Meet the Team

Melissa Martinson, MS PhD

Dr. Martinson is a health services researcher and biostatistician, and is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota. Dr. Martinson's commercial experience includes 20 years of clinical trials, health economics and outcomes studies in both medical device and pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Martinson assists clients by evaluating the economics of their medical products and services. She has used economic analyses to show the trade-offs between the up-front costs of implantable devices and device therapies administered in-hospital, and savings achieved during the post-implant or post-treatment period. She has evaluated the impact of the initial use of second-tier pharmaceuticals on subsequent hospitalization rates, and she has demonstrated the improved outcomes associated with the use of disease-management programs in managed care. Her economic analyses have helped payers understand the economic benefit of covering therapies in which the costs are all up-front, or in preventative measures, in which cases downstream costs to payers are averted.

Dr. Martinson frequently uses economic models in her analyses so that data from clinical trials, healthcare claims databases, and the literature can be combined. This enables her to complete economic analyses for clients quickly and inexpensively compared to economic analyses using primary data from outcomes studies.

Dr. Martinson holds a B.A. in Biology from Swarthmore College (in suburban Philadelphia), and both an M.S. in Statistics and a Ph.D. in Health Services Research from the University of Minnesota. She holds an Adjunct Professorship at the University in the School of Public Health, where she teaches graduate-level economic modeling.