HEO Announces Three New Board Members
Health. Equity. Outcomes. (HEO), a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing health equity through research conducted with and by CHCs and CBOs, is pleased to announce three new members have been appointed to the Board of Directors: Kristi Mitchell, MPH, Sheila Fifer, PhD, and Jeff Henne, MA.
Kristi R. Mitchell is a health services researcher who leads efforts to enable next generation health care delivery through innovation, value, and consumer engagement across multiple industries. After 11 years, she stepped down as Practice Director, Center for Healthcare Transformation at Avalere Health, a DC-based advisory services firm, to launch Health Equity Outcomes, a nonprofit to empower underserved communities to engage in the research enterprise to reduce racial disparities and to advance health equity. Through these efforts, she is dedicated to elevating the role of community-based participatory research as a mechanism to derive real world data that is community-centric. At the same time, she serves as Founder and Principal at ATLAS CLARITY, LLC an advisory services firm dedicated to improving the health and well-being of populations through patient engagement, strategic partnerships, and innovative data collection.
She serves on several national panels and committees including as a strategic advisor to Sanofi’s global health equity effort – A Million Conversations. Kristi is a member of Women’s Business Leaders in Healthcare, as well as a Founding Member of CHIEF-DC, a private network to support and connect women executives.
Sheila K. Fifer is a co-founder and Board Member of ATLAS CLARITY LLC and Health Equity Outcomes (HEO). Prior to those roles, Sheila founded the Technology Assessment Group (TAG), a leader in outcomes research to assess the value of innovative medical technologies and interventions. TAG developed unique methods of patient surveys and economic measures for use in both clinical trials and in usual care settings. TAG balanced a client base of manufacturers, providers, and payers and was a leader in developing efficient multinational randomized and patient registry studies. Sheila maintained five TAG offices in three countries – the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. After ten years of building the organization, she negotiated the sale of TAG to Quintiles, Inc. – the largest international clinical trials firm at the time.
After TAG, Sheila maintained an active consulting practice. She worked with provider organizations such as UCLA Health Systems, served as Senior Advisor to the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation (NEHI), and was an expert Panel Member for the Blue Shield of CA Foundation’s California Technology Assessment Forum (CTAF). Sheila was also a member of Mercer-Marsh’s National Panel of Senior Healthcare Advisors where she was involved in projects focused on employer management of healthcare costs and benefits.
Sheila is also a Senior Advisor to the Clinical Excellence Research Center at Stanford Medical School.
Jeffrey C. Henne brings more than 40 years of qualitative and quantitative research expertise to his role on the Health Equity Outcomes Board. A longtime champion for underrepresented populations, Jeff has been cited for his pioneering efforts leading some of the first focus groups with gay men in San Francisco during the early years of the HIV epidemic. As President and CEO of The Henne Group, his work frequently engages diverse and hard-to-reach populations, providing valuable insights for clients such as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Science Foundation, major universities, and over a dozen pharmaceutical companies. Jeff was recently honored with a 2024 Insights250 Award that acknowledged his efforts with hard-to-reach and niche populations.
About Health. Equity. Outcomes.
Health Equity Outcomes (HEO) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that accelerates and sustains change at the local level by providing education, tools, and resources to build the research infrastructure and community networks necessary to enable Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and our network of Community Health Centers (CHCs) to become viable strategic partners within the research enterprise.
Through our efforts, we seek to provide education, tools, and resources for community-based organizations (e.g. behavioral health clinics, FQHCs, etc.) to become viable strategic partners in designing, collecting, and analyzing real world evidence that is meaningful to their communities, while at the same time serve as an additional revenue stream into the business.