Maddy Shea has a passion for health equity and the federal, state and local cross-sectoral expertise to guide community health improvement measurement and action. She understands how to identify opportunities in healthcare transformation to deliver better care, more efficiently, and with better health outcomes. Throughout her career, Maddy has joined forces with housing, planning, energy, food systems, community development, academic and criminal justice organizations to accelerate progress on community health goals.
Maddy joins HMA Community Strategies (HMACS) with decades of health policy and program experience. Maddy has worked together with culturally, racially, and socio-economically diverse communities to assess needs and priorities, design culturally accessible programs and to evaluate “what matters.” She worked with supportive housing residents to develop meaningful evaluation measures, HIV infected homeless men to connect others to supports, and persons with physical disabilities to prioritize options to increase the physical accessibility of healthcare facilities.
Maddy’s approach to evaluation and performance measurement is participatory with a focus on broad accountability, program improvement, and equity. She is seen by her peers as never shying away from big problems and new challenges, particularly when she can work collaboratively in high need communities.
At the CMS Office of Minority Health, Maddy led the development, implementation, and evaluation of the CMS Equity Plan initiatives and innovations. She analyzed CMS regulations, policies, and standards to identify disparities and to increase beneficiary and partner engagement to meet the needs of minorities and rural populations. She consulted on the design of new models addressing social health determinants and technical assistance approaches to support grantees in meeting their equity goals.
Prior to CMS, Maddy supported Quality Improvement Organizations (QIO) by providing customized reports on disparities in chronic disease, adverse drug events, readmissions, and nursing home quality by race, ethnicity, gender, age, geography, dual eligibility status, and poverty. She then coached QIO staff in evidence-based approaches to reduce these disparities.
Maddy led Maryland and Baltimore public health efforts in population health, environmental health, chronic disease, and infectious disease and has participated in emergency preparations and response.
She was the Maryland Health Department’s first Office of Population Health Improvement director where she developed the measurement and action framework to guide healthcare transformation in Maryland’s 24 jurisdictions and across state government. These same performance measures are now part of the state’s Medicare waiver program. In Baltimore, she developed the first U.S. city healthy homes division to reduce asthma, injury, lead poisoning, malnutrition, and infant deaths in low-income, racial, and ethnic minority communities where she developed an asthma home visiting program that saved Medicaid hospital costs. Her progressively accountable roles at the Maryland AIDS Administration included evaluation, prevention, training, housing assistance, and care community engagement and leadership.
Maddy earned her PhD in public policy from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, her master’s degree in management from Johns Hopkins University, and her bachelor’s degree in economics from Trinity College in Washington.
For 30 years, Maddy has been married to her Peace Corps Liberia heart throb who pulls her into crazy world adventures and green building projects at their West Virginia hilltop oasis when they are not out and about enjoying Baltimore.
