Endorsements

“Steven really understands the business of health care, and therefore produces information that makes sense to executive leadership.  He repeatedly produced innovative, market-leading work for Blue Cross on provider performance measurement, predictive modeling and the cost effectiveness of prevention efforts that influenced our thinking towards improving health and saving money.”

Bill Gold, MD, Healthcare Consultant and former Chief Medical Officer at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota

“Steven’s outstanding work for the Center for Prevention helped us document and track changes in the prevalence of tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke, identify the savings we achieved for Minnesota and Blue Cross from our work to reduce tobacco use, and evaluate our community interventions.  He understood our management needs and I was always able to rely on him to provide credible answers based on data and careful analysis.  Our Center promised to share what we learned from our prevention work and Steven helped us deliver on that promise.”

Marc Manley, MD, MPH, Vice President and Chief Prevention Officer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota

“Steven was an early adopter of our ACG System.  He was a very sophisticated user and we gained many insights from him that helped us refine our model.  I have always been very impressed with his work and his presentations in the domain of risk adjustment and predictive modeling.  They are based on careful analysis and research.  He has always earned my respect and that of his peers.”

Jonathan Weiner, DrPH, Professor, The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Director of the Johns Hopkins ACG Team

“Steven is a recognized thought leader in many areas, including prevention, risk adjustment and predictive modeling using claims data, program evaluation and the analysis of ROI.  He is always a thoughtful and persuasive presenter of concepts and results.”

Mary Madison, MPA, Executive Director for Research Alliances, HealthCore, Inc.

“For three years I had struggled as Medical Director with the analysis and reporting of outcomes.  Steven was instrumental in developing a structure to facilitate analysis and reporting by transforming an unusable clinical data mart to operational status.  He went on to select, install and validate a predictive modeling tool for us and to assess its performance in our elderly population, allowing us to proceed to use this tool with confidence.”

Jo Berger, MD, former Medical Director at Univita Health, Inc.

“Estimating health care costs resulting from exposure to secondhand smoke is a difficult task.  Through our collaborative work we successfully documented Minnesota’s direct health care costs – including individual direct payments and health insurance payments – to be $229 million annually.  Our results were published in the American Journal of Public Health.  Steven’s clear thinking and innovative use of claims data was critical to our success.  This research helped Minnesota pass its Freedom to Breathe Act in 2007, and other states have since looked to our methods to help advance smoke-free legislation.”

Hugh Waters, PhD, Deputy Director, Health Care Quality and Outcomes Program, RTI International, and Adjunct Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

“I have worked with Steven on several projects and have tremendous respect for his insights, technical skills, and integrity.  He offered great leadership in our collaborations to estimate the economic impacts of investments in tobacco control and helped formulate a business case for prevention for audiences as diverse as health plan executives and state legislators.”

Jeffrey Fellows, PhD, Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research

“The prevention work that Steven led for six years with our community was a model of effective collaboration and mutual engagement.  His passionate leadership about tobacco control touched our organization in countless positive ways and altered our community’s norms about tobacco use and exposing our families to secondhand smoke.  The research reports we produced together from this work are exemplary for their cultural sensitivity and demonstrate successful community based research, and we have proudly shared them internationally.”

Jesse Bethke Gomez, MMA, President of Communidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio (CLUES)

“We were privileged to work with Dr. Foldes on a community based participatory research and action project in the Latino community.  He guided an interdisciplinary, multicultural, and international team of researchers, academics, community leaders and professionals through a very complex qualitative and quantitative research effort and a pilot tobacco control intervention project.  His deep understanding of diversity, multiculturalism, interdisciplinary work, and applied research was the key element for success.  The pilot evolved into the award winning Family Centric Health Promotion program.  Along the way, he motivated and empowered several team members to complete advanced degrees, including two doctorates.”

José William Castellanos, MD, PhD., Director, Family Centric Health Promotion Program, Communidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio (CLUES)