Theodore Speroff, PhD
Psychometrics, Statistician, GRECC

Theodore Speroff is a PhD graduate of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program of Case Western Reserve University; he has another PhD in cognitive-developmental experimental psychology and a MS in mathematical statistics. Dr. Speroff has appointments in the Vanderbilt University Departments of Medicine and Preventive Medicine. He is Director of Clinical Improvement Research in the Center for Clinical Improvement and a member of the Center for Health Services Research in the Division of General Medicine. He is a VA Senior Scholar and Associate Director of the Nashville site of the VA National Quality Scholars Fellowship Program, a member of the VA HSR&D scientific review and evaluation board, a mentor of several young Vanderbilt faculty with career development awards, a member of the advisory board of the Cleveland VAMC Center for Quality Improvement Research, Research Enhancement Award Program (REAP) and Director of Quality Improvement for the VA national office of the Compensation and Pension Examination Program (CPEP).

Dr. Speroff is on the AHRQ Health Research Dissemination and Implementation scientific review committee and he co-chairs the International Scientific Symposium on Improving Quality and Value in Health Care, which is held during the National Forum sponsored by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Dr. Speroff has mentored multiple post-doctoral and pre-doctoral student, fellows, and junior faculty as well as faculty with career development grants.

Dr. Speroff has 20 years of professional experience in quality improvement that ranges from hospital-based firm trials of quality improvement to community based quality improvement. Dr. Speroff is also a research methodologist and psychometrician. He has provided the oversight of data collection, survey administration and analysis in many studies, including work on improving screening for breast cancer and cervical cancer in low income women, a trial to improve immunization in the elderly and the Action for Health community model for mammography outreach to low income elderly women. He was co-investigator and involved in the survey methodology, evaluation of preferences and prognosis, and analyses at the Cleveland MetroHealth Medical Center site of the SUPPORT study of end-of-life care. He was instrumental to the use of sophisticated propensity scores to adjust for selection bias in the study on effectiveness of right heart catheterization; a technique that has since been applied in many published articles. He has used conjoint analysis using fractional factorial designs that alias higher-order interactions to identify elderly patient preferences in end of life care. In a recent submission, he extended the use of the timeline follow back calendar method to document the issues that low income, recently hospitalized congestive heart failure patients have with prescription medication issues. His research interests include health services research and outcomes assessment, continuous quality improvement in health care, assessment of patient preferences and clinical decision analysis, and methodological reviews of the literature and meta analysis.