Postdoc/ Senior Researcher with Strong Quantitative Skills for Health Economics and Healthcare Management Research

We are looking for a:

Postdoc/ Senior Researcher with Strong Quantitative Skills for Health Economics and Healthcare Management Research (80%-100%)

Although the roots of the University of Lucerne reach back as far as 1600, it has experienced rapid growth and transformation during the last 20 years, since it has become one of Switzerland’s twelve main universities and the leading university in central Switzerland. This dynamic environment offers ambitious and innovative researchers optimal conditions to invent themselves and develop their research agendas. The interdisciplinary Department of Health Sciences and Medicine promotes high-quality research and training in the fields of Health Sciences, Health Policy, and Medicine. In close collaborations between research and practice, the department focuses on research with practical applications to increase the health and well-being of individuals and the population at large.

We are building a new research group that will focus on interdisciplinary research with practical applications in the field of healthcare quality and costs. In various projects, practically relevant topics such as new approaches to quality measurement and assessments of cost inefficiencies of healthcare providers will be investigated in close collaboration with hospital partners and key stakeholders. We will be using both nation-wide routine administrative hospital data (enriched with additional data sources) as well as individual anonymized patient data from collaborating hospitals. Our goal is not only to publish outstanding research in high impact journals, but also to identify and describe important system and process improvements for our (and other) healthcare system(s).

Responsibilities

• You (the successful candidate) will participate in two projects (being responsible for one of the two projects, while taking on a supportive role in the other one). Your core activities will include developing statistical models, interpreting results, and publishing findings on newly developed quality indicators and hospital cost efficiency comparisons.

• You will have the opportunity to work with different internal research groups in healthcare and health economics research as well as with renowned experts from our external collaboration partners (more than 10 partners such as university hospitals, quality organizations, and industry partners are involved in the current projects).

• You will be able to contribute your own research ideas and research agenda for subsequent projects, crucially contribute to building our new research group, and may take over a leading role within the group.

• You have a PhD or equivalent research experience in one of the following disciplines: health sciences (with strong quantitative skills), economics (preferably econometrics), a quantitative field (such as applied statistics, physics, mathematics, computer science), or another related or relevant field.

• You possess a solid foundation in statistics, a background in quantitative methods, and computational skills in statistical analysis and modelling (Python, R, Stata, or similar).

• You have a scientific track record that demonstrates your ability to conduct research in your previous area of expertise.

• You are proficient in English (written and verbal).

• Previous experience with related topics or with administrative hospital data (and the ICD-10 coding system), programming and data management (or even Machine Learning) skills in Python, and the ability to speak German are all advantages but not necessarily required.

• Early Postdocs and candidates with comparably little experience are also encouraged to apply and will be considered if they are willing to put in effort and dedication.