Director of Research & Grants Management
Gwen Williams, DHA(c), MBA, MHA
Gwen has over twenty years of Medicare quality improvement experience working with healthcare providers, including hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies and piloted the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Everyone with Diabetes Counts in priority, underserved, minority, and rural populations, launched nationally in 2014. Gwen has trained over 200 community health workers in diabetes self-management education and support, motivational interviewing, and participatory education techniques to deliver the Diabetes Empower Education Program to Medicare beneficiaries.
She successfully authored and implemented two notable CMS innovation projects, including the Senior Lifestyle Improvement Movement (SLIM) program, where African American Medicare beneficiaries maintained their weight loss through diet and exercise for a year with a significant change in health outcomes in A1cs, blood pressure, and lipids, and a behavioral telehealth project in the US Virgin Islands, working with the hospitals and FQHCs to identify providers during the territorial state of emergency. In addition to quality improvement, grants administration and technical assistance, her subject matter areas of expertise include health disparities, social determinants of health, and health equity.
Gwen graduated from the University of Phoenix summa cum laude with a Master of Health Administration and a Master of Business Administration. She holds advanced communications, critical thinking, and collaboration certifications, and a digital marketing certificate, a Bachelor of Science in Management, an Associate of Science in Fashion Design and Marketing and is pursuing a doctorate in health administration with a rural health research focus. She is an advisory member for the University of South Florida Muma College of Business Digital Marketing Program, a member of the National Rural Health Association, the American Public Health Association, and the National Society for Leadership and Success.
Gwen is a voracious reader and enjoys traveling, sightseeing, painting, home improvement projects, and designing (graphic, fashion and interior) and helping others. When not helping family and friends navigate the healthcare system, Gwen can be found living vicariously through her commercial pilot son and siblings’ culinary experiments.