Dr. Bach is a member of the Health Outcomes Research Group in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and a pulmonary and critical care physician in the Department of Medicine. His main research interests are in assessing and improving the quality of cancer care. His work has focused particularly on improving the quality of care for African-American patients in Medicare, including cancer care. His work has shown that low quality of care contributes to excess mortality for African Americans with lung cancer, and that limited access to high quality primary care physicians may reduce care quality more generally for African Americans. He also studies the link between cigarette smoking, lung cancer, and early detection, and has developed statistical models that can be used to predict the probability that someone will develop lung cancer based on their age and smoking history. These models were recently used to demonstrate that CT screening for lung cancer may not benefit patients -- i.e. people who are screened appear to die of lung cancer at the same rate as if they had not been screened, despite CT screening detecting many early lung cancers and leading to many diagnostic tests, invasive procedures and surgeries.
Dr. Bach is also engaged in healthcare policy work. In 2005 and 2006 he served as Senior Adviser to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in Washington, DC, where he oversaw the agency's cancer initiatives, evidence development work through conditional coverage, and data policy. In that role, he was a liaison to other health agencies, including the FDA, NIH, and AHRQ. He currently serves as a member of the Institute of Medicine's National Cancer Policy Forum. He is the recipient of the Boyer award for clinical research, was the previous incumbent of the Frederick Adler faculty chair, and has been the recipient of grants from the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Aging, and the American Lung Association.
Dr. Bach is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of Minnesota Medical School, and the University of Chicago School for Public Policy. He conducted his medical residency and sub-specialty fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. During the 1994 Rwandan Civil War, he provided medical care to refugees in Goma Zaire.
Selected Publications:
Bach PB, Jett JR, Pastorino U, Tockman MS, Swensen SJ, Begg CB. Computed tomography screening and lung cancer outcomes. JAMA. 2007; 297:953-61.
Bach PB, McClellan MB. The first months of the prescription-drug benefit--a CMS update. N Engl J Med. 2006; 354:2312-4.
Bach PB, Pham HH, Schrag D, Tate RC, Hargraves JL. Primary care physicians who treat blacks and whites. N Engl J Med. 2004; 351:575-84.
Bach PB, Kattan MW, Thornquist MD, Kris MG, Tate RC, Barnett MJ, Hsieh LJ, Begg CB. Variations in lung cancer risk among smokers. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2003; 95:470-8.
Bach PB, Schrag D, Brawley OW, Galaznik A, Yakren S, Begg CB. Survival of blacks and whites after a cancer diagnosis. JAMA. 2002; 287:2106-13.
Bach PB, Cramer LD, Schrag D, Downey RJ, Gelfand SE, Begg CB. The influence of hospital volume on survival after resection for lung cancer. N Engl J Med. 2001; 345:181-8.
Bach PB, Cramer LD, Warren JL, Begg CB. Racial differences in the treatment of early-stage lung cancer. N Engl J Med. 1999; 341:1198-205.
