Thirty-one-year-old Jamaican, Dr Leanne Metcalfe, has been appointed as senior research analyst at leading American health corporation, Comprehensive Health Services (CHS).

The corporation's Director of Business Analysis and Reporting, Stephen Hinson, made the announcement in Reston, Virginia, recently.

"Bringing Metcalfe on board, marks a new stage in CHS's development of predictive capabilities for analysis of population health care outcomes that significantly distinguishes us from our competitors," Hinson stated.

A graduate research assistant at the Health Systems Institute (HSI) at Georgia Tech and Emory University, Metcalfe served in the HSI's predictive modelling group. She conducted research in forecasting disease burdens for chronic and acute conditions. She also worked on the implementation of new electronic medical recording systems at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Georgia.

A leading member

In her capacity at Georgia Tech, Metcalfe was a leading member of a programme underwritten by Georgia Tech in partnership with CHS that produced the Workforce Health Assessment Model (WHAM) - a new strategy using analytics for reducing employer health care costs by analysing demographic data for a particular workforce population. WHAM enables employers not only to predict the disease burden and risk factors for that population, but also to intervene to reduce or reverse those risks.

Metcalfe is a graduate of Immaculate Conception High School in Jamaica. She is the daughter of Clovis Metcalfe, managing director of FirstCaribbean International Bank, and pharmacist Hermine Metcalfe, who is chairperson of the University of Technology's Pharmacy Advisory Committee.