Fulfilling the mandate and spirit of health care reform requires innovative new approaches, identification of best practices, translation of research findings to the field, and evaluation of approaches and models once in the field. JSI’s expertise is bridging the gap between research and implementation, accounting for the practical realities of our health care system and provider organizations’ missions of optimizing their quality of services to better serve their patients. For three decades JSI has been offering effective, multi-dimensional expertise to federal, state and local government agencies and health care organizations to assist in the design and implementation of health services research and program evaluation. JSI’s expertise is field-based and employs mixed methods approaches with a purpose of discovering and recommending practical solutions that work in real world settings.
Health Services Research
JSI uses multidisciplinary teams and rigorous research designs to understand how individual behaviors, organizational factors, market context, information technology, and/or financing systems affect access, quality, cost, and health outcomes. Knowledge and findings from this work result in practical recommendations to policy makers and health practitioners for improving health services delivery.
Survey Research
JSI generates exceptional response to its surveys through tailoring survey instruments, sampling designs, and data collection modalities to its audience. In addition to traditional forms of survey research (mail surveys, email surveys, telephone and in-person interviews), JSI has employed innovative technologies, including social media, to reach a wide range of audiences. Examples of these audiences include youth, disenfranchised populations, elderly, providers, and policy makers.
Implementation Research
Application and uptake of research findings and best practices in the field present many challenges. Implementation research studies the “how” underlying this uptake process. Through identifying population, patient, provider, organizational, and systems factors related to implementation, JSI’s work contributes to a services delivery system that is increasingly more evidence based.
Program Evaluation
To ensure that scarce healthcare resources are being used appropriately and efficiently, understanding whether particular programs or approaches are effective is essential. Skilled particularly in multi-site program evaluation, JSI uses mixed methods approaches to assess program impact over the short and longer term, generalizability to other settings, and factors related to program replication.
Data Analysis
JSI carefully chooses its analytic methods to ensure that they match the available primary and secondary data, are understandable and provide actionable, useful results. Included among the quantitative approaches are: mapping, survey weighting and claims analysis. JSI often employs mixed methods research to understand the story behind the numbers.