Lisa Simpson, MB, BCh, MPH, Director
Dr. Simpson is Director of the Child Policy Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and a Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Health Policy and Clinical Effectiveness, Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati. The Center provides evidence based information to inform policy and program decisions at the local, state, and national levels with an emphasis on strategies to improve the quality of health care, the effectiveness of public policies, and child well being.
Dr. Simpson, a board-certified pediatrician, serves as a National Policy Advisor for the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality, an education and research organization dedicated solely to improving the quality of health care provided to children. She also served as an elected member of AcademyHealth’s Board of Directors and that of the Coalition for Health Services Research. Most recently she served on a national advisory committee to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality recommending a core quality measure set for use by state Medicaid and CHIP programs. Dr. Simpson serves on numerous other state and national committees, including being appointed in 2008 by Governor Beshear to co-chair the Committee on Child Health and Wellbeing of the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s Commission on Philanthropy.
A nationally recognized health policy researcher, Dr. Simpson has led studies of the quality and safety of care for children and adolescents, the role of health information technology in improving care for children, disparities in care for children and youth, the health policy response to childhood obesity, and the role of policies in advancing child health, including both state and national policies. She is especially active in childhood obesity at the local (Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky) level, state level, and nationally. She was formerly the Deputy Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Maternal and Child Health Director in Hawaii. Dr. Simpson earned her undergraduate and medical degrees at Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), a Masters in Public Health at the University of Hawaii, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in health services research and health policy at the University of California, San Francisco. She has received numerous awards including the Excellence in Public Service Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Senior Executive Service Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, the DHHS Secretary's Distinguished Service Award and most recently, the 2007 Health Policy Researcher of the Year award from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio.
