Melissa Castora-Binkley is the Senior Director of Research and leads the identification and execution of projects within PQA’s Quality and Innovation Research Center (QuIRC). Leveraging her extensive experience in healthcare quality, she focuses on generating evidence for new measurement methodologies, evaluating measures implemented in real world settings, and advancing the field of medication use quality. She collaborates with PQA leadership and staff to ensure that the organization’s research is aligned with PQA’s mission and priorities, responsive to the needs of PQA’s multi-stakeholder membership, and effectively disseminated to members and other relevant health care stakeholders.

Castora-Binkley has over 20 years of combined experience in health research and policy, healthcare quality measure development and evaluation, and quality improvement. Previously, she worked on contracts with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to develop and evaluate quality measures. Additionally, she has experience in health services research, conducting observational studies focused on outcomes such as healthcare utilization and cost. She has conducted population health studies to determine risk factors affecting healthcare utilization, performed systematic literature reviews, and developed conceptual frameworks for guiding the direction of analyses and program development.