About

Vivian Ho is the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics and a professor in the Department of Economics at Rice University. She also holds a position as a professor in the Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and is a nonresident Senior Scholar at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. Her research focuses on examining the effects of economic incentives and regulations on the quality and costs of health care. Her work is widely published across economics, medical, and health services research journals. Ho’s research has been funded by prominent organizations including the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the American Cancer Society, and Arnold Ventures. She has served on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Center for Health Statistics and on the NIH Health Services, Outcomes and Delivery study section. In 2020, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Ho is also a founding board member of the American Society for Health Economists and participates as a member of the Community Advisory Board at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Economic growth
• Business
• Economics
• Intensive care medicine
• Medicine
• Emergency medicine
• Finance
• Internal medicine

Selected publications

• US Medical Prices and Health Insurance Premiums, 1999-2024

  JAMA Network Open · 2025-12-08 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This economic evaluation describes changes in US workers’ contributions to health insurance premiums and medical costs compared with wages from 1999 to 2024.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Consolidation in an Era of Population Health and Value-Based Care

  Medical Care · 2025-01-08 · 2 citations

  article

  Consolidation of health care providers, and vertical integration of physicians with hospitals and/or payers has accelerated over the past 15 years. Although there is potential for consolidation to improve patient care, efficiencies and reduce overhead costs, participants in our conference identified that almost all research on consolidation has shown increased cost without improvement in outcomes or the experience of care. To provide a framework for considering the impact of consolidation, future research and analysis we offer 4 themes: (1) to move forward, we need to look back at historical drivers, value creation, and unintended consequences; (2) not all consolidation is created equally; (3) real-time, continuous evaluation is critical for improvement; and (4) a policy blueprint is desperately needed. We offer several specific ideas for policy changes.

  PublisherDOI

• Guideline-directed Medical Therapy in Nonagenarians and Centenarians (≥ 90 Years Old) After First-onset Myocardial Infarction---A National Registry Study

  Canadian Journal of Cardiology · 2025-01-31 · 4 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Corneal perforation in breast cancer patients receiving combination chemotherapy with pertuzumab/trastuzumab targeted therapy: a case report

  Hong Kong Medical Journal · 2025-08-06

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• A Retrospective Review of Ruxolitinib as Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease Prophylaxis in Pediatric Patients with Transplant Associated Thrombotic Microangiopathy

  2025-07-18

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Background: Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) represents a significant complication following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), with tacrolimus being a standard prophylactic agent. However, tacrolimus is associated with transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy (ta-TMA), particularly in pediatric patients. Ruxolitinib, a JAK1/2 inhibitor, has emerged as a promising alternative, but its use for aGVHD prophylaxis in pediatric patients with ta-TMA has not been systematically studied. Methods: This retrospective cohort study evaluated pediatric HSCT recipients at Cook Children’s Medical Center from January 2018 to August 2024 who developed ta-TMA while on tacrolimus and were subsequently switched to ruxolitinib for aGVHD prophylaxis. The primary outcome was the incidence of aGVHD within 100 days post-transplant. Secondary outcomes included viral reactivation, time to engraftment, and donor chimerism. Results: Fifteen pediatric patients (median age 4.5 years) received ruxolitinib for aGVHD prophylaxis after developing ta-TMA. None developed aGVHD within the first 100 days post-transplant. Ruxolitinib did not adversely affect engraftment: all patients achieved successful neutrophil and red blood cell engraftment, with malignant disease patients maintaining ≥95% donor chimerism through day 180. Among patients negative for viral infections prior to ruxolitinib, none experienced viral reactivation. Dose adjustments were individualized based on clinical indications, and no significant cytopenias necessitating discontinuation were observed. Conclusion: Ruxolitinib appears to be a safe and effective alternative to tacrolimus for aGVHD prophylaxis in pediatric HSCT recipients who develop ta-TMA, without compromising engraftment or increasing the risk of viral reactivation. These results support further prospective studies to confirm the efficacy and safety of ruxolitinib and to establish standardized dosing protocols in this high-risk population.

  PublisherDOI

• Nonprofit Hospital CEO Compensation

  Medical Care · 2025-08-12 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  BACKGROUND: Past research has documented that increases in profits and health system size, as well as increases in the reward generosity for improving these metrics play an important role in explaining increases in nonprofit hospital CEO pay between 2012 and 2019. OBJECTIVES: To test whether hospital quality measures play a supplemental role in determining CEO pay. RESEARCH DESIGN: We estimated linear regressions for 2012 and 2019 of the log of CEO wages on system or independent hospital characteristics, including quality. The regressions were used to construct a Oaxaca decomposition of factors associated with CEO compensation. SUBJECTS: One thousand forty-seven nonprofit health systems and independent hospitals in 2012 and 812 in 2019. MEASURES: CEO compensation, hospital profits, charity care, hospital size, teaching status, system status, 30-day mortality rate for pneumonia patients, hospital-wide 30-day readmission rate. RESULTS: We find that better quality was more closely associated with higher pay among hospital CEOs in 2012 versus 2019. The inclusion of these quality measures in the analysis somewhat reduced the observed relative return for leading larger hospitals or health systems in 2012, but not in 2019. The link between quality and CEO pay is weaker in 2019 than in 2012. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that nonprofit hospital CEOs are being rewarded more for leading large hospitals or systems, but not for providing higher quality care.

  PublisherDOI

• Correction: A Comparison of US Medicare Expenditures for Hemodialysis and Peritoneal Dialysis

  Journal of the American Society of Nephrology · 2025-10-15

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The impacts of intellectual capital of microfinance institutions on poverty alleviation

  Ho Chi Minh City Open University Journal of Science- Economics and Business Administration · 2025-06-11

  articleOpen access

  This study examines the impact of Intellectual Capital (IC) on poverty alleviation using a panel dataset of 3,114 Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) across 120 countries from 2009 - 2018. Intellectual capital is measured using the Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC), which comprises Human Capital Efficiency (HCE), Structural Capital Efficiency (SCE), and relational Capital Efficiency (CEE). The study adopts the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) as the primary estimation technique to address potential endogeneity and dynamic relationships. The findings indicate that overall intellectual capital positively and significantly affects poverty alleviation. However, the impacts of its components are mixed. While relational capital contributes positively to poverty reduction, human capital shows no statistically significant effect, and structural capital efficiency unexpectedly displays a negative association with poverty mitigation. As a result, rather than merely expanding human capital, emphasis should be placed on skill specialization to improve efficiency. Additionally, fostering gradual technological adoption and facilitating knowledge-sharing can help optimize structural capital deployment, ultimately enhancing poverty reduction outcomes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Dual-energy CT iodine concentration as a biomarker for immunotherapy treatment response in metastatic melanoma and renal cell carcinoma patients

  European Radiology · 2025-01-28 · 4 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• The determinants of nonprofit hospital CEO compensation

  PLoS ONE · 2024-07-24 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Hospital CEO salaries have grown quickly over the past two decades. We investigate correlates of rising nonprofit hospital CEO pay between 2012 and 2019 by merging compensation data from Candid's IRS 990 forms with hospital data from the National Academy for State Health Policy Hospital Cost Tool. Almost half of the measured increase in CEO compensation (44.5%) accrued to a "base case" CEO, who was leading a non-teaching hospital system or independent hospital with fewer than 100 beds that earned 0 profits and provided no charity care. Another 28.5% of the measured salary increase resulted from changes in the generosity with which observable metrics were rewarded, particularly the reward for heading a system with 500 or more beds. The remaining 27% resulted mostly from hospital systems or single hospitals that increased their profits or bed size over time. The increase in CEO compensation associated with leading larger healthcare systems and earning greater profits may explain the increase in healthcare system consolidation which has occurred over the last several years.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R03HS011501

  NIH · $65k · 2003

• NIH Grant R01CA138640

  NIH · $800k · 2014

• Does Physician-Hospital Integration Affect the Quality and Price of Hospital Care?

  NIH · $668k · 2016–2020

• NIH Grant R21CA118452

  NIH · $226k · 2009

• NIH Grant R01HL073825

  NIH · $620k · 2008

Frequent coauthors

• Harlan M. Krumholz

  Yale New Haven Health System

  110 shared

• Joseph S. Ross

  Yale University

  109 shared

• Brahmajee K. Nallamothu

  104 shared

• Andrew J. Epstein

  102 shared

• Frederick A. Masoudi

  Ascension

  102 shared

• Sherin Stephen

  100 shared

• Yongfei Wang

  Center for Outcomes Research and Clinical Epidemiology

  100 shared

• Kevin F. Erickson

  Rice University

  64 shared

Awards & honors

• Member of the National Academy of Medicine (2020)
• Founding board member of the American Society for Health Eco…