One Year of Improving the Human Condition

For me, fall still feels like a great time to start something new. I love hearing about kids going back to school, watching the leaves change, and making transformations in my own life that lead to new adventures.

Last fall, I began one such adventure by joining the RTI International team – an independent nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving the human condition. With one year under my belt, this seems like a great time to reflect on what convinced me to join RTI and what I like most about it now that I’m part of the team. The answer to both is fairly straightforward – it’s the mission and the people that I admire most.

I love RTI’s mission – “improving the human condition by turning knowledge into practice.” Every day we impact millions of lives around the world by engaging in work that really matters, focusing on health, education, environmental issues, and much more.

In my division, our work sits at the heart of the triple aim— improving quality and population health while also reducing the costs of care. A few examples of our work includes research that focuses on:

• Helping the U.S. government implement and evaluate new payment models that are designed to simultaneously improve quality and contain costs. From the Medicare Shared Savings Program to the Oncology Care Model and Maryland’s new global budget model for hospitals, we’re leading on a wide array of innovative approaches.
• Working to help India, China, and Brazil respond more quickly to sudden cardiac arrest – a condition for which rapid response can mean the difference between life and death.
• Developing measures to assess the quality of hospice care in the U.S. that will ultimately help patients and their families select hospices at times of great need.
• Evaluating programs designed to reduce avoidable hospitalizations for nursing home residents and to test person-centered care delivery models that integrate medical care, behavioral health, and long term services and supports for Americans who are dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid.
• Providing training and assistance focused on pregnancy prevention and adulthood preparation for vulnerable adolescent populations around the country.

The quality of this work and the intellectual caliber at RTI astounds me. I’m surrounded by people who are willing to tackle the hardest questions using cutting-edge methods and a practical approach. Every day I hear about some new, interesting work that we are doing and as a result I’m constantly expanding my own skill set and knowledge base.

I’m delighted to be surrounded by researchers who truly live RTI’s mission. We take care of one another and ensure that every day in the work place our own human condition is great. I’ve seen our team celebrate weddings, births, and graduate school admissions, and we support one another through personal grief. We celebrate each other’s wins, help learn from the losses, and motivate one another to be our best.

As I reflect on my first year at RTI, I am excited to be a part of such a dedicated team and look forward to continuing to improve the human condition.

If you’re looking for a change this fall, check out RTI’s current job openings.