In 2022, the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) launched an ambitious effort to overhaul Medi-Cal, the largest Medicaid program in the US. The effort, known as California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal, CalAIM’s vision requires strong governance practices across diverse stakeholders. As a result, Medi-Cal stakeholders across California are quickly adapting to a new regulatory environment for sharing health and social data. This presentation will discuss key data-sharing best practices we’ve gleaned from CalAIM implementation work nearly one year into the effort. Topics include: 

• Governance models across health and social service organizations; 
• Information privacy considerations for at-risk populations; 
• Regulatory environment for cross-sector collaboration and data exchange;
• Health information exchanges (HIEs); and
• Data Governance in a community-based setting, among others. 

Speaker: Samuel Taylor

Samuel is a self-described policy wonk with nearly a decade of experience in policy research and consulting. He serves as Senior Consultant in the Policy Innovation Group at Intrepid Ascent. In his role, he leads implementation of California’s Medicaid delivery system redesign (CalAIM) in San Joaquin County and behavioral health system reform in Santa Cruz, Stanislaus, and Merced counties. Samuel also helps lead the firm’s strategic Medicaid business development initiatives and supports various projects as a subject matter expert on information privacy laws/regulations, telehealth policy, data governance, and state and federal Medicaid policy. He holds a Master of Social Work (MSW) with a concentration in policy and research from Washington University in St. Louis.