CHIBE Q&A with Torrey Shirk, Senior Research Coordinator

Get to know Torrey Shirk, a senior research coordinator affiliated with the Center for Health Incentives & Behavioral Economics (CHIBE) through our CHIBE Q&A!

You recently joined our team as a senior research coordinator working with Dr. Amol Navathe and the Payment Insights Team. What kind of work were you involved in prior to coming here?

Prior to joining the Payment Insights Team, I worked as a clinical research project manager for a medical device company focused on orthopedic, mostly spine, implants. In that role, I worked on preparing manuscripts for publication, and I am an author on a few papers in the subject. Before working in research, I spent about three years working in children’s mental health and special education.

What projects are you working on now?

Currently I’m working on projects related to the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) initiative. The Payment Insights Team’s current work is focused on BPCI’s relationship with Physician Group Practices as well as whether the BPCI initiative has disparate effects on different racial and ethnic groups.

What’s an area of research you’d like to spend more time in?

I’m enjoying my time in the Payment Insights Team researching health care economics because it’s a subject I’ve always wished I understood better, and it’s such a monumentally important issue. Between ever-rising costs, our aging population, obstacles to health care access and of course the pandemic, health care economics is maybe the biggest policy issue of our time and a thrill to be a part of. That being said, I don’t know if I’ve pinned down the area of research I’m most interested in. Luckily Penn is a great place to figure that out.