Harkness Project Title: Patient Safety in Primary Care

Placement: Kaiser Permanente

Mentor: Murray N. Ross, Ph.D., Vice President, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, and Director, Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy

Biography at time of Harkness Fellowship: Antoinette De Bont, Ph.D., a 2010-11 Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice, is associate professor at the Institute of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research has included work on the use of comparative effectiveness/cost-effectiveness research to shape the benefit basket, integration of health networks to deliver seamless care, the use of registries and databases, and the role of insurers in health governance. Additionally, in this position, she has led a project to develop a research agenda for a new program on patient safety for the Netherlands Organization of Health Research and Innovation. At the university, De Bont is also board member of the Department of Health Care Government and chair of the Bachelor and Master of Health Sciences programs. Previously, she served as policy officer in the Inspectorate of Social Affaires (Zoetermeer), where she led projects on: the use of guidelines for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other illnesses that cannot be objectively diagnosed; the way in which people are assessed for disability pension eligibility; and an ethnographic study of occupational physicians. De Bont is author of 20 peer-reviewed publications, including articles in the journals Health Policy and the European Journal of Public Health. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Maastricht.

Email: debont@bmg.eur.nl