In recognition of his significant contributions to research literature in the field of health services, Larry Hearld, PhD, has been selected as the 2015 recipient of the John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators. The Prize was established to honor John D. Thompson, a professor of health administration, who set standards in teaching, commitment to learning, collegial relationships, and health services research which are without peer. It is awarded to faculty from AUPHA members programs whose work, which may be in any of the several fields of disciplines, contributes to knowledge in health services. Dr. Hearld will be presented with the Prize at the AUPHA Annual Meeting this June in Miami, FL.
Dr. Hearld was nominated by Christy Harris Lemak, PhD, FACHE, Professor and Department Chair of the Department of Health Services Administration, and S. Robert Hernandez, DrPH, Professor and Doctoral Program Director, both of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “We strongly support his nomination for this prestigious award because we believe Dr. Hearld exemplifies who and what we seek for future scholars and teachers of health administration.”
Dr. Hearld is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Prior to his appointment at UAB, Hearld was an Instructor for the Organizational Studies Program at the University of Michigan, where he earned his PhD in Health Services Organization and Policy in 2009 and a BS in Psychology. He is also a graduate of Central Michigan University, where he earned his MSA in Health Services Administration and an MBA in Human Resources Management. Prior to his teaching career, Dr. Hearld spent nearly ten years as a consultant for the Medical Advantage Group in East Lansing, MI.
“While he is early in his career, Dr. Hearld has been incredibly productive as a scholar examining critical issues facing the health services sector,” write Drs. Lemak and Hernandez. Dr. Hearld’s two streams of research include the examination of the innovations of complex healthcare delivery systems and the governance and management of community health alliances. One of the innovations that Dr. Hearld and his colleagues have focused on is the use of pay-for-performance and public reporting programs to improve the quality of care in the United States. While most research on this topic has explored hospital behavior, Dr. Hearld and his colleagues (Alexander, Shi, & Casalino, 2014) were among the first to focus on the extent to which physician practices participate.
“Dr. Hearld has been very productive in his first few years as a faculty member, with 28 peer-reviewed papers published or accepted for publication and two refereed book chapters,” his nominators write. “He is senior author on 10 of the manuscripts with many of these papers appearing in top journals including Health Services Research, Medical Care Research and Review, and Medical Care. It is difficult to identify another junior investigator who has as many papers in the journals that we would all agree are among the most important and most challenging for new investigators.” This number of publications will continue to grow, as Dr. Hearld has over a dozen more manuscripts currently under review or in progress.
In addition to his research, Dr. Hearld has been actively involved in the healthcare management programs at UAB. He has already chaired five dissertations that were successfully defended. While the traditional doctoral model for dissertation is five chapter manuscripts, Dr. Hearld’s first dissertation was a “three article” dissertation. His work on this dissertation has become a model for other three-article dissertations within the Department. Additionally, the dissertation committees at UAB typically have one individual serving as content expert and another as methods advisor, though Dr. Hearld has been able to serve in both roles for his doctoral students.
Upon receiving the news that he was the 2015 recipient of the Thompson Prize, Dr. Hearld said, “The Thompson Prize is such a prestigious award and it is an honor to be included among the leaders in our field who have earned this award before me. I believe that the work we do as researchers is vital for improving our health care system and recognition of this work with the Thompson Prize is both rewarding and humbling. It is my sincere hope that I will continue to live up to the expectations conferred by this award in the years to come.”
Nominations for the 2016 Thompson Prize will be solicited in the fall and winter for submissions by spring 2016. In order to be eligible for the Prize, the nominee must be a faculty member at a Full Member Program of AUPHA, have been awarded a PhD no more than six years prior to consideration, and have not yet achieved tenure. The Prize is intended to serve as a benchmark for pre-tenure work. For additional information, go to AUPHA’s website at www.aupha.org > Resource Center > Faculty > Thompson Prize for Young Investigators.