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Robert M. La Follette
School of Public Affairs
1225 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Telephone: 608.262.3581
Fax: 608.265.3233
Last updated:
August 18, 2011
© Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
Alumni and Friends: La Follette Notes: Fall 2007
Comprenez-vous la statistique?
Grad uses stats to improve quality of health care
Eleven years ago, Debra (Stone) Morse would never have imagined herself teaching quality improvement and data analysis to other people.
While working on her master's degree at La Follette in the mid 1990s, Morse avoided the policy analysis track. “I hated math and anything related to it,” the 1996 alum says, adding that her bachelor’s degree was in French and international relations. Her courses in the latter field introduced her to social policy. She worked a year as finance secretary in Janesville. A co-worker recommended Morse look into getting a master’s degree in public affairs.
Until early August, she was a health-care programmer analyst for MetaStar Inc., a Madison-area quality improvement organization that works with health-care providers to improve care. The firm also reviews organizations that, under Wisconsin's Family Care program, serve frail older adults and people with developmental or physical disabilities to help them live in their communities.
1996 alum Debra (Stone) Morse is a lead analyst of MetaStar's contract with the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services. MetaStar is a Madison-area health-care quality improvement organization.
Now a lead analyst of MetaStar's contract with the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, Morse is a certified provider in health-care quality. In her earlier position, she taught health-care workers, including nurses, home-health aides, nursing home directors and social works, how to use simple statistics to improve quality.
“Anyone who went through the La Follette program with me will be surprised to learn that I often taught health-care providers how to use data analysis and statistical techniques related to improving the quality of care they provide to their patients,” Morse says. “I am thankful to this day that I took Maria Cancian’s public policy statistics course during my second year at La Follette. I remember the tough reading, the even more difficult algorithms, the seemingly endless homework and my frustration with trying to wrap my head around the various statistical techniques.”
Morse finds that many of her students disliked and feared math and statistics. “I told students that if I, as a French major, could understand basic statistical techniques, then they could do the same, which would help them to improve the care they provide to their patients.”
The statistical background is essential in Morse's new job as she analyzes data related to care and services provided, ensures agencies submit accurate information and reviews the state's information system.
The La Follette School made all this possible, Morse says. “Professor Cancian’s class gave me a strong set of skills that built a ‘technical’ foundation that led me down paths in my career I would not have envisioned for myself.”