Career RoundTable:  Alumna Johanna Barraza-Cannon '96 on Public Policy
Friday, October 9, 2009
Vollum 302, 12 p.m. - 1 p.m.
Bring your lunch and enjoy!

Johanna joined the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Office of Health Information Technology (OHIT) as its policy director in January 2006; a month after the office’s inception. Johanna’s work with OHIT includes providing technical assistance to HRSA grantees, developing and implementing HRSA’s HIT strategy, and collaborating with HRSA grantees, Federal partners, and other stakeholders, and implementing the HIT provisions of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. 

Under her direction, OHIT has created the Health Information Technology Technical Assistance Center (HITTAC) which provides technical assistance to safety net grantees such as health centers and rural providers and those serving children and persons with HIV/AIDS. In the past year, HITTAC has conducted numerous web-based training sessions, sponsored regional HIT and EHR implementation workshops, created a web-based community for sharing HIT information among safety net providers, and created a web-based EHR implementation toolkit.

Prior to her work at HRSA, Johanna was with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for almost five years as the technical director of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. She also has experience in private sector consulting, public affairs, and as a research and budget analyst with the Illinois State Legislature. She obtained her Masters in Public Policy with a graduate certificate in health policy from the University of Chicago and her BA in Economics from Reed College in Portland, Oregon.