HMA IOA Staff Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Health Management Associates

Margaret Kirkegaard

Dr. Margaret Kirkegaard has extensive front line experience and an impressive breadth of knowledge about health care and its delivery.

A clinician and an educator, Dr. Kirkegaard is uniquely positioned to advise clients on physician engagement in health care reform, medical education, population-based health care delivery and underserved and vulnerable populations. When it comes to medical care integration and the development and transformation of primary care – especially implementation of the patient-centered medical home model – her guidance is rooted in her own real-world experience.

For more than six years, Dr. Kirkegaard served as medical director of a state-wide, start-up primary care case management program for 1.8 million Medicaid clients. She was responsible for network development, physician recruitment and practice transformation to the medical home model for 5,700 primary care providers and 2,300 specialist providers. During her tenure, the program developed multiple clinical quality management tools, a pay-for-performance program, and earned broad provider recognition as a beneficial model while client satisfaction ratings reached over 90 percent.

Prior to her work in Medicaid, Dr. Kirkegaard held several academic positions teaching in both graduate and undergraduate medical education institutions. In 2005, she was selected among nominees from all American medical schools for the National Golden Apple Teaching Award sponsored by the American Medical Student Association.

Dr. Kirkegaard is a board certified family physician. She received her M.D. from the University of Minnesota and completed her family medicine residency at Hinsdale Family Practice Residency. She has a Master of Public Health with a concentration in health policy and focus on quality improvement.

A third-generation family physician with over 20 years of clinical experience, Dr. Kirkegaard continues to teach medical students and residents and provide clinical care to patients at the Hinsdale Family Medicine Residency. As an advocate for underserved and vulnerable patients, she also has volunteered at a local free clinic serving uninsured patients since 1999.

On the weekends, Margaret likes to get an early start to her days and go bird watching.

Marsha Johnson

Marsha Johnson is a leader in complex care program development, integrated health delivery, curriculum development, and workforce and leadership development. She is passionate about building a resilient workforce and systems to meet the demands of the safety net environment and deliver quality, comprehensive care to complex populations.

Marsha’s broad clinical expertise includes individual and group psychotherapy, behavioral health consultation in the primary care environment, psychosocial interventions for group medical visits, batterers intervention, and supervision/training of students in health professions.

She spent 12 years working in the federally-qualified health center environment where she guided the behavioral health program from co-location to full integration to improve care for patients with chronic disease including mental illness and substance use disorders. She currently maintains a private practice focused primarily on the delivery of dialectical behavior therapy.

As a member of the innovation team at the Urban Health Institute at Cooper Health System, Marsha brought her expertise to the redesign of ambulatory care services for the Medicare and Medicaid populations. She designed and implemented care transitions programs, integrated health coaching into primary care, and launched collaborative care planning with community-based services.

Prior to joining HMA, Marsha served as chief learning officer leading technical assistance and educational programs aimed at the development of complex care eco-systems in communities across the country. In partnership with academic institutions, she successfully scaled an interprofessional training program utilizing experiential learning to advance understanding of the impact of social determinants of health. She was also instrumental in the development and activation of the strategic plan of the National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs.

She earned a Master of Social Work from Smith College School for Social Work and has a bachelor’s degree in French language and literature from Carleton College.

Hailing back to her rural upbringing, Marsha enjoys gardening, often fruitlessly, on a very small scale at her home in Philadelphia while fostering a connection to nature with her two children.

Barry J. Jacobs

Dr. Barry J. Jacobs is a noted clinical psychologist and family therapist whose passion for enhancing support for family caregivers led him to author several books and dozens of articles on the topic as well as present and speak nationally and internationally to organizations, associations, and providers.

His areas of expertise include behavioral health integration, complex care management, enhancing family caregiver engagement and supports, practice transformation, team-based care, and provider wellness. He brings this wealth of knowledge, along with decades of clinical practice experience to individuals, couples and families, to HMA.

He currently leads practice coaching for behavioral health and substance use disorder providers and has provided training to payer and Area Agencies on Aging care managers on partnering with family caregivers. He has also provided strategic development and program design for states, payers, and vendors.

A highly in-demand presenter, Dr. Jacobs has given multiple Grand Rounds to physician groups, been a keynote speaker at caregiver conferences in several states, and provided webinars on reducing opioid use disorder stigma, using digital platforms to support caregivers, and behavioral health system transformation.

Before joining HMA, he was the director of behavioral sciences for the Crozer-Keystone Family Medicine Residency Program. He trained physical and behavioral health students and led an interprofessional team in his health system’s complex care management program for high-utilizing frail elderly patients, as well as for younger Medicaid patients with complex social problems.

He is the author of The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers—Looking After Yourself and Your Family While Helping an Aging Parent and co-author of AARP Meditations for Caregivers—Practical, Emotional and Spiritual Support for You and Your Family and the forthcoming Love and Meaning for Couples After 50.

Dr. Jacobs has given more than 600 presentations about caregiving for family caregivers, community groups, and medical and mental health professionals and serves as a national spokesperson for the American Heart Association and an honorary board member of the Well Spouse Association. He appeared on “The Dr. Phil Show” in 2017 as a family caregiving expert.

A former magazine journalist, he loves to do research, conduct interviews and write. In the mid-1980s, he helped put together the first Rolling Stone encyclopedia of rock and roll and wrote extensively for The Village Voice. Today, he writes a monthly self-help column for family caregivers on AARP.org.

He has a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and his doctorate in clinical psychology from Widener University.

He and his wife live in the leafy college town of Swarthmore, PA and have two adult children doing good in the world.

Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a doctoral-prepared, board-certified advance practice registered nurse with a specialty in environmental and occupational health and clinical training in adult, adolescent and young adult health. An expert in workplace health and safety, Karen is exceptionally skilled in workforce assessment, engagement and development. Her clinical capabilities span primary care, acute care, outpatient care, home health care transitions, and trauma-informed systems of care. She is experienced in the social determinates of health and health disparities and community engagement of underserved populations.

Karen has consulted with non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and community-based organizations. She is an analytical and growth-minded professional with expertise in cultivating culturally sensitive collaborations. She has a proven track record of leading workplace transformation by enhancing operations and building dynamic, patient-centered, outcome-driven teams. She guides her clients in fully engaging patients and staff, improving patient outcomes, and reducing costs.

Current HMA projects include a three-year continuous quality improvement (CQI) training program for one of California’s largest health systems and the care management redesign of a 5,000-member physician independent practice association. Supporting the move towards national clinical recognition standards, Karen provides ongoing patient-centered medical home technical assistance to 11 rural and frontier clinics in Idaho. In the second largest health system in the country, Karen developed and administered an evidenced-based preceptor training course, resulting in the first cohort of nurse preceptors receiving evidence-based training. She has also developed new relationships with academic institutions for clinical rotations, vibrant volunteer networks, comprehensive service learning programs, and a career ladder for support staff.

Prior to HMA, Karen was vice president of programs for the Center for Youth Wellness, a research center for children and families exposed to adverse childhood experiences. As a member of the senior management team, Karen directed strategic planning, operations and compliance. She also facilitated four major strategic partnerships, generating an additional $4.5 million in annual funding.

Karen brings both clinical and administrative perspective to client projects. She was clinic manager for Glide Health Services, a nurse-led clinic serving a largely homeless, racially diverse population, in San Francisco. Using data and leveraging partnerships, Karen expanded community access to primary health services. She launched a new Wellness Center, which included alternative medicine, and instituted a breast health program with California Pacific Medical Center, which provided screening and treatment for 400 women annually. Karen also introduced a new social case management program and onsite adult dental health program.

She built academic partnerships with Yale University, Cal State East Bay, and University of San Francisco; and piloted the first RN Transitions Residency Program with University of San Francisco. Karen’s participation in grant writing generated $12 million in federal, state and foundation funding. Her leadership also directly resulted in better health outcomes among low-wage clinic workers, reduced employee attrition, and increased staff morale and performance.

A BlueShield Clinic Leadership Graduate and TeamStepps Master Trainer, Karen is a nursing adjunct faculty member at University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) and Yale School of Nursing.

Karen earned her doctorate of nursing and master’s degree in nursing from UCSF and her bachelor’s degree in nursing from University of San Francisco.

Karen is married, has a beautiful family, and enjoys travel, movies, art, music and dancing.

Liddy Garcia-Bunuel

Liddy Garcia-Buñuel has the vision, passion and expertise to effect organizational and systematic change. She takes a collaborative approach. She unites health systems, hospitals, providers, government and social service agencies around common goals and innovative programs to elevate whole community health and quality of life. She delivers evidence-based solutions that breakdown barriers, mitigate disparities and address upstream social determinants of health, including access to healthy food, safe walkable communities, transportation, housing and workplace wellness.

As executive director for a nonprofit community health advocacy organization in Maryland, Liddy introduced the first health plan in the nation to couple access to primary and specialty care with mandatory coaching. The HHS innovation award-winning model measures members’ health upon plan enrollment and provides care coordination after each primary care appointment and face-to-face health coaching.

Liddy oversaw a local health improvement coalition, bringing together 40 local organizations to collectively impact positive change in behavioral health, access to care, healthy weight and healthy aging. She directed a transitional care coordination initiative which hired community health workers and nurses to reduce hospital admissions and readmissions among high-risk high-utilizers, and through her leadership, introduced an advanced primary care collaborative to provide coaching around practice transformation. She engaged faith-based organizations in empowering congregants to live healthier lives.

On her path to HMA, Liddy helped launch the first insurance cooperative in Maryland, including both individual and small group products. As COO, she oversaw IT, vendor management, communications and marketing, operations and member services. She supervised universal HIV education and testing at 66 hospitals in the Chicago area. She employed culturally competent community advocates in 12 ethnic neighborhoods across Seattle to enroll children in Medicaid. She was the executive director of a main street revitalization program in Maryland, and she recruited and trained community health workers in rural El Salvador.

Liddy is seen by her peers as the chief implementer. Problem solving is her expertise, and her solutions are data driven. To optimize resources and results, Liddy employs the technique of “hot spotting” to identify communities and populations of greatest need. She is skilled in data collection and program evaluation.

A lifelong learner, Liddy is certified emergency medical technician, has studied maternal and child health at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from The College of Wooster in Ohio.

Once a triathlete, now a chilled out yogi, Liddy enjoys her life in Baltimore with her husband and two boys, surrounded by restored sailcloth mills and micro-breweries.

Gina R. Eckart

Gina Eckart is a licensed mental health counselor with 20 years of experience in public behavioral health.

Prior to joining HMA, Gina served as the director of the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction. She was responsible for policy, funding and management of the state’s $450 million public mental health and addiction system of care, including six state psychiatric hospitals and more than 2,200 employees.

She collaborated with the Indiana Office of Medicaid Policy and Planning to improve efficiency and oversight of the Medicaid Rehabilitation Option (MRO) program, to develop a 1915i application to serve persons with serious mental illness, and to implement a successful Community Alternatives to Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities (CA-PRTF) demonstration for children with serious mental health issues. Under her leadership, the state successfully transitioned 110 individuals with intellectual disabilities from state psychiatric hospitals into community-based care, saving an estimated $15 million in the first year.

Gina served in various clinical and leadership roles at the Midtown Community Mental Health Center in Indianapolis, where she began her career as a crisis clinician. Gina managed a 24-hour crisis unit responsible for psychiatric consults within a public county hospital emergency department. Other areas of focus included development and management of a centralized intake process and creation of an information and scheduling line which reduced wait times and improved access to care. She also led expansion of center-wide quality assurance and utilization management processes.

Gina earned her master’s degree in mental health and bachelor’s degree from Indiana University. She has been an adjunct professor at the Indiana University School of Social Work and a mental health and addiction trainer for the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy and local crisis intervention team.

Gina has served on many local advisory boards and panels, including the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors and the Standards, Training and Practices Subcommittee for Lifeline — the national suicide hotline.

Helen DuPlessis

Dr. Helen DuPlessis is an accomplished physician executive who brings extensive leadership experience and a wealth of in-depth knowledge about public sector health programs to HMA.

She has a rich history of involvement in healthcare administration for a variety of organizations, expertise in program and policy development, practice transformation, public health, maternal, and child health policy, community systems development, performance improvement, and managed care.

Prior to joining HMA, Dr. DuPlessis served as the chief medical officer with St. John’s Well Child and Family Center where she provided executive management for integrated medical, behavioral, dental and pharmacy services in a large network of Federally Qualified Health Centers. She was responsible for building and upgrading key elements of the organizational infrastructure and clinical services, strategic business expansion, Patient Centered Medical Home certification, electronic health records implementation, clinical work force recruitment, training and development, and performance improvement.

Other notable professional experiences include her work as senior advisor to the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities where she provided leadership, research, program development support, counsel and representation to local, state and national efforts, and community level systems transformation. She also trained and mentored students in various disciplines and educational levels.

Dr. DuPlessis was the chief medical officer at LA Care during the initial rollout of Medi-Cal managed care in California and served as director of Student Medical Services for the LA Unified School District.

With a proven track record in understanding and implementing innovative and effective health programs and performance improvement activities, she has served as an advocate of community capacity-building, staff and professional development.

Dr. DuPlessis earned her Master of Public Health degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of California, San Francisco. She also has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California.

Carol Clancy

Dr. Carol Clancy brings to HMA over 20 years of leadership experience in correctional health, recovery services, and in other public and nonprofit mental health settings, including residential treatment and shelter care. Carol’s experience includes program design, development, implementation, and oversight of service systems, budgets, and policies. She has worked across and between service teams to develop and implement behavioral health and substance use disorder (SUD) programs, from in-custody through re-entry, to assure a seamless continuum of care for mentally ill, justice-involved individuals and other vulnerable and at-risk populations.

At HMA, Carol provides consultation services to correctional settings and community-based organizations that are focused on issues of treatment, linkage, and outcomes for justice-involved individuals.

Carol joins HMA most recently from Maguire Correctional Facility/Maple Street Correctional Center in Redwood City, California. In this role, Carol oversaw all mental health and recovery programs in the jail. Carol is particularly adept at engaging positively at all levels of the justice system, including courts and attorneys, law enforcement, corrections, and probation, as well as behavioral health and SUD systems and professionals. She collaborated with multiple county departments to facilitate the successful reintegration of justice-involved individuals into the community. She has expertise in forensic assessment of individuals with serious mental illness and co-occurring disorders and has worked closely with the courts on the development of a diversion program for seriously mentally ill misdemeanants.

As the staff psychologist at Maguire Correctional Facility, Carol supervised and trained clinical staff and pre-doctoral interns and administered psycho-diagnostic intake assessments and court-ordered psychological evaluations. She has specific experience in the accreditation of health services in jails, consulting with crisis management units, teaching and delivering critical incident stress debriefing and psychological assessment of children, adolescents, and adults.

Carol has extensive experience in teaching and training of law enforcement and behavioral health professionals. She has expertise providing individual and group supervision in therapy, assessment, and court-ordered evaluations. She has taught graduate courses in forensic psychology and counseling psychology at several Bay Area universities.

Carol is a licensed clinical psychologist in California. She earned her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Denver, her Master of Social Work from Bryn Mawr College, and her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the State University of New York at Purchase.

Although she was born and raised in New York, she now enjoys hiking, knitting and spending time with her family at their home on the San Francisco Peninsula.

Heidi Arthur

Heidi Arthur has over 20 years of experience in delivery system redesign to promote community-based access to health and human services for those receiving publicly financed care. Her projects have focused on expanding access to integrated care, enhancing clinical models that maximize new financing options, and supporting community-based organizations to facilitate meaningful engagement in delivery reform. She has supported behavioral health providers in preparing for managed care, value-based payment, health homes, and new Medicaid funded services. Her successful government grant proposals have expanded and enhanced supporting housing, re-entry services, care access for those in the criminal justice system, child welfare and foster care programming, trauma treatment, services for veterans, health homes for those with serious mental illness, and more.

Prior to joining HMA, Heidi was the vice president of a behavioral health consulting firm for 10 years. She has held multiple grants management positions for the New York City Department of Health, the New York State Office of Mental Health, and various community-based human service providers in New York City and Virginia.

She is co-editor and author of the book, “Service Delivery for Vulnerable Populations: New Directions in Behavioral Health.” She is a frequent conference presenter and an adjunct lecturer and field instructor for the Columbia University School of Social Work.

Heidi earned her master’s degree in social work from the Columbia University School of Social Work. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, musician Ben Arthur, and their two daughters, ages 10 and 12.

Uma Ahluwalia

Uma S. Ahluwalia is a respected healthcare and human services professional with extensive experience leading key growth initiatives in demanding political and legislative environments.

She is an expert in delivering innovative, reliable, cost-effective solutions and public policy strategies that improve operations and productivity.

Prior to joining HMA, she served as director of the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services in Maryland. During her 12-year tenure she led implementation of the Affordable Care Act, oversaw the move to a more integrated and interoperable health and human services enterprise, and managed public-private partnerships and programs.

Uma’s work experience also includes leadership as the interim director in the Child and Family Services Agency in Washington, DC and assistant secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services in the State of Washington.

She has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Delhi in India and a specialist, post-master’s in health services administration from George Washington University. Over her 28-year career in human services, she has progressively moved from case-carrying social work to executive leadership at the state and local levels.

Uma loves to read and spend time with family and friends.

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Margaret Kirkegaard