Sara Singer, PhD, MBA, is a professor of health policy at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Professor by courtesy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is the faculty director of the Health Leadership, Innovation, and Organizations (HELIO) Labs, which fosters interdisciplinary collaboration among colleagues from across the University, including Stanford Health Care and the Schools of Medicine, Business, Engineering, Design, Sustainability, Law, and Humanities and Sciences — and across the globe.

Singer's research in the field of health care management and policy is informed by her interdisciplinary training in health policy, organizational behavior, and general management. Using innovative mixed methods and organizational theories, she studies health-care teams and organizations to understand how leaders and policymakers can improve the safety and quality of health-care delivery through changes in institutional culture, leadership, organizational design, and team dynamics. Her research program is built around central challenges in health-care delivery (ensuring patient safety despite enormous complexity and uncertainty in diagnosis, treatment, and disease progression; integrating increasingly fragmented services across multiple service providers and organizations; and implementing, adapting, and sustaining innovations that enhance the value of health care), where my research suggests that learning- and systems-oriented leaders and teams and supportive organizational cultures are critical factors for creating a high performing health care delivery system.

Mark Hlatky is a Professor of Health Policy (active emeritus) and a Professor of Medicine (Cardiovasular Medicine) at the Stanford University School of Medicine. His major interests are in outcomes research, evidence-based medicine, and cost-effectiveness analysis. He introduced data collection about economic and quality of life endpoints in several randomized trials, principally trials of therapies for cardiovascular disease.

Hlatky received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania, and, after residency at the University of Arizona, studied as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco. He trained in cardiology at Duke University Medical Center, and then joined the Duke faculty. He has been at the Stanford University School of Medicine since 1989.

Alex Macario is a professor of anesthesiology and, by courtesy, of Health Research and Policy. He completed his undergraduate, medical school and business school training at the University of Rochester. He trained in anesthesiology at Stanford University and was chief resident. He then completed a fellowship in heath services research.

Dr. Macario has gained international recognition for his pioneering studies on operating room management, and the economics of surgery and anesthesia. He is particularly interested in the hospitalization costs for surgical patients, economic assessment of new drugs and devices for use in surgical care, and information technology to help physician leaders with clinical and administrative decision support in the surgery suite.

He is director of a Fellowship in the Management of Perioperative Services, based in the Department of Anesthesia. This postgraduate fellowship program trains several physicians per year in management science and applications to the delivery of surgical and anesthesia care.

Ross Shachter's research interests are in the modeling of uncertain processes and decision making. His main focus has been the communication and analysis of the relationships among uncertain quantities in a graphical representation called an influence diagram (closely related to a belief network). Professor Shachter's work in medical decision analysis has included management of bladder cancer follow-up and analysis of AIDS Policy therapies. During a leave of absence at Duke University's Center for Health Policy, he was able to bring his interests together to develop an influence diagram-based approach for medical technology assessment. He has been on the Stanford faculty since receiving his PhD in Operations Research from UC Berkeley in 1982.