Jeffrey Silber

Dr. Silber holds the Nancy Abramson Wolfson Endowed Chair in Health Services Research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and is a Professor of Pediatrics and Anesthesiology & Critical Care at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Professor of Health Care Management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Dr. Silber is an internationally known authority on outcomes measurement and severity adjustment for both adult and pediatric applications. He created the adult quality of care measure FailuretoRescue (FTR) in 1990 that has been adopted as three specific quality measures by the National Quality Forum (NQF). He has also developed two length of stay outcome measures: Prolonged Length of Stay and Conditional Length of Stay, now applied to both pediatric and adult populations. With Paul Rosenbaum he developed the Omega measure that evaluates outcome measures by estimating the relative contribution of patient to hospital characteristics associated with a specific outcome, and the method of Template Matching to compare hospital cost and quality.  He has published extensively on all aspects of the theory of outcomes measure and model development and validation, as well as the applications of outcomes measures to pressing public health issues.  Much of his recent work focuses on the use of multivariate matching when comparing outcomes, specifically with respect to problems in both pediatric and adult medicine and surgery, disparities, and cancer. Dr. Silber has twice been awarded the Article of the Year Award in Health Services Research from AcademyHealth, the leading professional organization concerning Health Services Research in the U.S.   

Dr. Silber helped to establish and has served as the Director of the Center for Outcomes Research since its inception in 1997.  The center is a multidisciplinary health services research hub for Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania investigators and external academic and institutional collaborators which aims to improve health outcomes through the development, testing and application of innovative, practical metrics which serve as tools to transform the quality and efficiency of health care. 

Dr. Silber teaches two courses at the University of Pennsylvania:  HCMG212 – Health Care Quality and Outcomes:  Measurement and Management at the Wharton School and EPI580 – Outcomes Research at the Perelman School of Medicine.

MD Neuman, Jeffrey H. Silber, JS Magaziner (2014), Survival and functional outcomes after hip fracture among nursing home residents , JAMA.

Jeffrey H. Silber, PR Rosenbaum, RN Ross, JM Ludwig, W Wang, BA Niknam, N Mukherjee, PA Saynisch, O EvenShoshan, RR Kelz, LA Fleisher (2014), Template matching for auditing hospital cost and quality , Health Serv Res. 10.1111/14756773.12156

Jeffrey H. Silber, PS Romano, KMF Itani, AK Rosen, D Small, RS Lipner, CL Bosk, Y Wang, MJ Halenar, S Korovaichuk, O. EvenShoshan, Kevin Volpp (2014), Assessing the effects of the 2003 resident duty hours reform on internal medicine board scores , Acad Med.

JP Guevara, J Moon, EM Hines, E Fremont, A Wong, CB Forrest, Jeffrey H. Silber, S Pati (2014), Continuity of public insurance coverage: A systematic review of the literature , Med Care Res Rev, 71(2), pp. 115137.

Jeffrey H. Silber, PR Rosenbaum, RN Ross, JM Ludwig, W Wang, BA Niknam, PA Saynisch, O EvenShoshan, RR Kelz, LA Fleisher (2014), Hospitalspecific template matching for auditing hospital cost and quality , Health Serv Res.

RR Kelz, CE Reinke, JR Zubizarreta, M Wang, PA Saynisch, O EvenShoshan, PP Reese, LA Fleisher, Jeffrey H. Silber (2013), Acute kidney injury, renal function, and the elderly obese surgical patient: A matched casecontrol study , Ann Surg, 258:359363.

HL TubbsCooley, JP Cimiotti, Jeffrey H. Silber, DM Sloane, LK Aiken (2013), An observational study of nurse staffing ratios and hospital readmission among children admitted for common conditions , BMJ Qual Saf, 22(9):735742.

Jeffrey H. Silber, PR Rosenbaum, AS Clark, BJ Giantonio, RN Ross, Y Teng, M Wang, BA Niknam, JM Ludwig, W Wang, O. EvenShoshan, KR Fox (2013), Characteristics associated with differences in survival among black and white women with breast cancer , JAMA, 310:389397.

Jeffrey H. Silber, PR Rosenbaum, RN Ross, O EvenShoshan, RR Kelz, MD Neuman, CE Reinke, JM Ludwig, FA Kyle, DW Bratzler, LA Fleisher (2013), Racial disparities in operative procedure time: The influence of obesity , Anesthesiology, 119:4351.

AS Navathe, Jeffrey H. Silber, DS Small, AK Rosen, PS Romano, O EvenShoshan, Y Wang, J Zhu, MJ Halenar, Kevin Volpp (2013), Teaching hospital financial status and patient outcomes following ACGME duty hour reform , Health Serv Res, 48:476498.

Past Courses

HCMG212 HC QUALITY & OUTCOMES

This course will familiarize students with methods used to assess the quality of hospital or provider health care using outcomes data, and to understand and evaluate studies involving health care outcomes. Students are exposed to the mechanics of hospital quality evaluation and challenged to evaluate the medical and health services research literature on health care evaluation, as well as to make inferences regarding hospital quality and the comparison or rankings of hospitals or providers. Topics will include the history of health care outcomes analysis; the conceptual framework for outcome studies; consumer demand for information; an overview of medical data and data collection systems; a description of outcome statistics and severity adjstments currently in use; the study of excess variation in outcomes; and the use of guidelines to assess outcomes. By the end of the course, students will have developed a thorough appreciation of the current methods used by policy makers, researchers, and health care providers to evaluate medical outcomes, as well as those used by consumers to choose hospitals and providers.

HCMG900 PROSEMINAR IN HSR

This seminar will explore empirical methods in health care research with an emphasis on applications in health care economics and finance. The methods covered include estimation with panel data, program evaluation models, qualitative and limited dependent variable models, stochastic frontier models, estimation with count data, and duration models. The readings consist of a blend of classic and recent empirical studies, including articles on the demand for health care and health insurance, tests for moral hazard and adverse selection, and estimation of provider cost functions. Students are required to conduct an econometric analysis of some issue within the health care field. With the permission of the instructor, the seminar is open to doctoral students from departments other than Health Care Systems.

• Nancy Abramson Wolfson Endowed Chair of Health Services Research, 2013
• AcademyHealth ArticleoftheYear, 2011
• AcademyHealth AbstractoftheYear, 2007
• The Hummeler Research Prize (ArticleoftheYear), Joseph Stokes, Jr. Research Institute, 2003
• AcademyHealth (formerly Association for Health Services Research) ArticleoftheYear, 2003
• Samuel P. Martin Health Services Research Award, 2000

• Ethel Brown Foerderer Fund for Excellence Award, 1997

• Check Up: Breast cancer: Why blacks fare worse, Philadelphia Inquirer 08/25/2013

• Study finds why black women less likely to survive breast cancer, CBS News 07/24/2013

• Health at diagnosis may drive breast cancer survival gap, Reuters 07/23/2013

• BlackWhite Divide Persists in Breast Cancer, New York Times 07/23/2013

• Failure and Rescue, The New Yorker 10/07/2012

• How aggressive is your hospital?, New York Times 02/03/2011

• What and where is the “waste” in health care?, The Incidental Economist 01/12/2011

• Children’s hospitals may face financial hardship, Pittsburgh Business Times 03/08/1999

Knowledge @ Wharton

Grading Hospital Quality with a Level Playing Field, Knowledge @ Wharton 05/20/2014