Description of Research Expertise

Margaret Grace Stineman, MD

Dr. Stineman’s expertise is in statistical modeling, measurement and the development of patient classification systems. She applies mixed quantitative research and qualitative methods. She and her colleagues developed a patient classification approach that forms the basis for Medicare’s national payment system for inpatient rehabilitation, established staging systems for addressing patients’ mobility and abilities to care for themselves, established measures for addressing the effects of medical conditions on quality of life, and addressed the effect of environmental barriers on the expression of disability. Currently she and her colleagues are developing therapeutic tools for enhancing patient understanding of and involvement in the recovery process, and studying the effects of comprehensive rehabilitation services on patient outcomes following lower extremity amputation. The foundation for Dr. Stineman’s work is an expanded biopsycho-ecological model that views interactions between the person and environment as contributing to illness and disability. By this ecological framework medical interventions move beyond the person to include the environment in which he or she lives.

Research techniques:

1. The management and merging of large complex administrative databases to address policy relevant questions of relevance to the rehabilitation, care and quality of life of people with disabilities

2. Statistical methods including various forms of regression, propensity modeling, and other techniques

3. Development and application of a computerized patient empowerment tool referred to as Recovery Preference Exploration

Scientific areas of interest:

1. Self concept and disability

2. Policy changes that influence the rehabilitation and wellbeing of people with disabilities

3. Health and functional status measurement

4. Disparities

5. Independent living

6. Patient centered approaches to medicine and empowerment

7. Discordance between medical and consumer concepts of disability

8. The merging of art and science

Description of Itmat Expertise

Dr. Stineman is interested in small trials and outcomes studies of rehabilitation interventions, pharmacological agents, assistive technologies, lifestyle changes and environmental enhancements targeted to increasing function and quality of life for people with disabilities.