MHA Newsletter: Spring 2022

We invite you to continue reading the latest edition of our newsletter to learn more about how our SLU students, alumni, faculty, and friends are working collaboratively to advance the field of health care management and to make the world a better place for all of us.

Alumni

Christy Moore (M.H.A. 2010) has been a vital part of the planning team that has supported a number of growth opportunities, including Memorial Hospital joining BJC Healthcare, development of the new Barnes–Jewish West County Hospital and BJC Outpatient Centers, and expansion of BJC’s acute rehabilitation joint venture with Encompass Health into Illinois.

Tamiko Gheen (M.H.A. 2017) is an active-duty U.S. Air Force major and the comptroller at the San Antonio Military Health System. In her current role, Gheen provides resource operations oversight to a market with nine Army and Air Force treatment facilities staffed by 12,000 employees servicing 240,000 beneficiaries.

Students

Master of Health Administration candidate, Meghan Weihmuller (M.H.A. 2023) was looking for a way to foster health literacy while incorporating innovation and health equity. With this in mind, Weihmuller started the children’s health-focused startup, PediaBright.

Michaila Dix (M.H.A. 2022) will begin a fellowship with the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, this summer. She said she is looking forward to immersing herself in the Mayo Clinic culture and experiencing all facets of health care operations through her rotations.

Faculty & Staff

Michael Rozier, S.J., Ph.D., has been named the new chair of the department of health management and policy. Kimberly R. Enard, Ph.D., F.A.C.H.E., who has been serving as the interim department chair since Jan. 1, 2022, will continue in her role as director of the department’s Master of Health Administration (M.H.A.) program. Rozier’s appointment becomes effective Aug. 1, ahead of the 2022-23 academic year.

More Good News

Michael Rozier, SJ, Ph.D., led publication of the article “Leveraging Community Benefit to Increase Health Care Value,” in Health Affairs Forefront (May 2022), with co-author Kimberly R. Enard, Ph.D., F.A.C.H.E. Dr. Rozier also led publication of “Funding Community Health Activities: An Experiment Comparing Health Foundation's Priorities to Those of Public Health Agencies, Hospitals, and Nonprofit Organizations,” in Journal of Public Health Management and Practice (May/June 2022) and co-authored “ACO Awareness and Perceptions Among Specialists Versus Primary Care Physicians: a Survey of a Large Medicare Shared Savings Program,” in Journal of General Internal Medicine (February 2022).

Cheryl Rathert, Ph.D., led publication of the articles “Caring Work Environments and Clinician Emotional Exhaustion: Empirical Test of an Exploratory Model" (Health Care Management Review,  January-March 2022) and “Patient-Provider Therapeutic Connections to Improve Health Care: Conceptual Development and Systematic Review Of Patient Measures" (Health Care Management Review, February 2022). Dr. Rathert also co-authored “Associations Between Patient-Provider Secure Message Content and Patients' Health Care Visits,” (Telemedicine Journal and e-Health, May 2022) and “Are Online Patient Reviews Associated With Health Care Outcomes? A Systematic Review of the Literature” (Medical Care Research and Review, February 2022).

Kimberly R. Enard, Ph.D., F.A.C.H.E., co-authored the article “Community Health Worker Impact on Knowledge, Antenatal Care, and Birth Outcomes: A Systematic Review,”  published in the Maternal Child Health Journal (January 2022). Dr. Enard also co-authored “Promoting Informed Prostate Cancer Screening Decision-Making for African American Men in a Community-Based Setting,” published in Cancer Causes Control (April 2022).

Mark Gaynor, Ph.D., led publication of the article “Blockchain and Population Health” published in the Journal of Public Health (Oxford) with SLU alumni co-authors JE “Betsy” Tuttle-Newhall (M.D., e.M.H.A. 2018), Max Martin (M.H.A. 2022), Frank Patejdl (M.H.A. 2021) and Clare Schuchardt (B.S.N., M.P.H. 2022).

HMP doctoral student Rauta “Aver” Yakubu, M.H.A., led publication of the article “Utilizing Collective Impact to Develop a Community Led Initiative for Improving Black Infant Mortality," forthcoming in Health Promotion Practice. Kimberly R. Enard, Ph.D., F.A.C.H.E., was senior author on the manuscript.

Kimberly R. Enard, Ph.D., F.A.C.H.E., is principal investigator on the sub-award “COVID-19 Missouri Health Disparities Program,” which will provide technical assistance and training for public health administrators to lead their organizations and communities in partnerships with faith-based groups and African American populations. The program seeks to address disparities in vaccine information and related issues of health care access and quality.

Tracy Gutzke (M.H.A. 2019) was named part of the Focus St. Louis civic leadership organization’s Spring 2022 Class of Emerging Leaders.
 
Allyssa Stevens (M.H.A. 2020) received the Minnesota Chapter of the American College of Health Care Executives Regent Early Careerist Award. Stevens also serves on the board of directors of ACHE-MN as the treasurer and chair of the finance and audit committee.
 
Param Sangani (B.S.H.M. 2022/M.H.A. 2023) was a member of the ChemoTactix team in MEDLaunch’s 2022 Demo Day. The team won $2,500 for winning this year’s competition. MEDLaunch: Medicine, Entrepreneurship, and Design, is a non-profit, biomedical and entrepreneurship incubator partnering with Saint Louis University and other organizations in the Greater St. Louis area.
 
Samantha Arledge (M.H.A. 2023) will serve on the MEDLaunch Board of Directors as the vice president of finance, succeeding graduating student Prasana Ruxmohan (M.H.A. 2022), who previously held the position. 
 
Emma Childress (J.D./M.H.A. Class 2024) co-authored the Kaiser Family Foundation issue brief, “State Actions to Address Nursing Home Staffing During COVID-19,” published May 16, 2022.

Cassandra (Sandy) Amorado – Hartford HealthCare
Steven Chase Dallin – HonorHealth
Kajal Dholakia – University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System 
Michaila Dix – Mayo Clinic
Destanie Garrett – Children's Mercy Kansas City
Justin John – JPS Health Network
Clare Lablance – BJC Medical Group
Irene Garza Lazo – Children's Hospital Los Angeles
Gregory Long – Hospital Sisters Health System
Maxwell Martin – Medical University of South Carolina
Jacob Neal – University of Missouri Health Care
Chesna Panicker – University of Pittsburgh
Prasana Ruxmohan – UC Irvine Health
Sohil Swaminathan – The University of Kansas Health System
Chloe Thompson – Emory Healthcare
Meghan Weihmuller – Mercy Clinic
Mackenzie Williams – Trinity Health
Other Placements
Hiba Al-Ramahi – Polsinelli Law Firm
Dani Dant – Epic Systems
Sosna Gellaw – Mercer
Jacob Ip – BJC Healthcare
Sandeep Kantamneni -- Abbott Laboratories 
Megan Kress – The Resource Group
Rania Mahrous – Optum
Vindhya Marri – Anders CPAs + Advisory
Yesha Patel – Press Ganey
Komal Patel – Deloitte Consulting
Parth Patel – Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
Sanket Patel – SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital
Katie Richter – Anders CPAs + Advisory
Max Umbeck – Epic Systems
Mara Zankman – Express Scripts

Brianna C. Clare (M.H.A. 2018) has joined Oak Street Health as the population health director of the Phoenix region. Clare previously held the position of department administrator of dermatology at Cleveland Clinic. 

Ryan Pratt (M.H.A. 2010) was promoted to assistant vice president, strategy and business development for SSM Health St. Louis and Southern Illinois Region.

Diya Al-Ramahi (M.H.A. 2017) started a new position as transformation excellence manager at Accenture. Previously, he worked as a performance improvement consultant at BJC Healthcare. Al-Ramahi is an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University.

Allyssa Stevens (M.H.A. 2020) was promoted to senior management consultant, strategy department, at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

College for Public Health and Social Justice

The Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice is the only academic unit of its kind, studying social, environmental and physical influences that together determine the health and well-being of people and communities. It also is the only accredited school or college of public health among nearly 250 Catholic institutions of higher education in the United States.

Guided by a mission of social justice and focus on finding innovative and collaborative solutions for complex health problems, the College offers nationally recognized programs in public health and health administration.