Jodi M. Pekkala, MPH
Principal
Health Management Associates
New York, NY
[javascript protected email address]
(212) 575-5929
Jodi Pekkala is an experienced health care quality measurement and improvement researcher and consultant with over 15 years dedicated to evaluation, quality improvement, and practice transformation. Her capabilities include extensive experience in developing and deploying curricula for group learning collaboratives as well as individualized practice facilitation, including didactic and interactive learning curricula, baseline readiness assessments and progress tracking systems, coaching workflows and trainings, and templates and tools to manage the facilitation process, including agenda templates and progress note templates.
Her experience includes providing patient-centered medical homes (PCMH) and other practice coaching in primary care practices of all sizes from solo providers to federally qualified health centers (FQCH), and large, hospital-based practices on topics related to telemedicine, access to care, care management, referrals and care coordination, and quality improvement. In addition to conducting evaluation and analysis, she has taught and provided technical assistance in evaluation techniques to health care systems and community-based organizations.
Jodi has served as the Project Director on technical assistance and practice transformation projects, including for New York City Health + Hospitals Corporation, as well as the lead evaluator.
Her capabilities include managing and implementing all stages of small and large-scale qualitative and quantitative research projects and evaluations, conducting data validation and the design and management of data validation tools. This work includes extensive experience in conducting structured interviews with state Medicaid officials, managed care organization (MCO) representatives, providers, patients and other stakeholders related to quality measurement and value-based payment capacity and barriers, managing qualitative data collection projects from the design of data collection tools to the final analysis and synthesis of results.
She provides strategic guidance and technical assistance to national Medicaid MCOs, as well as technical assistance and support to hospital systems, FQHCs, and primary care providers related to calculation, reporting, and evaluation of quality measures and value-based payment. Her work spans a variety of population-specific projects – adults, children, aged, blind and disabled, and persons with chronic conditions, with a particular focus on maternal-child health.
Her work has included research and evaluation for the Strong Start for Mothers and Newborn Initiative, conducting interviews with prenatal care providers including birth centers and group prenatal care providers. As part of this work, she led a special study that included structured interviews of Medicaid officials in 20 states about Medicaid/CHIP coverage of traditional and “enhanced” perinatal services, payment structure, and special initiatives and incentives related to improving maternal and infant outcomes. Her work has also included research for the Centering Healthcare Institute, conducting structured qualitative interviews to better understand how State Medicaid programs, Medicaid MCOs and providers are engaged in VBP and how the CenteringPregnancy model fits within that paradigm.
Jodi is a Patient-Centered Medical Home Certified Content Expert™ (PCMH CCE™) and has assisted primary care practices through the various stages of transformation and quality improvement via individualized onsite technical assistance as well as coordinating group virtual and in person learning events.
Prior to joining HMA she worked for an external quality review organization (EQRO) where she reviewed the design and implementation of quality improvement initiatives for Medicaid and managed care programs.
She was a certified HEDIS compliance auditor (CHCA), functioning as lead auditor on annual audits of health plans and possesses in-depth knowledge of HEDIS data collection, measurement, and reporting processes. She earned a master’s degree in public health at Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree at Ithaca College.