Margaret J. (Maggie) Gunter, PhD, is President and Executive Director of the Lovelace Clinic Foundation (LCF), a non-profit health research institute closely affiliated with Lovelace Sandia Health System, a large integrated healthcare system based in Albuquerque, NM. LCF's primary purpose is to conduct applied healthcare delivery research and medical education to improve the quality, availability, and cost effectiveness of healthcare in the United States. Dr. Gunter was instrumental in the development of Lovelace’s nationally recognized Episodes of Care^® (EOC) Disease Management Program. One of Dr. Gunter’s central research interests is the design, implementation, and evaluation of system-based interventions to translate evidence-based guidelines into improved practice patterns and patient outcomes through provider behavior change. She is PI of the New Mexico Health Information Collaborative (NMHIC), a $3.5 million community-wide health information exchange funded in part by AHRQ with matching community contributions. The NMHIC project will link claims/encounter, pharmacy, and lab data across all health systems and plans serving Albuquerque and Taos to provide cross-system web-based access to health information to patients and physicians to enhance care coordination and patient self-management. Other current and recently completed projects include disease management initiatives in ovarian cancer, prostate and colon cancer screening, lipid telemanagement, and epilepsy as well as two large CMS-funded demonstrations examining the cost-effectiveness of case management for diabetes and congestive heart failure. In addition, Dr. Gunter is the lead investigator for the Lovelace site in the ten-site AHRQ-funded HMO Research Network CERT Prescribing Safety Project. She was Principal Investigator of a key national project to develop guides for Medicare + Choice plans to address racial/ethnic disparities and cultural and linguistic competence in health care. Dr. Gunter has numerous publications in the area of disease management and outcomes research and has made many invited presentations on these subjects at U.S. and international conferences. Her areas of research interest and expertise include health outcomes, disease management, incentives for provider and patient behavior change, patient safety, racial/ethnic health disparities, cultural and linguistic competence, and health care systems evaluation. Dr. Gunter holds a PhD in medical sociology from the University of Pittsburgh.

March, 2005

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