Technical assistance

Direct TACHI Technical Assistance Providers


Danielle Bornowski

CEO, DQB Strategies 

Most organizations lack the time or expertise to effectively promote the work they’re doing, but that’s a critical component in change-making work. Danielle spent 10 years in nonprofit communications before becoming the CEO of DQB Strategies, where she helps people simplify and clarify their message so that it resonates with their target audience. Danielle is TACHI’s technical advisor who supports sites with their messaging, marketing, and storytelling.

Eileen Nehme, Ph.D.

Independent Consultant

Formerly a Program Director of the Texas Health Improvement Network and Assistant Professor for Population Health at The University of Texas System, Eileen has decades of experience in public health and community health intervention design and implementation. Dr. Nehme can be critical to helping TACHI sites think through developing evidence-informed community-based interventions.

Jacqueline Naeem, MD

Senior Medical Director at Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) 

At PCCI, Jacqueline led the Accountable Health Communities (AHC) model funded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which has some similarities to TACHI. Jacqueline can provide technical assistance to TACHI grantees on designing SDOH interventions oriented around clinic-community partnerships, including screening patients for social needs, establishing clinic-community closed-loop referral networks, community health worker workforce development and operations, etc.

John Feather, PhD

Faculty, Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin

Until the end of 2020, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Grantmakers in Aging, the national association of grantmaking foundations and other organizations that work to improve the lives of older people.  Prior to beginning that position in 2011, he was Executive Director and CEO of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, the national membership organization of pharmacists who specialize in care of older persons.  Until 2002, he was Director of the AARP Andrus Foundation, the research and education charity of AARP.  Dr. Feather is an organizational sociologist by training and received his undergraduate education at the University of Texas at Austin (Plan II and Sociology) and his masters and doctoral degrees at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. 

Kitty Bailey

CEO, San Diego Wellness Collaborative

Chief Executive Officer at San Diego Wellness Collaborative, Kitty led the development, maturation, and sustaining of an Accountable Communities for Health (ACH) in San Deigo, California. One unique innovation that Kitty pioneered in San Diego to sustain her ACH work was developing a social service independent practice association (IPA), which served as a vehicle for social services organizations to collectively bargain and negotiate with health insurance companies and other payers in San Deigo. She can be a helpful sounding board for TACHI grantees to think through what it is like to design, implement, and sustain an ACH initiative.

Ken Janda

Principal of Wild Blue Health Solutions, LLC

Before starting Wild Blue Health Solutions, Ken was CEO of Community Health Choice, Inc., for 11 years. Ken also served as Vice President at Compass Consulting and Benefits, as Houston Market President for Humana, and with Aetna and Prudential in marketing, finance, and management of provider networks nationally. Ken works alongside Rosie to help TACHI sites think through financial sustainability, engage healthcare insurance plans, develop a value proposition, etc.

Nadia Siddiqui 

Health Equity Consultant & Advisor

Formerly the Chief Health Equity Officer at Texas Health Institute, Nadia brings over 15 years of experience designing, leading, and implementing national, state, and community-based collaborative research and programs for advancing racial and health equity. Nadia provides technical assistance to TACHI and its grantees around embedding and operationalizing health equity across all their work.

Natasha Goburdhun 

Vice President, Connected Communities of Care at PCCI

Natasha has over 20 years of strategic planning and operations experience in the health plan, provider, and community-based organization sectors. Natasha is TACHI’s technical assistant that focuses on data sharing, data storytelling, and data governance.  

Rosie Valadez-McStay 

Independent Consultant

Rosie was a hospital executive that led government relations and community benefits departments at the nation’s largest children’s hospital system (Texas Children’s) for over twenty years. Rosie is an expert in pediatric and maternal health care policies specific to Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), 1115 Medicaid waivers, managed care, community health collaborations, and population health. She works closely with Ken Janda to help TACHI grantees think through financial sustainability.

Troy Bush-DiDonato 

Senior Community Engagement Officer, Episcopal Health Foundation

Troy assists TACHI grantees in thinking through effective strategies to authentically engage and integrate “grassroots” and “grasstops” into their TACHI planning and implementation.



GEORGIA HEALTH POLICY CENTER

Georgia Health Policy Center (GHPC) serves as the external Evaluator for TACHI. GHPC, housed within Georgia State University’s nationally ranked Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, integrates research, policy, and programs to advance health and well-being. GHPC’s evaluation portfolio spans the layers of the socio-ecological model and includes individual, multi-site, and meta-level evaluations of community change initiatives and programmatic activities. GHPC conducts evaluations to stimulate program improvement, contribute to learning, and assess impact. As the Evaluator, GHPC will conduct both formative and summative evaluations of the TACHI effort to help the Initiative’s stakeholders PMO and EHF understand the initiative is making progress towards being made toward stated goals as well as to capture short-and long-term outcomes of the work. 

Chris Parker

Olivia Halls

Lauren Stites