# Quality of Care, Health Outcomes, and Costs among COPD Patients Following Improved Access to Health Care

> **NIH NIH K01** · ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI · 2021 · $168,035

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
This career development award for Dr. Aaron Baum, an assistant professor of health system design and global
health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, will establish him as an investigator who researches
health services and policies designed to improve access to quality health care for COPD patients. This K01
award will enable Dr. Baum to expand his research area and grow into an independent investigator by
establishing his expertise in the following areas through formal coursework and strong mentoring: 1) Clinical
epidemiology of COPD (etiology, patient impacts, and long-term outcomes) 2) health services research
(measurement of access to and quality of care, and the VA's integrated delivery system, non-VA care for
veterans, and the VA Choice Act) and 3) statistical learning (for heterogeneous treatment effects). Dr. Baum
will pursue these training goals guided by a multidisciplinary faculty team led by primary mentor Dr. Juan
Wisnivesky, a highly experienced junior faculty mentor with experience performing high-impact COPD
comparative effectiveness research. An advisory committee composed of highly regarded principal
investigators in health services research DQG statistical learning will provide additional guidance. COPD is a
prevalent, undertreated and devastating chronic lung disease for which substantial geographic disparities in
access to care exist across the United States. The supply of primary care providers and pulmonologists per
COPD patient is low in many areas of country where the prevalence of COPD and rates of exacerbations are
comparatively high. Whether increasing the supply of primary and pulmonary care providers available to
individuals with COPD is likely to lead to increased use of primary or pulmonary care, improve quality of care,
or reduce COPD exacerbations, readmission rates, or costs remains unclear. Dr. Baum will leverage the
Veterans Choice Program, which increased the supply of covered primary care providers and pulmonologists
available to eligible veterans, as a natural experiment to investigate three integrated aims: he will evaluate
whether increasing the supply of covered primary and pulmonary care providers available to COPD patients is
associated with increased utilization of primary and pulmonary care and improved quality of care (Aim 1), and
with reduced COPD exacerbations, 30-day readmission rates, and annual costs of care (Aim 2); and he will
identify subpopulations of COPD patients most likely to benefit from increasing access to providers (Aim 3). By
leveraging quasi-random variation in eligibility and applying state-of-the-art econometric and statistical learning
techniques to nationally integrated clinical and claims data, Dr. Baum expects to significantly advance
understanding of the impacts of increasing the supply of primary and pulmonary care providers available to
COPD patients. After accomplishing the training and research aims in this project, Dr. Baum will be...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10215926
- **Project number:** 1K01HL153802-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI
- **Principal Investigator:** Aaron Baum
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $168,035
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-04-01 → 2026-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10215926

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10215926, Quality of Care, Health Outcomes, and Costs among COPD Patients Following Improved Access to Health Care (1K01HL153802-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10215926. Licensed CC0.

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