Hayley Lawrence is a PhD student in Population and Public Health at UBC. Her research interests include health economics, pharmaceutical policy, quality improvement, and health services research. She is particularly interested in the ethical allocation of limited resources in health care.

Her role as a quality assurance inspector in the United Kingdom was integral in obtaining this fellowship. She has honed her quality improvement expertise in evaluating health care providers for quality, safety, and regulatory compliance. Hayley spent a decade ensuring services met essential standards and took enforcement action against subpar care. Her extensive background in inspecting various health care services, from hospitals to independent ambulance services, has equipped her with a deep understanding of this landscape.

Her research project is titled Economic evaluation of a province-wide quality improvement initiative: a study of interventions to reduce family physicians’ administrative burden in British Columbia. Twenty percent of Canadians cannot access a regular family physician (FP), which does not meet the population’s needs and is an unfair service distribution. This research will evaluate strategies to reduce FPs’ administrative burden, which would potentially increase patient appointments and improve FPs’ workflow and work-life balance. This economic evidence will strengthen policy arguments and guide decisions on reducing administrative burden.