Health equity advisory board

Patricia Baker is the founding leader of the Connecticut Health Foundation, having guided the organization since its creation in 1999. Under her leadership, the foundation has become the state’s largest independent health philanthropy and has used a combination of grant making, policy work, and research to improve the health status of Connecticut residents.

 
Patricia came to the foundation with two decades of experience as a visionary, pragmatic leader in health care policymaking, service provision, advocacy, and community engagement. She served as the national program director for the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, director of Connecticut government programs at Oxford Health Plans, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, and associate executive director of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.
 

Patricia is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity; a member of the board of directors of Grantmakers in Health; vice chair of the governor’s Health Care Cabinet; chair of the State Health Improvement Plan advisory council; and serves on several other advisory committees.
 

She has a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin in urban and regional planning.

Anthony Chen is a family physician and Director of Health of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. He has strong interests in community health planning and program development, quality and systems improvement, health systems transformation, and health equity.

He grew up in Southeast Asia and the Pacific before attending boarding school in New Hampshire and the University of Michigan. After medical school at Duke University, he completed Family Medicine residency at the University of Cincinnati followed by a Faculty Development Fellowship at Duke University. After three years in the Chicago area, Dr. Chen moved to Seattle where he practiced comprehensive family medicine for 12 years in public health and community clinic settings while participating in family medicine education in various capacities. He also held leadership roles in local and national efforts on hepatitis B immunization and liver cancer prevention in Asians and other community issues.

In 2005, he moved to Boston to complete the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy and obtain a Masters of Public Health at Harvard School of Public Health. From 2006 to 2008, he worked in clinical care, administration, and community programs at a large public health care system while teaching at the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency Program and Harvard Medical School.

In October 2008, Dr. Chen returned to the Puget Sound area as the Director of Health of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. He serves on several state and national public health committees; regional planning bodies; and local, state, and congressional district committees on health and health systems transformation. He remains engaged in research through the Washington Public Health Practice-Based Research Network and the Washington Workplace Health Research Network. His community service includes participation in Rotary Club of Tacoma No. 8 and the board of Goodwill of the Rainier Region and Cultural Exploration of Greater China Foundation.

Lisa Cooper is the James F. Fries Professor of Medicine, and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in Health Equity at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. A board-certified internist and social epidemiologist, Dr. Cooper’s research documented disparities in the quality of relationships between physicians and patients from socially at-risk groups. She then designed innovative interventions targeting physicians’ communication skills, patients’ self-management skills, and healthcare organizations’ ability to address needs of underserved populations.

Dr. Cooper directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, where she and her team work with health system and community stakeholders to implement rigorous clinical trials, identifying interventions that alleviate disparities in healthcare and outcomes.

She has served on the several advisory groups, including the Underserved Advisory Committee, American Board of Internal Medicine; Board of Trustees, U.S. Pharmacopeia; Expert Panel for Cultural Competency Implementation Strategies and Measures, National Quality Forum; Board, American Heart Association Mid-Atlantic Affiliate; Maryland Health Quality and Costs Council; Advisory Committee to the Director of the NIH; Disparities Standing Committee, National Quality Forum; and The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Integrating Social Needs Care into the Delivery of Health Care. She has received several honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship, elected membership in the National Academy of Medicine, the Association of American Medical Colleges Herbert W. Nickens Award for outstanding contributions to promoting healthcare equity and social justice in medical education, and the American Public Health Association’s Helen Rodriguez-Trìas Social Justice Award.

Dr. Cooper received her B.A. in Chemistry from Emory University, her M.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed her internal medicine residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center and a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins.

Marie Cleary-Fishman currently holds the position of Vice President, Clinical Quality for the Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET) an affiliate of the American Hospital Association (AHA). She has been with HRET since March of 2014 and currently manages the High Reliability Practice area including the Hospital Innovation and Improvement Network (HIIN), the Hospital Acquired Infection (HAI) work and a diverse portfolio of federally and privately funded projects.

Marie has provided leadership in the Population Health Practice area as well as in the following projects; Adapting and Implementing Patient Safety Practices in Ambulatory Care (AHRQ),Hospital Based research to Build a Culture of Health (RWJF), Patient Engagement in the Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA - PCORI), HUDDLE for Care (The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), the Strategic Innovation Engine (IMPAQ), Project ACHIEVE (University of Kentucky and has contributed in her role as team member to Conflict and Optimal Resolution (CANDOR - AHRQ), HEN 2.0 (CMS) in addition to several data oriented projects.

Previously with the Illinois Hospital Association (IHA) since 2010 as Vice President of Performance Improvement, Marie’s position included responsibility for leading the state/national collaborative focused on decreasing Central Line Blood Stream Infections (CLABSI) and Catheter Related Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTI). Additionally, Marie led the Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) a partnership with HRET focused on reducing hospital acquired conditions by forty percent and readmissions by twenty percent. Finally, Marie jointly led the Midwest Alliance for Patient Safety, a joint venture Patient Safety Organization (PSO).

Her background includes positions as a staff nurse, Nursing Education Instructor, Director of Quality Improvement Resources, Director of Medical Practice Development and Senior Vice President for Ambulatory and Home Health Services. Immediately prior to leaving Resurrection Health Care, Ms. Cleary-Fishman served as the Senior Vice President for Performance Distinction. That responsibility included corporate-wide Performance Improvement, Patient Safety, and Case Management activities for five acute care facilities, a long-term acute care facility, a variety of nursing homes, retirement centers, ambulatory and home care services, and various ambulatory functions.

Thomas Fisher is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and experienced health insurance executive. Dr. Fisher has decades of experience in health care leadership and a diversity of experiences that motivate him to create a more just and efficient health care system. He is past president of NextLevel Health, a Medicaid managed care health plan where he integrated clinical operations, financial planning, network management, regulatory adherence, and community relations to deliver health outcomes for Cook County’s Medicaid population.

Under his leadership, NextLevel built a broad network, passed 6 regulatory reviews, hired 140 people and grew membership from 16k to 80k. In addition, Tom is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and cares for the south side community where he was raised as an attending physician at The University of Chicago Medical Center. Previously he served as Vice President of Health delivery Transformation at Health Care Seri e Corporation There he led Affordable Care Act preparation for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Montana.

Dr. Fisher also served as a 2010-2011 White House Fellow at the United States Department of Health and Human Services. He worked as the special assistant to Kathleen Sebelius, edited ACA regulations, and led the development of the HHS Action Plan for reducing racial and ethnic health disparities.

J. Nadine Gracia, MD, MPH is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public health policy, research, and advocacy organization that promotes optimal health for every person and community and makes the prevention of illness and injury a national priority. Dr. Gracia works in partnership with the president and CEO to develop and implement strategic policy priorities, and manages TFAH’s core business functions and internal operations. She has extensive leadership and management experience in federal government, professional associations, academia, and clinical practice.

Prior to joining TFAH, Dr. Gracia served in the Obama Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In that capacity, she directed departmental policies and programs to end health disparities and advance health equity. She provided executive leadership on administration priorities including the Affordable Care Act and My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative to address persistent opportunity gaps facing boys and young men of color and to ensure all youth can reach their full potential. She also led the federal Office of Minority Health, where she oversaw a budget of $57 million and pioneered innovative, multisectoral partnerships in the public and private sectors.

Previously, she served as Chief Medical Officer in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, where her portfolio included adolescent health, emergency and disaster preparedness, environmental health and climate change, and global health. Prior to that role, she was appointed as a White House Fellow at HHS and worked in the Office of the First Lady on the development of the Let’s Move! initiative to solve childhood obesity.

Gary Gunderson, Professor of the Health of the Public in the Wake Forest University School of Divinity and Professor of Public Health Science in School of Medicine. He serves as Vice President for FaithHealth at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center which includes spiritual care, Clinical Pastoral Education and counseling centers in 37 locations across NC as well as guiding community health strategy for the 19-county service area.

He is known for more than two decades of creative work in the field of faith and public health. The FaithHealth Division is developing partnerships with hundreds of congregations through FaithHealthNC adapting this broad body of experience into this very different social and faith environment.

Gary has also authored five books. He has been an advisor to the World Council of Churches for Mental Health, to the Adventist Loma Linda University Institute for Health Policy, and is a member of the National Academies of Science Roundtable on Population Health. He is secretary of Stakeholder Health, a learning group of more than 40 healthcare systems convened in collaboration with the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services exploring how faith-based organizations can more powerfully fulfill their founding mission to the poor.

Gary is an ordained American Baptist minister with degrees from Candler School of Theology at Emory University and Doctor of Ministry at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta as well as an honorary doctorate from the Chicago Theological Seminary. He blogs regularly at garygunderson.net.