Six Regents Professors in Six Consecutive Years

Charles Phillips, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center (TAMHSC) School of Rural Public Health, is one of six faculty members to receive the prestigious Regents Professor Award. In fact, during the past six consecutive years, TAMHSC-School of Rural Public Health faculty have received this distinguished award, including Larry Gamm, Ph.D.; K.C. Donnelly, Ph.D.; Marcia Ory, Ph.D; Catherine Hawes, Ph.D.; and Kenneth McLeroy, Ph.D.

Established in 1996, the Regents Professor Award is bestowed annually by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents in recognition of awardees’ exemplary contributions to their university or agency and to the people of Texas. Since its adoption, 144 faculty members from universities, agencies and the Texas A&M Health Science Center across the A&M System have been recognized with the award.

Dr. Phillips is a gerontologist and public health professional specializing in long-term care policy and health services research. His particular interests are in measuring and evaluating quality of care and quality of life in care settings providing long-term care to the frail elderly and disabled.

Dr. Phillips recently lead a team of researchers in developing, testing and assisting in the implementation of assessment instruments to determine some of the requirements of families with children who have special needs participating in the Medicaid Early Prevention, Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) program and receive Medicaid Personal Care Services (PCS) in their homes. Its goal was to develop and test a set of assessment instruments that would assist the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) case managers to effectively and fairly determine how many hours of PCS a family needed.

The instruments developed by the research team are being revised and integrated into a suite of assessment tools distributed by interRAI, a not-for-profit organization composed of researchers or policymakers from almost 30 countries around the world. Inquiries about the instruments developed by the team have come from government agencies as far away as New Zealand and South Africa and as near as the state of New York and the province of Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Phillips was one of the principal investigators who developed the minimum data set for the Nursing Home Resident Assessment and Care Screening system, parts of which are used more than 10 million times each year to assess U.S. nursing home residents. He is currently involved with a group of international collaborators in the creation of modular development system-compatible assessment instruments for other health care settings providing care to the elderly. Familiar with techniques used in the development of resident classification systems for acuity-based reimbursement in long-term care, he also has been in studies of best clinical practices in nursing homes, nursing home culture change, nursing home performance measurement, elder abuse and service provision to disabled youth.

Prior to joining the health science center, Dr. Phillips was director and senior research scientist at the Myers Research Institute at Menorah Park Center for Senior Living in Beachwood, Ohio. This was preceded by a position as co-director of the RTI International’s nationally recognized Program on Aging and Long-Term Care. He received a B.S. in Government and History in 1971 from Tarleton State University. In 1973, he was awarded a master’s and in 1979 a Ph.D. from the University of Texas before earning a Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) from the University of North Carolina in 1987.