John A. Romley, PhD
Faculty Directory

John A. RomleyPhD

romley@usc.edu

John A. RomleyPhD

Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics

Department of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics

John Romley is an associate professor in the USC Price School of Public Policy and USC Mann, an economist at the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics and an adjunct economist at the RAND Corporation. His research focuses on health economics and policy. He participated in the first nationwide study of disparities in alcohol retailing in urban neighborhoods, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He was also a co-investigator in an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality–funded study that identified, categorized and evaluated efficiency measures in healthcare.

In other recent work, Romley has been assessing competition among hospitals in quality of care and patient satisfaction, with support from the National Institute on Aging as well as a leading hospital system. He led a study, funded by the Hewlett Foundation, of the impact of air quality on hospital spending. Finally, he has led Department of Defense-funded studies of best practices and costs at pharmacies and of the financial performance of military treatment facilities. He is managing editor of Forum for Health Economics & Policy.

    Areas of Expertise

    • Behavioral Economics
    • Pharmacoeconomics
    • Medical Innovation & Regulatory Policy
    • Public Health
    • Health Care Costs
    • Health Insurance Markets & Benefits Design
    • Medicare & Aging
    • Comparative Effectiveness & Outcomes
    • Education

      Stanford University

      PhD

    • Links
    • Selected Articles

      Racial and ethnic disparities in hospital care resulting from air pollution in excess of federal standards.

      Social Science & Medicine
      AD Hackbarth, JA Romley, DP Goldman

      2011 This study investigates racial and ethnic disparities in hospital admission and emergency room visit rates resulting from exposure to ozone and fine particulate matter levels in excess of federal standards ("excess attributable risk"). We generate zip code-level ambient pollution exposures and hospital event rates using state datasets, and use pollution impact estimates in the epidemiological literature to calculate excess attributable risk for racial/ethnic groups in California over 2005-2007. We find that black residents experienced roughly 2.5 times the excess attributable risk of white residents. Hispanic residents were exposed to the highest levels of pollution, but experienced similar excess attributable risk to whites. Asian/Pacific Islander residents had substantially lower excess attributable risk compared to white. We estimate the distinct contributions of exposure and other factors to these results, and find that factors other than exposure can be critical determinants of pollution-related disparities.

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      Hospital spending and inpatient mortality: evidence from California: an observational study.

      Annals of Internal Medicine
      John A. Romley, Anupam B. Jena, Dana P. Goldman

      2011 To determine the association between hospital spending and risk-adjusted inpatient mortality.

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      The benefits from giving makers of conventional 'small molecule' drugs longer exclusivity over clinical trial data.

      Health Affairs
      JA Romley et al.

      2011 Pharmaceutical companies and generic drug manufacturers have long been at odds over "data exclusivity" regulations. These rules require a waiting period of at least five years before generic drug companies can access valuable clinical trial data necessary to bring less expensive forms of innovative drugs to market. Pharmaceutical companies want the data exclusivity period lengthened to protect their investment. Generic manufacturers want the period shortened so that they can bring less expensive versions of drugs to patients sooner. We examine the long-term effect of extending the data exclusivity period for conventional "small-molecule" drugs to twelve years--the same exclusivity period already extended to large-molecule biologic drugs under the Affordable Care Act. We conclude that Americans would benefit from a longer period of data exclusivity.

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      The Emerging Importance of Patient Amenities in Hospital Care

      The Emerging Importance of Patient Amenities in Hospital Care
      JA Romley et al.

      2010 In crowded hospital markets, hotel-like amenities for patients play an increasing role in the competition for market share. This development raises important questions about the definition of hospital quality and its benefits and costs to patients and society.

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    • Selected Media Appearances

      Hospitalization-Based Bundled Payment Models Key to Lowering Costs

      Rev Cycle Intelligrance | 06/04/2018

      “Hospitalization-based bundling offers a significant opportunity for improved performance within the healthcare system, especially for episodes for which a substantial share of the care associated with an episode is typically delivered after the hospitalization, particularly at PAC facilities,” wrote John A. Romley, Visiting Associate Professor at the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics at the University of Southern California, and Paul B. Ginsburg, Director of the Center for Health Policy at the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy.

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      Warfarin, Sulfonylurea Combo Ups Severe Hypoglycemia Risk

      MedScape | 12/21/2015

      The findings, from a retrospective Medicare database analysis of adults aged 65 and older, were published December 7, 2015 in the BMJ by John A Romley, PhD, associate professor at the Leonard D Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and colleagues.

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      Better Healing from Better Hospital Design

      Harvard Business Review | 10/05/2015

      In fact, one study, conducted by Professor Dana Goldman and Associate Professor (Research) John A. Romley at the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at the University of Southern California, showed that amenities are a larger factor in driving traffic to hospitals than clinical quality.

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