the DC QIO. Provided scientific oversight of DC external quality review and long-term care projects. Worked in collaboration with providers and outside researchers to provide analytic and methodological leadership for QIO projects. Projects include--• An assessment of infection prevention in DC area hospitals. Data collection and analysis.• Development of a program to identify Maryland area hospital patients that were not receiving “best-practice” medication. Data collection and analysis.• Developed a system of ongoing quality assessments of DC hospitals and nursing homes, designing and implementing a quality monitoring system and working closely with the largest DC area hospitals to implement the system.• Developed internal reporting and performance tracking systems for the two QIOs and lead the QIO-wide effort to accelerate change for QIO contract performance measures. • Directed the 5-year assessment of the HOS survey for CMS and received an award for excellence. Data collection, validity assessment and analysis.

Washington D.C. Metro Area

Managed hundreds of (mostly healthcare quality) surveys and studies including the administration of CAHPS, HCAHPS, and HOS. Served as an internal consultant on the assessment of healthcare quality. Administered projects for a number of entities including major health maintenance organizations, state health departments, federal agencies, consultants, and NGOs. Implemented multiple data collection modalities including mail, phone and IVR surveys, CATI surveys, focus groups, studies using random samples, longitudinal studies, etc. Responsibilities included client management/collaboration, oversight of questionnaire design, sample design, survey data analysis, survey software design, and survey data collection. Projects include—• Development of a questionnaire for a major HMO. Focus groups, cognitive testing, pilot-testing, validity assessment and initial fielding.• Development of a system for a major HMO to predict which physicians would leave the network. Data collection and predictive modeling.• Development of a system of quality indicators for a major HMO. Measure development, data collection, validity assessment and predictive modeling.• Survey research project to determine how to market Cialis in Canada, France, Germany and the U.S. Focus groups, pilot-testing, and fielding.

Ph.D, Research Methodology

Research and survey design. Statistical analyses

Master'S Degree, Sociology

Research and survey design