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Thomas C. Tsai, MD, MPH

Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital

1153 Centre Street
Boston, MA 02130
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Thomas C. Tsai, MD, MPH
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  • I am an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. I engage in multidisciplianry research across the fields of health policy, public health, and data science. I am a faculty associate of the Center for Surgery and Public Health, Ariadne Labs, the Harvard Global Health Institute, and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics.

    As a practicing surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital, my clinical interests are in minimally invasive surgery for GERD and other benign gastrosophageal disorders; metabolic and bariatric surgery; and complex abdominal wall reconstruction. 

    My research focuses on understanding the impact of health policy efforts on achieving value in our healthcare system by reducing spending and improving outcomes. Using national Medicare claims data, my work has examined the relationship between hospital quality and readmissions; patient experience as a measure of quality; and racial and socioeconomic disparities in readmission rates. From 2014-2015, I served as a senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) in the Office of Health Policy at the US Department of Health and Human Services. I currently serve as the Vice-Chair of the Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME) and am actively engaged in advising federal policies on the physician workforce, graduate medical educaiton, and rural/urban disparities in medical care. My recent focus is on 1) achieving value in the Medicare system with projects focused on bundled payments and low-value care in Medicare Advantage (private Medicare) vs traditional Medicare (fee-for-service) 2) understanding the effect of hospital mergers on site of care optimization and outcomes; and 3) developing models to prepare the US health system for pandemic resilience. 

    During the COVID-19 pandemic my work has focused on understanding the effect of the pandemic on the US health care system as well as in developing testing targets to inform state and federal pandemic response and preparedness (www.globalepidemics.org).

     

Recent Publications

  • The effect of Massachusetts health reform on access to care for Medicaid beneficiaries
  • Hospital Factors Associated With Care Discontinuity Following Emergency General Surgery
  • Potential impact of Affordable Care Act-related insurance expansion on trauma care reimbursement
  • Cured into Destitution: Catastrophic Health Expenditure Risk Among Uninsured Trauma Patients in the United States
  • The Association Between Medicare Eligibility and Gains in Access to Rehabilitative Care: A National Regression Discontinuity Assessment of Patients Ages 64 Versus 65 Years
  • Better Patient Care At High-Quality Hospitals May Save Medicare Money And Bolster Episode-Based Payment Models
More
  • Pandemic Preparedness and Response
  • Bio
  • Publications
  • Harvard Global Health Institute
  • Center for Surgery and Public Health
  • Ariadne Labs
  • Media Coverage
  • Harvard Business Review: Hospital Management and COVID-19
  • Health Affairs Blog - US Hospital Capacity in Response to COVID-19
  • NYT - These Places Could Run Out of Hospital Beds as Coronavirus Spreads
  • WBUR/NPR All Things Considered - COVID-19 Hospital Capacity Gap
  • Wharton Business Radio - Health Care Changes and Corporate Board Governance
  • Better Patient Care at High-Quality Hospitals May Save Medicare Money
  • Wharton Business Radio - Patient Satisfaction and Healthcare
  • Medicare tackles disparities in common operations
  • Problems at home after surgery? Go back to same hospital, study says
  • Hospital Consolidation isn't the key to lower costs and raising quality
  • One in seven surgical patients is readmitted after 30 days

Twitter

  • sercanarik
    sercanarik "Algorithmic fairness in pandemic forecasting: lessons from COVID-19" - we present our perspectives for equitable ML innovations based on our experience building pandemic forecasting models, with brilliant collaborators from Harvard led by @Thomasctsai t.co/kXhBAVkkni
    1 day 13 hours ago.
  • bhrenton
    bhrenton New analysis from an all-star team at @Brown_SPH, @HarvardChanSPH and Microsoft AI (@stef_friedhoff, @Thomasctsai and colleagues) estimates that vaccines could have prevented at least 318,000 Covid-19 deaths between January 2021 and April 2022. t.co/Oak4dRm8wU t.co/J3OkxRTbWX
    1 day 13 hours ago.
  • BDataScientist
    BDataScientist A few months ago, in collaboration with @stef_friedhoff and @Thomasctsai we decided to answer an important question: how many COVID-19 deaths could have been averted if all adults had gotten vaccinated? Here is our answer to that question t.co/C8aMaPqYPb
    2 days 1 hour ago.
  • stef_friedhoff
    stef_friedhoff As we mark 1 mill. Covid deaths this weekend, we launched a new dashboard that delivers a hard truth: about every second person who died from Covid-19 since vaccines became available could have been saved by – yes, vaccines. A 🧵about data, people & trust t.co/tzhd6fxXB5
    4 days 6 hours ago.
  • stef_friedhoff
    stef_friedhoff @gtconway3d Well, since you asked... about every second Covid-19 death in 2021 could have been prevented by vaccines. @BDataScientist @Thomasctsai and I took a deep dive. t.co/1Yiyq055jN
    5 days 11 hours ago.
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Blog posts by month

  • November 2013 (1)
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