Rosa Baier, MPH, leads the Brown University Center for Long-Term Care Quality & Innovation (Q&I Center), which conducts pragmatic research to test and disseminate effective interventions to improve care for older adults. She has mixed-methods experience and is PI or Co-I on numerous interventional studies and pragmatic trials, ranging from pilots to large-scale trials. This includes serving as Co-I on a NIA-funded R22/R33 pragmatic trial of an individualized music program (PI: Vincent Mor), where her role centers on oversight of the intervention delivered by B&F Consulting, as it will in this study, and as PI of a foundation-funded feasibility study to evaluate the impact of programmable, tunable LED lighting on sleep.

Since 2002, Professor Baier has developed and refined a pragmatic approach that combines rigorous methods and evaluation with the flexibility necessary to implement interventions under real-world conditions. Prior to launching the Q&I Center, she was Senior Scientist at Healthcentric Advisors, a quality improvement agency where she spent 14 years focusing on implementation and measurement, with particular emphasis on nursing homes and other settings caring for Medicare beneficiaries. This experience informs her approach. Professor Baier’s role includes partnering with healthcare providers and other innovators to identify promising interventions and seek grant funding to rigorously test them. She also works closely with providers to understand and characterize the conditions and constraints that influence feasibility and implementation, incorporating this knowledge into protocol design and implementation evaluation activities.