Administrative Fellowship

Olivia Scheibly
Administrative Fellow
Carle Health

Graduate: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Undergraduate: Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Olivia holds a bachelor's degree in health care management from SIU and a master's degree in health administration from the UIUC. During her undergraduate studies, she developed expertise in continuous improvement methodologies and the principles of Lean management. At UIUC, Olivia served as a Graduate Assistant for the university health center, where she led teams in planning and executing health outreach programs to address campus-wide health disparities. Olivia’s introduction to Carle Health began with an internship in the Internal Consulting department and the opportunity to contribute to various project initiatives across the system. She further broadened her healthcare administration skills as a research intern at UIUC, specializing in building a 3D simulation model of Emergency Department operations, which will drive data-informed decisions on streamlining patient throughput.
 

Email: olivia.scheibly@carle.com

Austen Bozarth
Administrative Fellow
Carle Health

Graduate: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Undergraduate: Illinois State University

Austen is from Bloomington/Normal, IL and received his bachelor's degree in Exercise Science from Illinois State University. Before receiving his MHA degree, he worked clinically for four years as a Physical Therapy Technician at Carle McLean County Orthopedics. There, he worked with patients and therapists to deliver high-quality rehabilitation exercises, collect biomechanical data, and conduct metabolic testing/training. He had the privilege to serve as a team lead and participated in department productivity initiatives. In the height of the COVID pandemic, he helped to update policies/procedures to improve workflows and patient care. These administrative responsibilities piqued his interest in healthcare administration. During graduate school, Austen completed an internship at Carle BroMenn Medical Center where he organized a fundraiser to benefit the American Heart Association and drafted a research paper on “Best Practices Toward Mitigating Physician Burnout.” He currently lives in Normal, IL and enjoys spending time with his wife, Samantha, his daughter, Halsten, and his two dogs, Ren, and Riggs.

Email: austen.bozarth@carle.com

Amrutha Kadali
Manager, Revenue Cycle Vendor Management & Reporting
Carle Health

Graduate: George Washington University

Undergraduate: University of Virginia

Amrutha is originally from Virginia outside of D.C., and received her degree in Cognitive Science from the University of Virginia. Before going to graduate school, she worked as a research associate at Johns Hopkins University. There, she worked with local hospital and clinic leaders to test and develop a program to improve planning for end-of-life care, which confirmed her interest in healthcare administration. During graduate school, Amrutha served on the Student Advisory Committee, working to improve George Washington University's MHA student experience. She interned at a continuing care retirement center in Cincinnati, Ohio where she learned about different areas of administration in post-acute care, and aided in projects improving resident experience, grant applications, billing, and recruitment.

Throughout her fellowship, Amrutha worked on various projects across the Carle Health system. She led clinical integration initiatives for service lines such as Orthopedics, Behavioral Health, and Primary Care across the 4 regions of Carle Health. She also conducted financial analyses for various aspects of Carle, such as the Community Flu Clinic and Nephrology service line in the Champaign-Urbana service area, facilitating data-informed decision making in the system. Amrutha has transitioned into a role as Manager for Revenue Cycle Vendor Management & Reporting.
 

Email: amrutha.kadali@carle.com

Mira McLain
Manager, Clinical Integration & Operations
Carle Health

Graduate: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Undergraduate: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Mira received her Bachelor’s Degree in Integrative Biology and Master’s Degree in Health Administration from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Throughout her academic years, she worked for a start-up clinic with a focus on providing complex rehabilitation technology (i.e., wheelchairs and scooters) to UIUC students, faculty and staff, and Central Illinois community members. At the Illini Wheelchair and Scooter Clinic, Mira was responsible for marketing clinic services, collecting patient experience data, streamlining existing processes/procedures, and implementing a sliding fee scale discount program. During graduate school, Mira also served as cofounder of a new Registered Student Organization (RSO) at UIUC which aimed to expose students with an interest in health administration to networking opportunities and internship experiences within the field.

During her administrative fellowship, Mira managed a diverse portfolio of projects focused on optimizing clinical operations. She initiated a pilot program with Nabla Copilot, an ambient listening AI software, involving 20 providers. This program reduced documentation time and improved chart closure rates within four weeks, allowing providers to dedicate more time to patient care. Mira also facilitated the implementation of a new process for self-pay patients that will reduce bad debt and enhance price transparency. Additionally, she led interdisciplinary meetings to advance the organization's biosimilar conversion efforts, achieving an impressive conversion rate through strong advocacy for biosimilar efficacy and cost-effectiveness. Mira has since transitioned into a new role at Carle Health as the Clinical Integration and Operations Manager and is excited to leverage her experience in building efficiencies and optimizing workflows across the system.

Email: mira.mclain@carle.com

Nicole Kase
Perioperative Business Manager
Carle Foundation Hospital

Graduate: University of Michigan

Undergraduate: University of Rochester

Nicole is originally from Rochester, NY where she received her undergraduate degree in Public Health. After graduation, she began working at a Federally Qualified Health Center that specializes in care for the LGBTQ community. In this role, she wrote grants to the NYS Department of Health and other funders. She also served as the Program Manager and Study Coordinator supporting patients newly diagnosed with HIV. She then went on to receive her Master’s in Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan. She completed two internships during her graduate career, one with the state of Maine’s Medicaid program and the other with the Pediatric Public Health Initiative out of Flint, MI. She held a leadership position within the Professional Development Committee of the Michigan Healthcare Executive Student Association.

During her time as an administrative fellow, Nicole collaborated across departments on a variety of projects aimed at optimizing team member workflows, reducing unnecessary expenses, and improving the quality of patient care. She supported the accreditation process for Carle Foundation Hospital’s APP Fellowship Program, our application to the Healthcare Equality Index, and fostered relationship-building with community partners. She will continue much of the work throughout her fellowship in her new role as Perioperative Business Manager. This includes seeking to reduce wasted surgical supplies and operationalize physician case creation and electronic consents across service lines.
 

Email: nicole.kase@carle.com

Meredith Johnson-Monfort
Juris Doctor (JD) Student
IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law

Graduate: University of Illinois

Undergraduate: University of Illinois

Before completing her Master's in Management from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois, Meredith served as an intern at Carle Health in the Risk and Compliance sector. Meredith was exposed to many different areas of Hospital Administration through which she found some of her healthcare passions; during her time interning, she aided in projects such as providing her administrative support for the integrations of new health care facilities and assisting with case management files for professional liability litigation. During her graduate and undergraduate studies, Meredith also served as a volunteer consultant for a non-profit organization dealing with food scarcity and inequity in Chicago as well as volunteering for an immigrant services organization in Champaign. Meredith held leadership positions as a member of the MSM Leadership Council, was a selected member for the Fighting Illini Leadership Institute, and received the Outstanding Graduate Female Scholar Award.

Throughout her administrative fellowship, Meredith worked on a variety of projects and initiatives across the Carle Health system. Meredith worked on projects ranging from creation of a uniform adverse weather closure process for the system, to Business Resumption plans in case of a cyber security attack. She also worked on creating a business case for the opening of an Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Multidisciplinary Clinic, as well as assessing and advocating for the use of Biosimilars in the Provider space, and beyond. Meredith found her healthcare administration niche within the legal sector throughout her various fellowship projects and is now working to pursue her JD at IU McKinney School of Law, with the hopes of coming back to Carle Health in the future.
 

Email: mjj15@iu.edu

Logan Carroll
Medical Economics Manager
Health Alliance

Graduate: University of Kentucky

Undergraduate: Western Kentucky University

While completing his Masters in Health Administration at the University of Kentucky, Logan worked as an administrative intern for Norton Healthcare, in Louisville, KY. During his time there, Logan led a workgroup through redesigning processes within supply chain management as well as redesigning the physical space of the system’s central warehouse. Logan also held the position as one of the coordinators of the University of Kentucky’s COVID-19 vaccination clinic, helping manage the daily throughput of the clinic.  In addition, Logan also served as a graduate assistant where he helped with cancer survivorship research. Logan also held a leadership position on the MHA Student Association at the University of Kentucky.

Throughout his administrative fellowship, Logan worked on a variety of projects and initiatives across the Carle Health system. Logan led committees and work groups centered around different population health initiatives and innovations. Logan also created several dashboards used to track different population health goals and initiatives. During the COVID-19 surges of 2021-2022, Logan and his co-fellow Amisha Patel, led a cross-functional team to increase bed capacity and reduce the number of regional diversions. Throughout his fellowship, Logan worked with the surgical services and strategic sourcing teams to identify areas of opportunity to reduce surgical case cost.
 

Email: logan.carroll@healthalliance.org

Amisha Patel
Practice Manager, Women's & Children's Inpatient Services
Carle Health

Graduate: Governors State University

Undergraduate: Loyola University Chicago

Amisha began her healthcare career in the clinical setting and completed medical school before pivoting to the world of health administration. While completing her Masters in Health Administration at Governors State University, Amisha completed a one-year internship with Roseland Community Hospital, a safety net hospital on the South Side of Chicago. She helped to build the strategic business case for a multimillion-dollar capital build-out to transform and expand the hospital’s women’s health, intensive care, and outpatient pulmonary service lines to improve healthcare access and address health inequities. Amisha also assisted in the writing of Roseland’s grant application which was submitted to the Illinois Healthcare Transformation Collaborative. Amisha also held a leadership position on the executive board of the Student Healthcare Management Association at GSU.

During her administrative fellowship, Amisha worked on a variety of projects and initiatives across the Carle Health system. During the COVID omicron surge, she led a project to stand up 2 additional COVID-19 testing sites to increase access points for pre-procedural patients. Amisha, along with her co-fellow Logan Carroll, also helped to lead multiple service line workstreams to increase bed capacity and reduce the number of regional diversions during the COVID delta surge. Throughout her fellowship, Amisha worked with PAAC and surgical services leadership to identify care opportunities to optimize surgical patients before and after surgery to reduce the risk of readmission and improve recovery.
 

Email: amisha.patel3@carle.org

Lauren John
Account Manager, Supply Chain
Ovation Healthcare

Graduate: University of Iowa

Undergraduate: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

During her time at University of Iowa, Lauren worked as an Administrative Intern and as a Graduate Assistant at University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics and University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital. She worked to advance rankings in U.S. News and World Report and completed projects in patient satisfaction, process improvement, and specialized accreditations. She also restructured and managed the hospital’s parking program, leading stakeholders throughout each unit in Stead Family Children’s Hospital.

Throughout her fellowship, Lauren led multiple projects on both the Carle and Health Alliance sides. She created frameworks and dashboards for Carle Richland’s patient satisfaction program, along with assisting in the COVID-19 response. She completed multiple process improvement projects on the payer side, including an out-of-network care coordination referral program. She also worked with external organizations to address the community’s mental health needs.
 

Email: lbline@ghr.com

Karan Shah
Consultant, Strategic Analytics
Sg2

Graduate: Saint Louis University

Undergraduate: Saint Louis University

While at Saint Louis University, Karan completed an Administrative Internship with UNC Health. During his time there, Karan worked at UNC WakeBrook, a behavioral health facility that provides a wide range of services for patients with behavioral health and substance abuse disorders. He worked alongside administrative and clinical staff to implement a Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) program to help patients better manage opioid use disorder.

During his time as Administrative Fellow, Karan was involved in a variety of projects spanning multiple areas of the health system. He oversaw the 2021 BEST Program, a system-wide performance improvement initiative with the goal of identifying and implementing high-impact projects while utilizing little to no resources. During the COVID Pandemic, Karan and his co-fellow, Lauren Bline, helped support the Hospital Incident Command System (HICS) Team in their response to COVID-related issues. They later helped manage the development of employee and community vaccine clinics and planning related to Champaign-Urbana vaccination efforts. Towards the end of his fellowship, Karan participated in the development of Carle's Population Health Innovation Committee.
 

Brenna Kelley-Freiburger
Carle Experience Consultant
Carle Health

Graduate: Saint Louis University

Undergraduate: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

While at SLU, Brenna found interests spreading all over the healthcare world. She completed an internship with OSF St. Francis Hospital, where she taught nurse managers about the importance of Transplant Services regarding the undocumented migrant population. Brenna also helped implement an HR focused culture change within nursing units. At UIUC Brenna spent her last year as a Contracts Administration Volunteer here at Carle Hospital.

During her Administrative Fellowship, Brenna led projects that spanned the health system. She oversaw the implementation of a supply chain inventory management software for durable medical equipment within Carle's convenient care locations. Brenna helped create a system wide performance improvement program to bring Carle Health more innovative solutions at the department level. For the last 5 months of her fellowship, Brenna and her co-fellow, Megan Randolph were the planning leads for the COVID-19 pandemic. They organized the development of a drive-thru testing site, created an algorithm for a public and employee hotline, and delivered personal hand sanitizer as a thank you gift to our front line employees. 

Email: brenna.kelley@carle.com

Megan Havlik
Training Administrator
The Skin Clique

Graduate: Saint Louis University

Undergraduate: University of Kentucky

While at Saint Louis University, Megan completed an internship with Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefit manager, to provide issue management remediation and data analytics. In this role, Megan worked to streamline workflows and educate employees on proper processes to create a lean focused work environment. Megan then transitioned into a project manager role within the strategy and planning department where she helped lead system-wide initiatives surrounding employee engagement and employee retention.

Throughout her fellowship, Megan led population health initiatives aimed at improving a patient’s health and wellbeing through screening and preventative care, while also lowering cost to the system, and impacting Medicare STARS and HEDIS measures. Megan also helped to reduce legal and compliance risk by implementing a new process flow to ensure accurate group and member information was being reflected and utilized across all departments. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Megan and her co-fellow, Brenna Kelley-Freiburger, served as planning leads for executive leadership and those involved in emergency operations.

Email: megan.havlik@evernow.com

Claire Champlain
Practice and Operations Manager, Surgeon-in-Chief: Urology and Gynecology
Children's Hospital Colorado

Graduate: University of Iowa

Undergraduate: University of Michigan

Claire joined us after working for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC) Department of Pediatrics. She also worked in the Patient Financial Services at UIHC with a focus on revenue cycle management. In addition to her time at UIHC, she completed an administrative fellowship at UC Davis Medical Center where she gained experience in ambulatory care management, population health, and payer strategies.

During her fellowship, Claire worked closely with the Women’s and Children’s department. She oversaw the opening of the Labor and Delivery Recovery and Post-Partum unit as well as the establishment of Carle’s PICU. Claire also worked with Health Alliance to make recommendations to the leadership team about participation in government programs.  For the last six months of her fellowship, she took on the role of manager over palliative medicine.

Tynan O’Neil
Performance Improvement Specialist
OSF Healthcare

Graduate: The Pennsylvania State University

Undergraduate: Idaho State University

While at Idaho State, Tynan completed an internship with the Pocatello Veterans Home followed by an internship with Vizient the summer after graduation. During his time at Penn State, he completed a summer residency with Cleveland Clinic’s Imaging Institute where he worked to implement lean methodology, reduce wait times, and improve CG CAHPS scores.

During his time as an administrative fellow, Tynan led teams that explored the development of a millennial-focused health plan, proposed the addition of a new service line and accompanying facility, and proposed Intensive Cardiac Rehab as a way to improve cardiac recovery. He also worked with a team focused on implementing the National Diabetes Prevention Program at six area hospitals.

Jason Hirschi
VP Primary Care
Carle Foundation Hospital

Graduate: Rush University

Undergraduate: Weber State University

Jason began his career at Rush University Medical Center while working on administrative initiatives related to campus risk, process improvement, and business continuity. He then went on to work as a consultant with Leavitt Partners where he supported provider organizations with strategy, market research, and economic/business analysis.

During his time as an administrative fellow, Jason worked on projects focused on increasing access through the patient portal, the development of the Small Baby Unit (SBU), and the accreditation process for the Carle Catheterization Lab.

Email: jason.hirschi@carle.com

Rachel Tarjan
Senior Project Manager
Optum

Graduate: The Ohio State University

Undergraduate: Michigan State University

During her time at OSU, Rachel completed a summer residency with Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center Neurological Institute where she worked to improve utilization, patient access, and telestroke service costs.

As Carle’s first administrative fellow, Rachel worked to improve nurse retention, extend the reach of the Heart and Vascular institute to clinical affiliates, and develop a heart failure management program. Additionally, Rachel assumed the role of Interim Patient Care Manager within the Heart and Vascular Institute during the last 4 months of her fellowship.