Anisha Abdul-Ali, DNP, MPH, BSN, RN, is the Vice President of Data and Population Health at OCHIN in Portland, Oregon. OCHIN is a nonprofit health care innovation center designed to provide knowledge solutions that promote quality, affordable health care for all. OCHIN’s health information technology network serves nearly 1,000 community health care sites nationwide and continually innovates to meet the unique challenges of its nearly 6 million low-income, medically complex, and rural patients. It is Anisha’s job to represent the geographic and racial/ethnic diversity of patient populations.
“OCHIN addresses differences in health that are systemic, avoidable, and unjust. We work to close the gap in health for individuals and communities negatively impacted by racism or other structural inequities.”
Oregon is home to a both a diverse population and landscape. Outside the city of Portland, many people live in communities that can struggle to maintain a healthy standard of living due to social determinants like racism or economic disadvantages. Anisha works to change that through her work. Anisha sees the toll that these structural inequities take on the people living in these communities and actively works to change that through her work at OCHIN.
“Our mission is to level the technology playing field so that all patients have access to high-quality care and equal opportunities to pursue health.”
Staying on the forefront of how technology and data can help overcome these struggles plays a key role in Anisha’s work. Understanding the circumstances surrounding a patient is a vital step in providing them with the proper care.
“We know that whole person care goes beyond health and must include social impacts as well.”
In addition to her work of instructing and data collection at OCHIN, Anisha is also MPI of the Data and Science Core of the National Institutes of Health’s new Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD) Program.
“I’m at the cutting edge of the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in the health sector, particularly to address long-standing health disparities and develop frameworks to detect and mitigate bias or discrimination in AI/ML models and algorithms.”
The work Anisha is doing sets the example for how integral the advancement of data collecting technology is not only at the state level, but countrywide and globally.
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