April 2026
Evidence-Based Prevention Workgroup Member
HCPLAN members play a vital role in advancing healthier communities and stronger healthcare connections. In April 2026, Dawn Alley, a member of the Evidence-Based Prevention Workgroup, shared insights on the issues shaping preventive care and the future of value-based care.
In your experience, how do you see the Evidence-Based Prevention Workgroup contributing to the advancement of evidence-based preventive care?
“I’m excited for this Workgroup to highlight practical opportunities to scale what works when it comes to prevention and value-based care and address widespread misconceptions. On the one hand, there’s an assumption that value-based care will naturally lead to better uptake of evidence-based prevention approaches, and unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve seen that. What we’ve learned is that you have to very intentionally build incentives for prevention into value-based care. Million Hearts is a great example of that. On the other hand, sometimes there’s a perception that prevention doesn’t save money. We know that some evidence-based approaches, like Community Health Workers, CAPABLE, or cardiac rehabilitation, generate return on investment within 12 months.”
What do you want fellow leaders in the health care industry to know about the Evidence-Based Prevention Continuum? Why does it matter to them?
“The Evidence-Based Prevention Continuum emphasizes that we need more than evidence to successfully scale prevention. In some cases, we have evidence from multi-site randomized trials, but that doesn’t mean that services are actually getting to people. The Diabetes Prevention Program is a great example of this — it’s effective, but it has struggled to reach national scale in Medicare. The Continuum includes a framework for what it takes to scale broadly, both in terms of the coverage policy perspective (e.g., Medicaid State Plan Amendments) and incentives (e.g., quality measurement).”
Looking ahead, what is an emerging question, challenge, or opportunity you see related to
value-based care?
“I can’t pick just one, so here are two! First, we need to do better on comprehensively serving dually eligible beneficiaries. Dueling accountability for Medicare and Medicaid serves no one well. Second, we need to address what matters most to patients and caregivers. If value-based care isn’t achieving person-centeredness, we’re doing it wrong. We can’t get there with box-checking; we have to actually prioritize patient experience in meaningful ways.”
Is there anything else you would like to share?
“The great privilege of being a value-based provider is that you have an imperative to meet people where they are — both physically and metaphorically. It’s hard to overstate how much our current system is not designed to do that. Too often, we make patients come to us, and then we tell them what to do; what we should be doing is putting ourselves where patients are and listening to them. That requires a fundamental realignment of our workforce and our workflows. The good news is that every day, we have more examples that show us this
is possible.”
Learn more about the HCPLAN’s Evidence-Based Prevention work.
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Emily DuHamel Brower, M.B.A., is senior vice president of clinical integration and physician services for Trinity Health. Emphasizing clinical integration and payment model transformation, Ms. Brower provides strategic direction related to the evolving accountable healthcare environment with strong results. Her team is currently accountable for $10.4B of medical expense for 1.6M lives in Medicare Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid and Commercial Alternative Payment Models.
Victor is the Chief Medical Officer for TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid Agency. At TennCare, Victor leads the medical office to ensure quality and effective delivery of medical, pharmacy, and dental services to its members. He also leads TennCare’s opioid epidemic strategy, social determinants of health, and practice transformation initiatives across the agency. Prior to joining TennCare, Victor worked at Evolent Health supporting value-based population health care delivery. In 2013, Victor served as a White House Fellow to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Victor completed his Internal Medicine Residency at Emory University still practices clinically as an internist in the Veteran’s Affairs Health System.
Tamara Ward is the SVP of Insurance Business Operations at Oscar Health, where she leads the National Network Contracting Strategy and Market Expansion & Readiness. Prior to Oscar she served as VP of Managed Care & Network Operations at TriHealth in Southwest Ohio. With over 15 years of progressive health care experience, she has been instrumental driving collaborative payer provider strategies, improving insurance operations, and building high value networks through her various roles with UHC and other large provider health systems. Her breadth and depth of experience and interest-based approach has allowed her to have success solving some of the most complex issues our industry faces today. Tam is passionate about driving change for marginalized communities, developing Oscar’s Culturally Competent Care Program- reducing healthcare disparities and improving access for the underserved population. Tamara holds a B.A. from the University of Cincinnati’s and M.B.A from Miami University.
Dr. Peter Walsh joined the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing as the Chief Medical Officer on December 1, 2020. Prior to joining HCPF, Dr. Walsh served as a Hospital Field Representative/Surveyor at the Joint Commission, headquartered in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois.
