Lawrence Casalino is the Livingston Farrand Associate Professor of Public Health and Chief of the Division of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research at Weill Cornell Medical College.  Previously, he worked as a community organizer, worked for 20 years as a full-time family physician in a small private practice in California, served as Vice President of a large Independent Practice Association (IPA), obtained a Ph.D. in Health Services Research at the University of California, Berkeley, and served as an associate professor at the University of Chicago.  He has served as Chair of the Academy Health Annual Research Meeting and on numerous national committees.  He has worked with the Federal Trade Commission and with provider organizations on antitrust issues related to clinical integration.  Dr. Casalino is the recipient of an Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; he is currently a member of the National Advisory Committee for this program.

Dr. Casalino’s work focuses on the ways in which physician and hospital practice is organized – with “organization” taken to mean both organizational structures and the processes that physician groups and hospitals use to improve the care they provide.  He is particularly interested in the effects of public and private policies on physician and hospital organization, and thus on the quality of health care.  He seeks to understand the effects of policies on racial/economic and social class disparities in health care delivery, as well as other unintended consequences.  He has published numerous articles on issues related to medical groups, risk contracting, physician-hospital and physician-health insurance plan relations, pay for performance, and Accountable Care Organizations.  Dr. Casalino uses a variety of research methods, including surveys, chart reviews, interviews and case studies, and analyses of large databases.

The Nuffield Trust designated Dr. Casalino as the 2010 John Fry Fellow.  As part of the fellowship he has written a Viewpoint report, setting out what the NHS in England could learn from the US experience of doctor-led commissioning. The report, GP Commissioning in the NHS in England: Ten suggestions from the United States, was published in June 2011 and is available to download now.