Committed Partner Interview

Marshall Chin, the Richard Parrillo Family Professor of Healthcare Ethics at the University of Chicago and a practicing general internist and health services researcher, has dedicated his career to reducing health disparities through interventions at individual, organizational, community, and policy levels. He has elucidated practical approaches to improving care of diverse individual patients and addressing systemic, structural drivers of disparities in the health care system. Through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Advancing Health Equity: Leading Care, Payment and Systems Transformation program, Dr. Chin collaborates with teams of state Medicaid agencies, Medicaid managed care organizations, and frontline healthcare delivery organizations to implement payment reforms to support and incentivize care transformations that advance health equity. He also partners with eight urban and rural communities to integrate medical and social care to reduce diabetes disparities through the Merck Foundation Bridging the Gap program.

Dr. Chin is a former President of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) and has won mentoring awards from SGIM and the University of Chicago. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017.

Dr. Chin is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine, and he completed residency and fellowship training in general internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Karen Dale is the Market President for AmeriHealth Caritas’ Medicaid managed care organization in Washington, D.C. In addition to her role as Market President, Dale was appointed to AmeriHealth Caritas’ newly created position of Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer. Having held multiple positions of leadership during the past two decades, Dale has worked with a broad group of stakeholders to address policies and other key factors impacting the delivery of health care services. In addressing the range of needs experienced by the nation’s vulnerable populations, Dale has cultivated a focus that has helped AmeriHealth Caritas concurrently innovate, while meeting the highest levels of quality and service. These efforts include the use of digital tools to aid in the management of chronic diseases, peer-to-peer outreach using community health workers and peer specialists, and the use of a human-centered design member engagement approach. Dale’s vision is notably reflected in key programs addressing Black maternal health, racism, housing, transportation, violence interruption, and food insecurity. In addition, her philosophy that healthcare must evolve into a health ecosystem that promotes, wellness, without barriers, starting where people are, has led to several collaborative relationships with providers, community partners, philanthropists, and businesses to implement sustainable, scalable solutions with high impact.

Ms. Dale was a member of the Leadership Greater Washington Class of 2003. She serves as a board member for both Volunteers of America National Services and the Volunteers of America National Board, as well as the Access to Justice Commission.

Ms. Dale holds a Master of Science degree in psychiatric mental health nursing from The Catholic University, Washington, D.C., and a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.

Focusing on appropriateness, care variation, and person-centered care for all patients through dissemination of best practices.

Reducing disparities and improving health equity through reallocation of resources to address SDOH (e.g., housing, food insecurity, transportation).

Improving predictability for providers through improved risk adjustment for complex patients, offering stronger incentive structures for Medicaid beneficiaries, and flexibility on waivers.

Providers who are successful in FFS may lack a compelling reason to transition to APMs, but may be unable to compete with the person-centered care delivered by providers in APMs. Introducing APMs through multi-payer pilots in these markets (particularly for independent and smaller providers) may increase competition and reduce FFS entrenchment.

Ensuring providers adopt timely data and analytics capabilities, combining multiple data sources (e.g., electronic health record and claims data), to enable successful participation in value-based payment models.

Providing patients and caregivers with cost, quality, and appropriateness of care data in an actionable, easily understood, and accessible manner. Ensuring that electronic data can be easily shared meeting advanced technology standards (e.g., HL7 FHIR) to improve care delivery.