Dr. Hicks is a health economist. Her research interests are rural health, workforce requirements, and economic evaluations. A component of this research has been the development of general indicators of physician requirements and, specifically, detailed analyses of the changing specialty and geographic distribution of physicians. She has also focused on evaluating the cost-effectiveness of technologies in the delivery of health care, and been involved with a multi-disciplinary team identifying and evaluating measures of quality in nursing homes and the relationship between cost and quality. Dr. Hicks is alos the PI/Director of the Missouri Health Information Technology Assistance Center, the federally funded Regional Extension Center for Missouri for the implementation and meaningful use of electronic health records in primary care practices and small, rural hospitals. In recognition of her contributions, Dr. Hicks was the recipient of the 1999 National Rural Health Association’s Distinguished Researcher award.
