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

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.

Allison Bailey

Executive director, Revenue Strategy and Analysis, MultiCare Health System

Allison Bailey has over 30 years of experience working in health care delivery system roles, focused on finance and reimbursement. She currently serves as the leader for the Revenue Analytics team at MultiCare Health System, responsible for evaluating existing and emerging revenue and value stream models.

Allison holds a Master of Public Health, with a Health Services concentration, from the University of Washington.

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.

Purav Bhatt

Regional vice president, Operations, Management, and Innovation, Regional VP Operations, Management, and Innovation

Purav has over a decade of experience in multiple segments of the health care industry. He joined the Medical Oncology department at the Everett Clinic in 2017. In his current role, he is accountable for all risk-based MA and DSNP patients and their value-based performance across The Everett Clinic and The Poly Clinic.

He also oversees primary care, complex care, behavioral health, and psychiatry service lines with a core focus on care model strategy, operational excellence, clinical program design, and overall patient access. He holds a Master's degree in Medical Biotechnology and Engineering and an MBA in Healthcare Management and Economics.

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.

Jerome Dugan, PhD

Assistant professor, Department of Health Services, University of Washington

Dr. Jerome Dugan is an assistant professor of Health Services and the Leo Greenawalt endowed professor of Health Policy in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington (UW) and an adjunct assistant professor in the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at UW. He is also the co-director of the Program in Health Economics and Outcomes Research Methodologies (PHEnOM), a joint program between the School of Public Health and the School of Pharmacy at UW.

Dr. Dugan has expertise in modeling the financial and policy impacts of social and medical service interventions, evaluating the efficacy of cost containment strategies employed by payers and providers, and examining the structure and regulation of health care markets. In particular, his research focuses on the prevention and control of major chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and mental health disorders, and diagnoses that require a high level of coordination between individual patients, treating institutions, and insurers to minimize the probability of future acute events.

Dr. Dugan holds an MA and PhD in Economics from Rice University and a BS in Economics from Clemson University.

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.

Scott Juergens, CPA

Division director, Payer Analytics and Economics, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health

Scott Juergens is responsible for population health and reimbursement-related analytics for Virginia Mason Franciscan Health hospitals, physicians, and clinically integrated networks. In this work, his team analyzes metrics, evaluates performance, and looks to improve the delivery of health care throughout the organization and beyond.

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.

Josh Liao, MD, MSc, FACP

Associate professor, Department of Medicine, University of Washington Medical Center
Medical director of Payment Strategy, University of Washington Medical Center

Dr. Liao is a board-certified internal medicine physician and an associate professor in the Department of Medicine in the University of Washington's School of Medicine (UW Medicine). He is also the medical director of Payment Strategy at UW Medicine. He trained in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital where he was also a clinical fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is an adjunct senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Liao provides health care payment and delivery policy expertise on a national level through service as a commissioner on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee, and an advisor to the American Medical Associations RVU Update Committee. He also leads a portfolio of scholar work in two related areas: policy initiatives that reform health care payment and delivery, and provider initiatives that use principles from behavioral science to drive performance in those reforms.

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.