Matthew D. McHugh, of the Population Aging Research Center (PARC) at the University of Pennsylvania was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), one of the nation’s highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. Read more about this appointment in Penn Today.
Dr. McHugh is the Independence Chair for Nursing Education and professor of nursing at Penn Nursing, associate director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR), and senior fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. As principal investigator on multiple large-scale studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, McHugh’s work has advanced the field of nursing outcomes and policy research by showing the value of investing in nursing to achieve a higher functioning health care system. In addition to findings from direct evaluations of nurse staffing ratio laws, research from McHugh and colleagues from the CHOPR at Penn Nursing has informed legislation proposed in multiple states and countries on safe nurse-staffing levels.