Outcomes & Measurement Science

Bass’ area of research focuses on the develop and integration of PRO software. This includes the implementation and dissemination of Item Response Theory–based algorithms for the selection and scoring of PRO measures. Bass developed and supports the Assessment Center API, software that administers and score PROMIS measures. This software has been incorporated into both clinical patient portals such as EPIC’s MyChart and research-based data collection platforms such as REDCap.

Another software project has been the implementation of a text-message software component for the delivery of behavior interventions that integrate into REDCap. This software is currently being used in multiple EMA-based studies and clinical trials. Bass has also had leadership roles, acting as research site PI and member of advisory panels in multiple SBIR Phase I and II grants.

For more information, see Bass' faculty profile.

Publications

See Bass’ publications on PubMed.

Contact

michael-bass@northwestern.edu
312-503-3618

Over the past 30 years, Cella has built a scientific enterprise around the development and application of questionnaires that precisely indicate symptom severity, functional limitations and general perceptions of health and well-being. His mission has been to bring the voice of the patient into consideration of treatment value and to identify opportunities for improving quality of life. Cella developed and is continually refining the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT) Measurement System for outcome evaluation in patients with chronic medical conditions.

As a clinical psychologist and measurement scientist with expertise in applied health status measurement, Cella has led the development of numerous item banks and instruments, intended for both normal and clinical populations including paper-and-pencil and computer administered instruments. Cella led the PROMIS and Neuro-QoL item banking initiatives from 2004 to 2014 and is now charged with sustaining them as part of the HealthMeasures distribution. In this capacity, he enables countless others to meaningfully apply patient-centered measurement tools in their research and clinical care.

Cella’s work includes areas of high-stakes decision-making such as regulatory review, payer negotiations and individual clinical care. A major focus of many of these initiatives has been ensuring measurement sensitive to diverse populations, including issues of health literacy and health disparities and developmentally sensitive measurement across the lifespan. Most recently, Cella has been engaged in implementing patient-centered supportive oncology care, providing learning health system research and training opportunities at Northwestern Medicine and elsewhere.

For more information, see Cella's faculty profile.

Publications

See Cella’s publications on PubMed.

Contact

d-cella@northwestern.edu
312-503-1086

Program Staff

• September Cahue
  Clinical Research Associate
  312-503-3577
• Victoria Morken
  Senior Program Administrator
  312-503-5197
• Amy Sparling
  Senior Program Coordinator
  312-503-4928

Gershon often turns to Item Response Theory and Computer Adaptive Testing to increase test efficiency and to enable comparisons over time and across studies. He has leveraged this expertise to serve as an investigator and/or consultant on more than 100 assessment development projects in healthcare, education and medical certification. He is the PI and continues to manage the distribution and further development of the NIH Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function. For example, Gershon is MPI (with David Cella, PhD) of the ECHO (Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes PRO Measurement) Core to oversee measurement integration and new measure development for 50,000 children and their parents.

At the other end of the age spectrum, he is MPI (with Sandy Weintraub, PhD) for Advancing Reliable Measurement in Alzheimer's Disease and Cognitive Aging (ARMADA), which is validating and expanding the NIH Toolbox for use in studies of cognitive aging beginning with normal cognition through progression into MCI and into early stages of AD. Gershon also is active in the development and distribution of Patient-Reported Outcomes (PRO) measures. He oversaw the development of Assessment Center, served as the PROMIS Technical Center PI and currently works as the Technology Core Lead for the National Person-Centered Assessment Resource. His team is also now working on the development and distribution of self-administered performance and PRO measures on smartphones in his role as contact MPI for Mobile Toolbox.

For more information, see Gershon's faculty profile.

Publications

See Gershon’s publications on PubMed.

Contact

gershon@northwestern.edu
312-503-3453

Program Staff

• Ellen Roney
  Program Assistant
  312-503-3601
• Maria Varela
  Director of Information Technology
  312-503-3032
• Michelle Langer, PhD
  PROMIS/Assessment-Center API Product Manager
• Julie Hook, PhD
  NIH Toolbox Product Manager
• Vitali Ustsinovich
  Project Manager: ARMADA, Mobile Toolbox, MyCog
  312-810-9476
• Amanda Summers
  ECHO Project Manager
  312-503-5247
• David Ortiz
  Assistant Manager, Customer Service

Community-Engaged Approaches to Outcomes Research
George J. Greene, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences, a faculty member of the Northwestern University Center on Outcomes Research and Education (NUCORE), and a HealthMeasures scientist. His scholarship centers on applied outcomes measurement science, with particular emphasis on community- and stakeholder-engaged approaches to developing, evaluating, and implementing patient-reported outcomes (PROs) that are methodologically rigorous and appropriate for diverse clinical and research contexts of use. Trained in Community and Prevention Research, unifying focus of his work is strengthening methodological rigor and advancing equity by improving the representation and inclusion of diverse populations in outcomes research. Greene uses qualitative and mixed methods to engage patients, providers, and community partners in translating lived experience into measurable constructs, supporting instrument refinement and validation, and examining how patient-centered outcomes perform in real-world clinical and community systems. Through this work, he seeks to improve the generalizability and inclusiveness of outcomes research by ensuring that measures are defined, tested, and applied across diverse populations and care settings. His portfolio spans FDA Clinical Outcome Assessment Qualification efforts for PROMIS measures, industry-sponsored PRO research across multiple disease areas, and implementation-focused studies in healthcare and community systems. For example, as Principal Investigator of Project LUCES (CDC U01), Greene leads a large-scale, community-engaged study examining how medical mistrust and misinformation influence engagement in HIV prevention services, applying mixed methods to inform intervention design and implementation within real-world health and social service contexts.

For more information, see Greene's faculty profile page.

Publications

See Greene’s publications on PubMed.

Contact

george-greene@northwestern.edu
312-503-3603

Kaat’s primary research interests relate to measure development, adaptation and validation in special populations, particularly for child chronic conditions. However, his research has expanded to include other special populations such as other adult orthopaedic outcomes and cancer outcomes.

Kaat’s research emphasizes psychometrics and latent variable models related to the instruments within the HealthMeasures suite (i.e., the NIH Toolbox, PROMIS, PROMIS Pediatric, Neuro-QoL and ASCQ-Me). He is particularly interested in multiple-group item response theory. Kaat is the site-PI on a grant funded by NICHD to develop a social communication outcome measure, the site-PI on a foundation grant related to children with medical complexity and has served as a co-investigator on several other projects.

For more information, see Kaat's faculty profile.

Publications

See Kaat’s publications on PubMed.

Contact

aaron.kaat@northwestern.edu
312-503-3477

As a developmental scientist and researcher, Pila-Leiderman is most interested in the intersection of technology and healthy child development. For her, that means identifying ways in which technology and media can be used for “good” rather than villainized and weaponized as has been done in the news. Her work examines how digital tools and media can support learning and other positive developmental outcomes in young children, specifically within areas such as parent-child interactions and in the early childhood education space. Her research also includes significant contributions to the development and validation of developmental assessment batteries.

One of her notable projects is support of the Mobile Toolbox Battery (MTB), designed to remotely and effectively collect data on cognitive functions such as executive function, language, memory, and processing speed. This tool aims to facilitate early detection of cognitive impairments, including those due to neurodegenerative diseases. Another is the NIH Infant and Toddler Toolbox (“Baby Toolbox,” NBT), an iPad-based assessment tool designed to evaluate various developmental domains in children aged 1 to 42 months. Pila-Leiderman's work on these products has spawned several evaluation and protocol manuscripts. A true mixed methodologist, she thrives on finding just the appropriate technique to answer research questions around technology, developmental science, and beyond.

Key Research Focus

The Psychometrics and Statistics Core provides research design and analytical support across MSS and in collaboration with other research institutions and industry partners. Core staff and faculty have expertise in complex data management, wrangling, and storage, as well as advanced statistical methods for data analysis, including longitudinal studies, clinical trials, measure development, and psychometrics. Core members work with investigators on various aspects of research, including development of study protocols, measure selection, analysis plans, and power/sample size determinations; managing and maintaining data and data quality; applying statistical and psychometric analytic methods; and reporting, writing, and presenting analytic methods and results.

For more information see the Psychometrics and Statistics Core page.