Why I Write About Healthcare Operations

The parts of healthcare I find most interesting are the ones patients rarely see. When operations are working well, people encounter fewer obstacles, staff know what is expected of them, and an organization can tell where it is improving. When they are not, the effects show up as waiting, repeated phone calls, and care that stalls for reasons no one can quite name. I have spent my career in the space between a good plan and its execution, and this site is where I write about what I have learned there.

Since I am asking readers to trust my perspective, it seems fair to explain where it comes from.

Training in nutrition and public health

I earned a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science and Technology and a Master of Public Health in Community Health Education, both from California State University, Northridge. Nutrition taught me to think about health at the level of one person and one household. Public health widened the view to include access, prevention, program design, and the conditions people live in. I still rely on both. Most operational problems I review look different depending on whether I consider the individual patient or the system around them, and I find it useful to do both before recommending anything.

Learning operations at a managed care medical group

At Regal Medical Group I advanced through three promotions and became a project manager in the Population Health Program. The work involved high-risk patients, managed care requirements, insurance authorizations, coverage verification, service referrals, and coordinating care in members’ homes.

That period taught me that access and efficiency are often connected, and that a better-designed workflow can serve patients and staff at once.

Outreach across several counties

At Lakeside Medical Associates I served as Community Outreach Enrichment Director. I designed and carried out outreach strategies across multiple counties, developed public education materials and presentations, and built partnerships with community organizations, businesses, government agencies, and internal teams. That role showed me how much of outreach depends on what happens after the event, and how quickly a community notices when follow-through is missing.

Leading a social services team

As Social Services Director at Community Connect Action, I led a multidisciplinary team of eleven across a regional program. My responsibilities included weekly supervision, quarterly performance evaluations, staff training, recruitment, program assessment, and partnership development with healthcare providers, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. Supervising that team taught me a great deal about the distance between a policy as written and the work as staff experience it.

Reviewing the work of other organizations

Since 2025 I have worked as an independent Operational Standards Evaluator, conducting quality assurance reviews for medical offices, hospitals, and community clinics. In practice that means reviewing documentation, care coordination workflows, regulatory alignment, and performance indicators against the applicable standards. I then write audit reports and recommendations, and I work with interdisciplinary teams on corrective action plans.

What to expect here

Having been a program manager, an outreach director, a director of social services, and now a reviewer, I tend to look at any process from more than one side. The articles on this site reflect that. They cover healthcare operations, quality improvement, and community engagement, and I try to keep them practical enough that a manager could use something from each one the following week.

I also try to be clear about the limits of my own experience. I am not a clinician, and when a topic touches clinical judgment I write about the workflow around it. Where I cite a rule or a study, I link to the source so readers can evaluate it for themselves. I hope the writing is useful, and I am grateful to the colleagues, staff, and community partners who taught me most of what appears in it.

More detail about my background is on the About and Experience pages.