Talents

Ivo Abraham brings the unusual combination of a clinical background, a distinguished career in clinical and healthsystems research, dynamic teaching and speaking, and the restlessness to see the fruits of research materialize into evidence-based patient care and healthcare management.

Ivo's strengths are in visioning and planning, outlining and detailing action plans, and getting projects launched and positioned - to come back in when dissemination and the translation to evidence-based strategy and practice are the focus.  In addition, he has extensive experience as a methodologist and quantitative scientist, enabling him to couple the strategic, the conceptual, and the scientific.

Not always adverse to taking a calculated risk, Ivo is guided by quotes from three mountaineers: "The summit is only halfway" (Eric Weihenmayer , the first blind person to climb Mt. Everest); "getting to the summit is optional, getting back down alive is essential" (Ed Viesturs, America's foremost climber today); and "most accidents happen on the way down" (Roger Frison-Roche, mid1900s French mountain guide and novelist).

Experience

Since Fall 2003, Ivo has been serving as a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania with appointments in the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (School of Nursing) and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (Wharton School of Business).  He also holds faculty appointments at the University of Virginia and New York University; and has been on the (visiting) faculties of Case Western Reserve University, Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), University of Florida, and University of Groningen and University of Limburg (both in The Netherlands).  Over the past two decades, Ivo’s clinical research and development efforts have focused on aging and the impact of high-complexity patient populations - reflecting his clinical background as a nurse.  Much of this work was funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among others.  Though trained as a clinician, Ivo also has extensive training in empirical methodologies and (bio)statistical analysis.  His findings have been the foundation for scores of professional journal articles, white papers, book chapters and professional presentations.

Ivo is recognized nationally and internationally as a lecturer and consultant.  He has lectured in North-America, Europe, and Asia; and has conducted research worldwide.  He has served on a variety of leadership committees around the world.  For instance, he is currently Chair of the International Advisory Board of the Institute of Nursing Science at the University of Basel (Switzerland).  He was the first secretary of the organization that launched the healthcare industry’s HL-7 standard for electronic data exchange. He was a member of the Advisory Council on Performance Measurement of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.  He also served two terms on study review sections at the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health. 

Ivo has been a primary or contributing author of over 200 publications.  Some of his work has been published in The Proceedings of the American Statistical Association, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, Journal of Psychology, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Transplantation, Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, and Heart and Lung.

Prior to co-founding MATRIX45, he launched The Epsilon Group, now a contract research organization on the board of which he continues to serve.

Education

B.S., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 1979

M.S., University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), 1982

Ph.D., University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), 1984

Executive Program in Pharmaceutical Medicine, University of Basel (Basel, Switzerland), 2001-2003.

In the Other Life ...

Ivo is an accomplished mountaineer (and "glaciereer") with many treks and ascents in North-America, Europe, and Latin-America.  He enjoys downhill skiing, as well as sailing and swimming.  His artistic interests include modern art (esp. mid-1800s to late-1900s); architecture and (folk) art as communities have sought shelter, perspective, and expression throughout the centuries; and contemporary North- and Latin-American literature.