Research profile: Dominika Wranik

Dr. W. Dominika Wranik is a health economist and health policy researcher. Her work focuses on the application of economic principles to the design of health policy. One example of her work examines the selection of pharmaceuticals for public reimbursement lists. Dr. Wranik studies how the selection is organized across health care systems, and how individuals involved in the selection process balance competing information. Many countries, including Canada, rely on a framework called Health Technology Assessment, and in many countries the selection is supported by expert advisory committees. Dr. Wranik studies how individuals on these committees process complex and sometimes conflictual information about new drugs. Dr. Wranik is a member of a Canadian national expert advisory committee that makes recommendations about which cancer drugs should qualify for public reimbursement.    

A second example of her work is the study of how economic theories about incentives and motivation can be applied to the design of primary care services. Dr. Wranik investigates what the implications of various forms of payment are on health services and therefore how best to structure these payments to achieve specific health services goals. In addition, payment approaches are typically embedded in a context of other incentives that motivate health care providers. Dr. Wranik has studied how best to finance interprofessional primary care teams, and what other aspects of team design motivate team members and lead to desirable health services outcomes. To date, her research suggests that financing models for interprofessional primary care teams often fail to align incentives across professions, and that this topic is rarely a consideration. The misalignment can create undesirable power structures between the professions.