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How Digital Technologies Are Advancing Health Equity

How Digital Technologies Are Advancing Health Equity

Paula LeClair

US General Manager,
Healthy.io

Paula has over 20 years’ experience in healthcare. Most recently she was Executive Director and General Manager of Outpatient at Glytec. Previously she was Head of Operations at Onduo and President and CEO of Telecare, where she directed the company’s successful acquisition by BioTelemetry. Paula has an MBA from Bentley University and an MA in Healthcare Delivery Science from Dartmouth College.

Seun O. Ross, DNP

Executive Director,
Health Equity,
Independence Blue Cross

In August 2021, Seun was appointed to serve as the organization’s first-ever executive director of Health Equity. In this role, she helps develop and implement strategies and interventions to ensure equitable whole person health across Independence.

Prior to joining Independence, Seun served as Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President of Managed Service Provider Operations at InGenesis Inc. In that role, she was responsible for more than 200 employees as well as strategic planning, performance excellence/quality, and executive oversight of health care programs.

She also had leadership positions at the American Nurses Association, AL Health Services, MedStar Harbor Hospital, and the United States Naval Academy-Brigade Medical Unit.

Seun is a licensed registered nurse and a nationally certified family nurse practitioner. She earned a dual bachelor’s degree in Nursing and Psychology and a master’s degree in Nursing from Coppin State University, as well as a doctorate in Nursing Practice from Chatham University.

Paula Gutierrez

Director, Health Equity,
CVS Kidney Care®,
CVS Health

Paula is a trailblazing leader and passionate voice for equity. A strategic, systems-level thinker and partnership cultivator, Paula has over 15 years of experience in the healthcare industry including clinical operations, health equity, and managing internal and external diversity relations. She currently serves as Director, Health Equity at CVS Kidney Care®, a CVS Health company. In this role, she is responsible for creating the inaugural health equity strategy to address social determinants of health and achieve more equitable health outcomes in communities with Chronic Kidney Disease and End-Stage Renal Disease across the country.

Prior to CVS Health, she served as Director, Diversity and Inclusion at RWJBarnabas Health, NJ’s largest academic healthcare system. During her tenure at RWJBarnabas Health, she was instrumental in designing and implementing programs and strategies that foster diversity, health equity and inclusion such as addressing health inequities and social determinants of health in historically marginalized communities. Her portfolio also included operational oversight of and expansion of the Babs Sipertsein PROUD Center, NJ’s 1st LGBTQ+ healthcare center affiliated with a healthcare system. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Paula helped lead RWJBarnabas Health’s outreach efforts in the Hispanic community to increase awareness on the spread of COVID-19 and encourage vaccination. These efforts contributed to a significant decline in COVID-19 cases among Hispanics in Somerset County, NJ and garnered statewide recognition from the New Jersey Hospital Association and NJBIZ Magazine. She authored a chapter of a Population Health Management textbook for graduate students highlighting this work as a case study.

Paula’s health care leadership experience also includes serving as Administrator for the Kidney/Pancreas and Liver Transplant Divisions at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City and various roles with the NJ Sharing Network, where she worked closely with hospitals, transplant centers and community organizations to increase access and awareness of organ and tissue donation and transplantation.

Paula is also active in her civic community. She serves as a Board Trustee at Partners for Health Foundation in Montclair, NJ; a Civil Rights Commissioner for Bloomfield Township, NJ; and an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University’s School of Health and Medical Sciences.

Paula holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from New Jersey Institute of Technology and a Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from Seton Hall University.

How Digital Technologies Are Advancing Health Equity

The full impact of digital health lies in its ability to both foster inclusion across age, gender, race, and to close gaps in primary healthcare, driving productivity by freeing physicians from repetitive tasks and allowing them to focus on care and spending more time with patients, and moving to personalized medicine.

Digital technology can give organizations more data so that they have visibility not only into patients’ clinical profiles but also population health profiles and socioeconomic profiles. Our panel of experts will discuss how health plans can use digital tools to close gaps in care and advance health equity.

  • Bridging the digital divide
  • Meet Members where they are
  • Build trust

Paula LeClair

US General Manager,
Healthy.io

Seun O. Ross, DNP

Executive Director,
Health Equity,
Independence Blue Cross

Paula Gutierrez

Director, Health Equity,
CVS Kidney Care®,
CVS Health

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