News Releases

New Team Members Support The Center’s Emergency Preparedness and Community Health Work

This spring, The Center for Health Affairs welcomed two new grant-supported staff members to the team to support the organization’s emergency preparedness and community health work.

On April 29, Tracy Pate joined the organization as healthcare coalition readiness and response coordinator, supporting The Center’s emergency preparedness activities. In this role, Tracy assists with the coordination of the multitude of non-hospital agencies that are now required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to be affiliated with a healthcare coalition. Under the federal Hospital Preparedness Program, which funds The Center’s emergency preparedness activities including this position, grantees are now required to have a dedicated staff resource supporting these coalition activities.

Tracy comes to the organization from the Cleveland Department of Public Health, where she served as emergency preparedness specialist. Tracy earned a Bachelor of Science in emergency management and homeland security and an Associate of Applied Science in criminal justice from The University of Akron.

On April 15, Patricia Terstenyak, MPH, joined the organization as community health improvement manager. In this role, which is supported by funding from the HealthComp Foundation, Patricia is working to create a community data infrastructure by implementing Conduent, a health indicators software tool, across hospitals and public health departments in a nine-county region. The new tool will allow participating users to access a rich supply of data that will enable them to effectively plan and implement community health improvement activities. This is a subcontracted position through the Cuyahoga County Board of Health, which is serving as fiscal agent for the grant.

Prior to joining The Center, Patricia served as REACH program administrator for the YMCA of Greater Cleveland. She earned a Master of Public Health from Tulane University and a Bachelor of Arts in social work from Cleveland State University.

The Center welcomes Tracy and Patricia.

MORE: For more on the organization’s emergency preparedness and community health work, contact us.

TWEETABLE: In April, @neohospitals welcomed Tracy Pate & Patricia Terstenyak (@p7jt) to support emergency preparedness and community health work. Learn more...