Assistant professor of health care policy and medicine Zirui Song, MD, PhD, has received the 2019 Society of General Internal Medicine Milton W. Hamolsky Jr. Faculty Scientific Presentation Award and the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research Bernie J. O’Brien New Investigator Award.

The Milton W. Hamolsky Jr. Faculty Scientific Presentation Award is given to three junior faculty nationally whose abstracts and presentations are judged to be the most outstanding among those submitted by junior faculty members of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM). Song received the Hamolsky award for his presentation at the SGIM 2019 Annual Meeting on “Changes in Economic and Clinical Outcomes Under CMS Mandatory Bundled Payments for Joint Replacements.” This research examined the CMS Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model—an episode-based payment model implemented in a randomized fashion by CMS across the country—over its first two full years, showing reductions in Medicare Part A spending driven by postacute care savings, with no changes in volume of joint replacements, quality of care, or patient selection among Medicare beneficiaries.

While at the meeting, Song also had a plenary presentation of his recent study on workplace wellness programs. This large randomized clinical trial across worksites in the Eastern U.S. found that while workplace wellness programs influenced employees to pick up healthier habits, it did not have an effect on their clinical measures of health or health care spending over 18 months.

SGIM is a medical society of primary care and internal medicine physicians and trainees. The society’s 3,000 members hail from every medical school and major teaching hospital in the United States. The members teach medical students, residents, and fellows how to care for adult patients. They also conduct research that improves primary care, preventative measures, and medical treatments for patients. SGIM strives to be a professional home for innovators and scholars in academic general internal medicine.

Song was honored with the Bernie J. O’Brien New Investigator Award at the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) 2019 meeting. This award is given to a researcher who has shown exceptional promise based on his or her emerging body of technical and scholarly work in the field of health economics and outcomes research. Song’s research focuses on strategies to improve the value of health care spending. His work includes evaluations of spending and quality under alternative payment models, impact of Medicare and private insurer prices on provider behavior, the economics of Medicare Advantage, and the effect of wellness initiatives.

Song joins Ruth L. Newhouse Associate Professor of Health Care Policy Anupam B. Jena, MD, PhD, and associate professor of health care policy (biostatistics) Sherri Rose, PhD, as department recipients of this New Investigator Award.

ISPOR was founded in 1995 to serve as a catalyst for advancing the science and practice of health economics and outcomes research worldwide. The society works to promote health economics and outcomes research to improve decision making for health globally. ISPOR is the leading global scientific and educational organization for health economics and outcomes research and their use in decision making to improve health.

You can read more about Song and his research on the department of health care policy website.