Rachel M. Werner, M.D., PhD

Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine Senior Fellow, Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics Fellow, Institute on Aging Core Faculty, Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Dr. Rachel Werner is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Core Investigator with the VA HSR&D Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP).  She received her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where she also did her residency in Internal Medicine.  While completing a clinical fellowship in general internal medicine, she also received a Ph.D. in health economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Dr. Werner’s research seeks to understand the effect of health care policies and delivery systems on quality of care.  In particular, she has examined the role of quality improvement incentives on provider behavior, the organization of health care, racial disparities, and overall health care quality.  Her work has empirically investigated numerous unintended consequences to quality improvement incentives and was among the first to recognize that public reporting of quality information may worsen racial disparities.  She is currently principal investigator of an R01 from the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality (examining how pay-for-performance in hospitals changed the value of health care) and an R01 from the National Institute of Aging (examining the effect of Medicaid pay-for-performance for nursing homes on delivery of nursing home care).  She also directs one of five national centers to evaluate the effectiveness of the medical home by the Veterans Health Administration.  She has received numerous awards including the Dissertation Award and the Alice Hersh New Investigator Award from AcademyHealth and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.  Her research has been published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, including JAMA, Health Services Research, and Health Affairs.

In addition to her research, Dr. Werner is a practicing primary care internist at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and regularly attends the hospital’s internal medicine service.   She supervises health care provided by Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania internal medicine residents and medical students.