Clancy, Carolyn M.

Carolyn M. Clancy is a health services researcher and a general internist, and she is the director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ), the federal agency that is responsible for supporting research to improve healthcare quality, reduce healthcare costs, decrease medical errors, improve patient safety, and increase access to care. Clancy served as acting director of AHRQ from March 2002 until she was appointed director in February 2003. She previously directed the Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research, which conducts and supports research on the outcomes and effectiveness of healthcare services and procedures, and the Center for Primary Care Research at AHRQ, where she helped develop the U.S. Public Health Service Primary Care Policy Fellowship. Prior to joining AHRQ in 1990, Clancy was an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.

Clancy received her bachelor of science degree from Boston College and a doctorate of medicine degree from the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine. After completing medical school, she did postdoctoral training at the Kennedy Institute of Bioethics Intensive Course at Georgetown University in 1989 and the Stanford Faculty Development Program in Clinical Teaching in 1988 and was a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Fellow in General Internal Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania from 1982 to 1984.

Clancy holds an academic appointment as a clinical associate professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine in the Department of Medicine. She has edited or contributed to seven books and has published extensively in peer-reviewed medical journals. Clancy has served on various editorial boards, including those of the Annals of Family Medicine, American[Page 172]Journal of Medical Quality, and Medical Care Research and Review, and is a senior associate editor of the journal Health Services Research. Clancy has also held leadership positions in many professional organizations, including the Society of General Internal Medicine. In addition, she is an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the national Institute of Medicine (IOM) and was elected a Master of the American College of Physicians in 2004. Her research interests have been strongly influenced by the field of medical decision making and currently include the various dimensions of healthcare quality and patient care, including women's health, primary care, access to healthcare, and the impact of financial incentives on physicians' decisions.