Mahshid Abir, MD, MSc

Dr. Abir is an emergency physician and health services researcher with a joint appointment at the University of Michigan and the RAND Corporation. She earned a Master’s degree in Health and Health Services Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program (RWJF CSP) at the University of Michigan in 2011.   Following graduation from RWJF CSP she joined the Medical Faculty Associates in the Department of Emergency Medicine at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and held a position as an Affiliated Adjunct with the RAND Corporation where she conducted policy focused research.  She has been an integral member of teams of researchers at RAND developing the various aspects of the National Health Security Strategy funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), developing tools to measure hospital and healthcare coalition surge capacity in response to mass casualty incidents, and a tool designed to evaluate community disaster preparedness.  Dr. Abir has authored multiple op-eds on various aspects of disaster preparedness and response published through national news outlets including USA Today, CNN.com, and US News and World Report.  Other RAND projects Dr. Abir has been involved with include a project evaluating the evolving role of emergency care in the United States funded by the Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF).

Dr. Abir’s research focus is in evaluating the continuum of acute care delivery in the United States, including pre-hospital, emergency, inpatient, and ambulatory care with a focus on addressing policy-related questions pertaining to utilization, quality, efficiency, outcomes, and costs of acute care delivery in these settings.  Through various completed and ongoing funded projects, Dr. Abir has gained significant experience with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research methodologies, and community-based participatory research (CBPR). Her portfolio of funded projects includes NIH and foundation grants, and funding from state and federal government.  She is the PI of a project funded by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services evaluating quality measures for medical control authority structure and performance in Michigan using mixed methods.  She currently leads an ongoing CBPR project funded by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) evaluating patient-centered interventions to reduce avoidable asthma-related pediatric emergency department visits and hospitalizations in collaboration with the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers in Camden, New Jersey.  She is also the PI of an R21, funded by the National Institute on Aging, evaluating the impact of high inpatient occupancy on outcomes for hospitalized elderly Medicare patients.