Health services research: why it matters to health policy makers and clinicians.

1 Director, Health Services & Outcomes Research, National Healthcare Group, Singapore 2 CEO, National Healthcare Group Polyclinics and Chief Projects Officer, National Healthcare Group, Singapore 3 Head, Emergency Department/Divisional Chairman, Ambulatory & Diagnostic Medicine, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore Address for Correspondence: Dr Heng Bee Hoon, 6 Commonwealth Lane, GMTI Building #04-01/02, Singapore 149547. Email: [email protected] In Singapore, there appears to be a recent unprecedented flurry of interest in health services research (HSR), a fairly distinct and recognisable activity, within (i) the 2 public healthcare clusters – the National Healthcare Group and Singapore Health Services; (ii) academic settings in the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Duke Graduate Medical School (GMS); and (iii) the Ministry of Health. Globally too, HSR is a relatively new field of about 60 years. In the US, the “think tank” Research and Development (RAND) Corporation formed the RAND Health division to provide objective analysis to improve policy and decision making through HSR, only in the 1960s.1 The Agency for Healthcare Policy and Research was created in 1989,2 and later re-authorised as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the leading federal agency for research on healthcare quality, costs, outcomes, and patient safety; while AcademyHealth, a leading professional society for health services researchers and health policy analysts, was formed in 2000. Early HSR was done by clinicians, economists and sociologists. Now health services researchers come from disciplines such as biostatistics, economics, public health, epidemiology, clinical sciences, psychology, sociology, and other disparate areas such as engineering, decision theory, geography, medical informatics, operations research, pharmacy, anthropology, demographics, actuarial science and nutrition in addition to clinical medicine.