Infusing an Equity Perspective into Workplace Well-Being

Neepa Patel is the Chief Executive Officer of WellRight. With over 25 years of experience in health care strategy and business development, she joined the WellRight team in 2021 to lead the company’s next phase of growth. Ms. Patel previously held various executive positions throughout the healthcare industry. She led corporate and brand strategy as an executive director of the BCBS Association, served as senior vice president of strategy and product development at AIM Specialty Management, and oversaw strategic partnerships and marketing as vice president of Evolent Health. Most recently, Ms. Patel was chief growth officer at IPG.

Ms. Patel earned a Masters in Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Biology from Duke University.

Vanessa Guzman has almost 20 years of experience leading and overseeing initiatives relating to Value-based Care Programs, including Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Alternative Payment Models, Medicare Access, and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) Value-Based Payment models. Her portfolio of quality improvement projects and payer arrangements include developing and designing shared resources to support network participants with HIE, Population Health, and Health Equity frameworks. Guzman has expertise overseeing quality incentives and downside risk, and clinical and social improvement programs, with the primary goal of advancing efficiency and care delivery in value-based programs by enhancing provider, hospital, and community coordination and clinical support for its patients.

She is a contributor in accountable care, digital health, data collection and reporting, quality improvement, and community-based related case studies and publications moderated by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). She was named among Modern Healthcare’s Top Diversity Leaders in Healthcare – 2022. Guzman graduated from Columbia University in New York with a MS and BS in Biomedical Engineering, and she is certified in Quality and Organizational Excellence from the American Society of Quality (ASQ).

Amelia Bedri has been with the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for over two years and is currently a Content Engineer in Product Development. In this position, Ms. Bedri organizes the direction, structure and delivery of NCQA’s Accreditation and Certification Standards and Guidelines, from concept to launch. Ms. Bedri has led the development cycle for NCQA’s Health Equity Accreditation programs and acts as the internal and external subject matter expert for the product.

Prior to joining NCQA, Ms. Bedri worked as the lead researcher for MedStar Health Corporation in Washington, DC, in the development of their community health needs assessment. Her experience in the health care industry ranges from a variety of settings including complex care delivery systems, managed care, home and community-based services and consulting for a life sciences start-up and state health department. Ms. Bedri earned an MS in Health Systems Administration from Georgetown University with summa cum laude.