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Aimed at developing promising health care policy researchers and practitioners in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, the Harkness Fellowships provide a unique opportunity to spend up to 12 months in the U.S., conduct a policy-oriented research study, gain firsthand exposure to managed care and other models of health care delivery, enhance methodological skills, and work with leading health policy experts. Selection committees in each country interview candidates and recommend fellows. Nicole Lurie, M.D., senior natural scientist and Paul O'Neill Alcoa Professor of Health Policy at the RAND Corporation, serves as the Fund's senior fellowships advisor.
Harkness Fellows in Health Care Policy continue to generate articles based on their fellowship work. For example, U.K. Harkness Fellow Kieran Walshe (2000-01) co-authored a Health Affairs study with his U.S. mentor, Stephen M. Shortell of the University of California, Berkeley, that compared national systems for reporting and investigating major failures in health care organizations that result in harm to patients. Another article, by Canadian Harkness Associate Steven G. Morgan (2001-02) and colleagues, described British Columbia's experience with its evidence-based approach to drug coverage. U.K. Fellow Ronald Gray (2002-03) published an article in Pediatrics with his U.S. mentor, Marie McCormick, M.D., that discussed findings from a longitudinal study on behavioral problems in low-birth-weight children. Malcolm Battersby, M.D., Australian Fellow (2003-04) published a report for the South Australian government on collaboratives for chronic illness. And 2003-04 Canadian Harkness Associate Alexandre Sirois's interview on pharmaceutical costs with Princeton University economist Uwe Reinhardt, who chairs the Fund's international coordinating committee, was published in Quebec's La Presse.
Fellows who have returned to their home countries continue to receive national recognition and assume influential posts in health care policy. In the U.K., Carmel Hughes (1998-99) was promoted to professor at the School of Pharmacy, Queen's University, while Ciaran O'Neill (2001-02) was promoted to professor of health economics and policy at the University of Ulster. Raymond Moynihan (1998-99), a reporter for the Australian Financial Review, served as guest editor for the British Medical Journal, and Alan Cass was made director of the policy and practice division of the George Institute for International Health in Sydney. In New Zealand, 2002-03 fellow Ngaire Kerse was promoted to associate professor of general practice and primary health care at the University of Auckland. Among Canadian Harkness Associates, Jennifer Zelmer (2002-03) was promoted to vice president for research and analysis at the Canadian Institute for Health Information, and Steven G. Morgan (2001-02) received the prestigious Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Career Award.
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