Interview with a Quality Leader: Carolyn M. Clancy on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, serves as Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Prior to her appointment as director on February 5, 2003, Dr. Clancy served as AHRQ's acting director (since March 2002) and before that as director of AHRQ's Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research (COER). Dr. Clancy is a general internist and health services researcher and a graduate of Boston College and the University of Massachusetts Medical Schools. Following clinical training in internal medicine, Dr. Clancy was a Henry Kaiser Family Foundation Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She was also an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond prior to joining AHRQ in 1990. Her major research interests include women's health, primary care, access to care, and the effect of financial incentives on physicians' decisions. She holds an academic appointment at The George Washington University School of Medicine (Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Medicine) and serves as Senior Associate Editor, Health Services Research. Dr. Clancy is a member of the editorial boards of several journals (American Journal of Public Health; Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice; Annals of Family Medicine, and Medical Care Research and Review), has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, and has edited or contributed to seven books.