Biography

Gary Pickens was a founding member of Sachs Group, which merged with HCIA and later with HBSI to form Solucient, which was acquired by Thomson Healthcare in 2006. He currently leads the research and development group for the Center for Healthcare Improvement at Thomson Reuters, a knowledge creation center for its Healthcare business whose main focus is creating insights to guide the healthcare industry toward improved performance.

Pickens is credited with creating the first market segmentation system for the healthcare industry, SachsGroups; a flagship healthcare decision support product, The Market Planner® Plus, and other information delivery applications  Recently, he has developed content and methodologies for hospital clinical, operational, and planning products used by Thomson Reuters customers.

Pickens has been published internationally and has presented key findings to healthcare trade groups and associations. He was on the faculty of the mathematics department at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He holds a doctorate in demography and a master's degree in statistics from the University of Pennsylvania. His areas of expertise include health services research and statistics.

Topics

• Consumerism
• Market Segmentation
• Hospital Performance Measurement
• Hospital Quality Measurement