Advisory Committee on Data Issues

Public comment

All Advisory Committee on Data Issues meetings are public meetings, and members of the public are welcome and encouraged to share their input. All feedback is shared with board members.

Share your input

There are two ways to share input:

• During a board meeting, there is a designated time for public comment. To provide public comment during the designated public comment period, please use the raise hand function in Zoom or raise your hand if you are attending in person.
• By contacting us at any time. If you want your written comments to be included in an upcoming meeting, email your comments to us 10 days before that meeting occurs.

Meetings

Dates, times, and materials for upcoming and past meetings are available on the Cost Board's Meetings and materials page.

Committee members

Bianca Frogner, PhD, Chair

Associate professor, Department of Family Medicine; Director, Center for Health Workforce Studies; Deputy Director, Primary Care Innovation Lab University of Washington

Dr. Frogner is a health economist (NIH T32 trainee) with expertise in health services delivery, health workforce, labor economics, health spending, health insurance coverage and reimbursement, and international health systems. She is the principal investigator of two Health Resources and Services Administration Health Workforce Research Center grants, one focused on allied health and another focused on the training and education of health professionals to address health equity.

In 2016, Dr. Frogner served on an Institute of Medicine Consensus Study Committee on Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Health. She serves on the editorial boards of Medical Care Research and Review and Health Systems. She received the 2019 John M. Eisenberg Article-of-the-Year Award as lead author of a study investigating physical therapy as the first point of care for low back pain treatment published in Health Services Research.

Dr. Frogner has over 100 publications including peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and reports. Her research has been shared in over 200 scholarly presentations and has appeared in popular media outlets including CNN, NPR, Wall Street Journal, Vox, and Politico.

Dr. Frogner completed a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. She received her PhD in health economics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and BA at University of California, Berkeley in Molecular and Cell Biology.

Christa Able

Director, Payer Strategy and Relationships, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health

Christa has over 30 years of experience working in the healthcare industry with an emphasis on financial accounting, healthcare reimbursement and provider contracting. She has managed contract departments for large integrated provider systems in various roles within managed care. Her current position at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health is focused on provider contracting and value-based payer relationships in the Pacific Northwest. Christa holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the University of Washington.

Megan Atkinson

Chief financial officer, Health Care Authority (HCA)

Megan served as chief financial officer for HCA from 2005 - 2008 and rejoined HCA in 2017. She most recently worked as assistant director for budget at the Department of Transportation and has held senior positions for both the Department of Social and Health Services Economic Services Administration and the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

The Financial Services Division manages multiple fiscal needs for HCA, including budget preparation and monitoring, accounting and payroll, forecasting, and rate setting.

Amanda Avalos

Deputy, Enterprise Analytics, Research, and Reporting, Health Care Authority (HCA)

Amanda works for HCA, the largest health care purchaser in Washington State, which serves 2.5 million residents through the Apple Health (Medicaid), Public Employees Benefits Board (PEBB), and School Employees Benefits Board (SEBB) programs. As deputy for Enterprise Analytics, Research, and Reporting, Amanda leads the implementation of the agency's analytic strategy. She oversees a talented staff team whose analytics and reporting allow for data-informed decision making.

Prior to joining the HCA in 2011, Amanda worked extensively in the nonprofit sector focused on social services and behavioral health. She served as director of programs for Bigs Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Washington, where she oversaw the operations team implementing high-quality mentoring for youth.

Amanda holds master's degree in public administration.

Jonathan Bennett

Vice president, Data Analytics and IT Services, Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA)

WSHA represents all the hospitals in Washington State, and works to improve the delivery, quality, accessibility, and affordability of health care. In his role, Jonathan provides leadership and direction for WSHA's Data Analytics Program by leading information synthesis, program management, prioritization of information needs, and analysis of important information practices to ensure staff and members have the value added and necessary information to advance healthcare.

Before working for WSHA, Jonathan held positions with Virginia Mason Medical Center and Pacific Medical Center. Jonathan holds a master's degree in Healthcare Administration from the University of Washington.

Bruce Brazier

Administrative Services director, Peninsula Community Health Services

Since 2017, Bruce has served as Administrative Services director at Peninsula Community Health Services, a federally qualified health center located on the Kitsap Peninsula.

Prior to this, he acquired 23 years of experience in various technical and managerial roles at several health plan entities including Group Health, KPS Health Plans, and The Regence Group. Bruce also worked for five years in the Health & Welfare consulting practice of Towers Perrin. He has spent time overseas as a visiting lecturer at Thammasat University (Thailand) in the international undergraduate business program.

Bruce earned a BSc in economics from the University of Idaho and his MBA from Seattle University.

Jason Brown

Budget assistant, Office of Financial Management (OFM)

Jason has worked with the state of Washington for nine years. His experience has included the Department of Corrections in the Health Care Services Division, Health Care Authority in the Finance Division, and the Human Services Division at OFM.

In that time, he has gained a depth of knowledge of health care data and expenditures as they relate to the Medicaid population in Washington State through his contributions and work with the Medicaid per capita forecast, managing the Medicaid managed care rates, and creating and maintaining the accounting functions for client experience in ProviderOne.

Prior to working for the state of Washington, he worked as a commercial and private banker.

Chandra Hicks

Assistant Director, Delivery System Analytics, Cambia Health Solutions

Chandra is an actuary that works at Cambia Health Solutions. She is a fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA). She has nearly two decades of diverse health actuarial experience that includes accountable care, value-based care, forecasting and financial planning, provider performance measurement, provider network development, provider reimbursement analysis, and risk mitigation. She has a passion for transforming the healthcare delivery system through aligning incentives to improve population health cost and quality while also improving the healthcare experience for people and providers.

Leah Hole-Marshall

General counsel and chief strategist, Washington Health Benefit Exchange (HBE)

Leah is the general counsel and chief strategist for the HBE. In this role, she coordinates compliance, security and privacy offices, provides advice to the leadership team and board, and leads strategic planning efforts.

Previously, Leah served in health policy leadership roles at the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) and Health Care Authority (HCA). At L&I, she oversaw the office responsible for creating, implementing, disseminating, and enforcing medical policy to ensure high-quality health care for injured workers in Washington State.

At HCA, she was the founding director of Washington's Health Technology Assessment program, a nationally recognized effort to purchase high-quality health care that is proven safe, effective, and cost-effective. She has also provided regulatory consulting and project management to state Medicaid agencies and the federal Department of Health and Human Services, with a focus on HIPAA and information technology projects, and as a consultant with Fox Systems, Inc.

Leah served as a founding Board of Governor (2010 - 2018) for Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, a national, nonprofit research entity created by the Affordable Care Act. She is passionate about improving quality, safety and access to health care for Washington residents. She received her Juris Doctorate, Magna Cum Laude, at Seattle University School of Law and her Bachelors of Arts from Evergreen State College.

Lichiou Lee

Chief actuary, Office of the Insurance Commissioner (OIC)

Lichiou Lee works in the Rates, Forms, and Provider Networks division, serving Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler. As the chief actuary of OIC, Lichiou also serves as the lead health actuary. Lichiou is a member of American Academy of Actuaries and a qualified actuary as defined under Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 284-05-060.

She has more than 25 years of health actuarial experience. Her responsibilities as the OIC's lead health actuary include various duties in reviewing and analyzing health care data and the financial examinations in the actuarial area of health carriers. Lichiou grew up in Taiwan and moved to the U.S. for graduate school.

She holds an MA in mathematics from University of Montana and a BA in mathematics from Tunghai University in Taiwan.

David Mancuso

Director, Research and Data Analysis (RDA) Division, Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS)

Since 2013, David Mancuso has served as director in the RDA Division, where his work focuses on supporting health and social service interventions and policymaking through data integration, quasi-experimental program evaluation, predictive modeling, and rapid-cycle analytics. He leads teams of analytical and IT staff maintaining the agency's Integrated Client Databases, a powerful federated data environment linking Medicaid medical, behavioral health, and long-term care data with social service, criminal justice, housing, child welfare, employment, and vital statistics data.

Since joining DSHS in 2002, he co-developed the Predictive Risk Intelligence System (PRISM), a predictive modeling tool supporting medical and behavioral health care management strategies for Medicaid and dual-Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.

David earned a BA in economics from California State University at Fullerton and his PhD in Economics from Stanford University.

Ana Morales

National director, APM program, UnitedHealthcare

Ms. Morales has over 25 years of highly diversified experience in the fields of accounting, finance, and information technology. Her extensive experience includes internal and external auditing (including Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404), regulatory compliance, tax, and IT auditing. Her public accounting clientele included financial services companies, insurance, health care, lending institutions, and local and state government agencies.

Since joining UnitedHealthcare 12 years ago, Ms. Morales has directed projects that involve data analyses, data reconciliations, and regulatory compliance of state and federal agency deliverables. For the past 10 years, she has overseen the Medical Loss Ratio audits for HHS/CCIIO, Premium Tax Audits for Departments of Insurance (DOIs), and various regulatory audits conducted by the OIG/OPM.

She has also led risk-focused examinations conducted by state DOIs on behalf of UnitedHealth Group's 80+ regulated entities working across its different business lines and teams, such as pricing/underwriting, actuarial, and claim operations to ensure regulatory accounting and reporting compliance. In 2019, Ms. Morales was appointed to lead UnitedHealthcare's national APM program to ensure regulatory reporting compliance, data integrity, and accuracy of the cost growth and TME filings.

Ms. Morales is a certified public accountant in the state of California and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Chapman University.

Hunter Plumer, MHA

Senior consultant, HealthTrends

Hunter is a health economics and analytics consultant at HealthTrends providing health care planning, statistical analysis, and financial consulting to many of the health systems in Washington State. In his work, he has prepared quantitative analysis and market research that supports health system strategic decision-making, business plan development, and financial viability. Hunter has extensive experience developing demand and financial forecast models for health services across the continuum of care, actuarial analyses of health insurance benefit utilization and costs, and assisting in the modeling and preparation of expert reports for health law cases.

Hunter also lectures at the University of Washington's MHA program, teaching a five-week health services data analysis curriculum to graduate students.

Mark Pregler

Director, Data Management and Analytics, Washington Health Alliance

Mark Pregler has more than 30 years of experience in information technology with an emphasis in health care data warehousing and business intelligence environments. Having developed a passion for data early in his career as a software developer, he has spent the past 25 years focusing on health care data and information. With this experience, Mr. Pregler brings a strong foundation of business, technology, and analytics knowledge to the Alliance.

Prior to joining the Alliance, he served as director of Knowledge Services at Premera Blue Cross where he was responsible for the Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence program. In this capacity, he set the strategic direction of the program and led efforts in the design, development, and implementation of reporting and analytic solutions for a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders. He also held similar roles at Pacific Health Systems in the Actuarial, Finance and Health Care Economics division.

Russ Shust

Senior Director, Population Health Analytics and Medical Economics, Optum

Russ has over 20 years of healthcare experience with an emphasis on the Medicare Advantage population. Before joining Optum in 2019, he worked at Kaiser Permanente as the Senior Director of National Medicare Finance. In his current role at Optum, he has accountability for all risk-based Medicare Advantage and Medicaid members and their value-based performance across Washington and Oregon.

Mandy Stahre

Director, Health Care Research Center (HCRC), Office of Financial Management (OFM)

Prior to joining OFM, she was the Chronic Disease Team leader at the Washington Department of Health and a former Epidemic Intelligence Officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She has over 20 years of experience working in government public health and health care roles. Previously the program manager for the Washington All-Payer Health Care Claims Database (ACPD) overseeing the implementation and launch of the database and consumer facing website, Mandy currently oversees the state Medical Assistance Expenditure Forecast that helps the state estimate medical services provided through Medicaid.

On the research side, Mandy oversees senior research scientists producing reports on the uninsured rate for the state, immigrant health and health coverage, student health access, high-risk medications in older adults, hospital utilization, provider supply in networks, hospital mergers and acquisitions, as well as responding to legislative and Governor requests for data analysis. Mandy leads an HCRC staff with a wide range of backgrounds in statistics, computer science, public health, epidemiology, sociology, and engineering. 

Mandy has a master’s in public health in epidemiology from the University of Michigan and a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Minnesota.

Julie Sylvester

Senior Contracts Consultant, University of Washington Medical Center

With over 30 years’ experience in healthcare, Julie brings a wealth of knowledge specific to contracting, finance, clinical operations, value-based purchasing, and data analytics. Julie has served a variety of roles in the health care setting at organizations including Virginia Mason, Qualis Health and the University of Washington Medical Center. During her career at Virginia Mason, she served in roles including Administrative Director of the Heart and Cancer Institute, Administrative Director of Finance and Vice President of Growth and Strategy. In her capacity as Senior Contracts Consultant, Julie has primary responsibility for the contract with the Health Care Authority for the accountable care product. Julie has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona and a master’s degree from Arizona State University.