Along with a comprehensive understanding of the behavioral healthcare continuum, Annalisa Baker’s experience includes business operations, project management and finance, as well as direct clinical social work practice.

Since joining HMA, Annalisa has contributed to a range of writing projects, including grant applications for community-based organizations, procurement proposals for health plan RFPs, and state policy analyses related to the behavioral healthcare delivery system. She has performed financial and strategic analyses for behavioral health providers in New York that are transitioning into Medicaid managed care and home and community-based services. Annalisa has provided project management support to the implementation of the Maryland All-Payer Model Progression Plan, which has shifted hospitals away from a volume-based financing system to a system based on hospital-specific global revenues with overlying value-based incentives.

Prior to joining HMA, Annalisa served in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as director of administration and operations in the Bureau of Mental Health, overseeing a budget of over $300 million, which included approximately 300 service provider contracts. In that role, she managed bureau performance, including budget, finance, personnel, contracting and procurement. She provided strategic oversight and leadership of the bureau’s agenda around mental health system financing, and was the primary liaison with the New York State Office of Mental Health Budget Divisions.

Annalisa served as director of health integration in the Office of Treatment Services for the bureau. She led the $10 million HEAL 17 grant project, which provided funding, support and quality oversight to mental health providers for implementing electronic health records, achieving meaningful use standards for data collection, and using data to improve the quality of care provided. Beyond HEAL 17, she worked on various bureau initiatives aimed at the integration of behavioral and physical health systems of care and the strategic navigation of those systems to optimize program delivery for patients and consumers.

Prior to her service with New York City, Annalisa was a clinical supervisor with children and adolescents at Astor Services for Children and Families. She managed a new partnership between Astor’s outpatient clinic and a foster care agency, with the goal of increasing foster children’s access to mental health services and decreasing fragmentation between systems of care. Annalisa has also spent time in the private sector as a business operations consultant, where she honed her project management skills.

She received her Master of Public Health from Columbia University and her Master of Social Work from New York University.

Outside the office, Annalisa loves exploring new restaurants with her husband, and getting her exercise in by running after her toddler in the park.