Ellen-Marie Whelan, Ph.D.
Current Title: Chief Population Health Officer
Current Organization: Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Expertise:
At time of Fellowship
Ellen-Marie Whelan, NP, PhD, FAAN is the Chief Population Health Officer at CMS for the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS) and a Senior Advisor at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). She leads state delivery system reform and value-based transformation activities, supporting staff and states to design, implement, and test innovative care delivery and alternative payment models, including addressing social determinants of health and equity. As a chief clinical officer she coordinates the maternal child health portfolio.
Previously, Dr. Whelan was the Associate Director of Health Policy at the Center for American Progress during the development and passage of the Affordable Care Act. She started her policy career in the U.S. Senate as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow and then served as Staff Director on the Aging subcommittee to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP).
Before coming to Capitol Hill, Dr. Whelan was a health services researcher and faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University and practiced as nurse practitioner for over a decade. She has worked in a variety of primary care settings and started an adolescent primary care clinic in West Philadelphia. Through this process she became one of the first nurse practitioners in Pennsylvania to obtain an independent Medicaid provider number and for starting the nursing center she received the Secretary’s Award for Innovations in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, presented by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala.
Dr. Whelan holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in primary care policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Fellow in 2003-2004
Chief Population Health Officer
Ph.D.
State at beginning of Fellowship
Placement(s):
Array
Specialty/Discipline
Fellowship Year Biography
Incredible work since Fellowship
Ellen-Marie Whelan, N.P., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment with the School of Nursing and the Urban Health Institute at the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Whelan received her Bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University and a Master’s in Nursing and Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Heath as a primary-care policy fellow. While at Penn, Dr. Whelan was active in community-based interdisciplinary projects and in 1991 became one of the first nurse practitioners in Pennsylvania to obtain direct Medicaid reimbursement. During this process she established a pediatric primary care clinic in a community center in West Philadelphia. For this effort, she was awarded the Secretary’s Award for Innovations in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in 1995, presented by Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services. Dr. Whelan currently teaches in the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Her research has continued to examine how Academic Health Centers interact with their surrounding communities. Through her appointment with the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, she has worked with all sectors of the University to understand how to better serve the East Baltimore community. Dr. Whelan conducted a thorough assessment of access-to-care issues for the residents of East Baltimore, focusing especially on the uninsured and questions of racial and ethnic disparities in health care. She speaks nationally on academic–community partnerships, safety-net providers, and primary care.
Current Info:
Current Title:
Current Organization: Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Expertise: