Steven Clauser, PhD, MPA, is the Program Director of the Healthcare Delivery and Disparities Research program at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). He is responsible for developing PCORI’s research program that evaluates comparisons among alternative health system strategies to improve patient outcomes in a broad range of clinical and organizational domains.

Clauser is a health services and outcomes researcher with over 25 years of research management experience. His past research has focused on developing measures of patient reported outcomes, care experiences, and clinical effectiveness for use by health care organizations to track, assess, and improve the quality of care they provide to adults with cancer and other chronic diseases. Before coming to PCORI, Clauser held the positions of associate director for the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Community Oncology Research Program, as well as chief of NCI’s Outcomes Research Branch. He also was co-director of NCI’s Community Cancer Centers Program, where he developed and managed a variety of research projects related to system strategies to improve cancer care delivery, including methods to increase adherence to evidence based practice and models of multidisciplinary treatment planning for patients requiring multi-modal cancer treatment. He has expertise in a broad range of research methodologies used for assessing patient reported outcomes and quality improvement programs.

Before NCI, Clauser served in a number of senior research management positions at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. His most recent position was director of the Quality Measurement and Health Assessment Group in the Office of Clinical Standards and Quality, where he directed CMS quality measurement research initiatives in support of Medicare’s consumer quality reporting programs in managed care organizations, hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, and renal dialysis centers. He also served as director, operations policy directorate, in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs, where he directed the CHAMPUS Reform program to improve primary care for military dependents and retirees.

Clauser received his BA from Michigan State University, PhD from the University of Minnesota, and MPA from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute in Minneapolis.