Melissa Castora-Binkley

Melissa Castora-Binkley is the Senior Director of Research and acts as the Principal Investigator to develop evidence to support meaningful quality measures; evaluate the impact of PQA measures on care delivery, patient outcomes and healthcare spending; and identify gaps in performance measurement. She collaborates with senior PQA staff to ensure that the organization’s research is aligned with PQA’s mission and organizational priorities, responsive to the needs of PQA’s multi-stakeholder membership, and effectively disseminated to members and other relevant health care stakeholders.

Dr. Castora-Binkley has 16 years of combined experience in health research and policy, healthcare quality measure development and evaluation, and quality improvement. She received extensive training and experience in measurement science working with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid to develop and evaluate quality measures. Additionally, she has experience in health services research, conducting observational studies focused on outcomes such as healthcare utilization and cost. She has conducted population health studies to determine risk factors affecting healthcare utilization, performed systematic literature reviews, and developed conceptual frameworks for guiding the direction of analyses and program development.

Dr. Castora-Binkley received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Sociology from the University of Central Florida and her doctorate in Gerontology from the University of South Florida.