Officers and Staff
Janice S. Johnson, President
Janice Johnson is the founder and President of New Horizons Solutions, Inc., a healthcare service and consulting company. Over the past twenty three years, Ms. Johnson has been actively involved in the formation of healthcare public policy and established New Horizons Solutions, Inc. in response to employers’ needs and Medicaid’s need to contain health care costs by focusing on prevention, wellness and disease management. Ms. Johnson has been actively involved in legislation affecting health, families and communities lobbying over three hundred pieces of legislation since 1986. She has served on health care public policy workgroups in Washington, D.C. and served on numerous boards and workgroups. Ms. Johnson earned a B.S. degree in Medical Technology and completed postgraduate study in Comparative Medicine. She worked nine years in the field of medical technology and served as the supervisor of the State of Illinois’ Tissue Typing lab in Chicago.
Brad M. Blair, COO
Brad has seven years of experience coordinating the federally mandated Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) for children and adolescence in the Medicaid population in Tennessee. Brad served as a consultant for Volunteer State Health Plan (VSHP), a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Medicaid Division. Brad also served as VSHP’s West Region Outreach manager. His responsibilities included staff supervision, office supervision, community liaison, community government liaison, faith based liaison and director of special programs.
Previous to this position, Brad served as Health Educator for EPSDT (TenderCare) at the Hamilton County Health Department in Chattanooga. Through Brad’s visionary leadership, the health department hosted the first annual Youth Health Conference drawing over five hundred at-risk adolescent youth. Brad’s success and vision in this area led to the creation of Athletic Health Conferences in Memphis, TN which were attended by over one thousand middle and high school youth. He then developed and implemented Healthy Life Choices University, a residential camp designed to equip students to serve as ambassadors for Healthy Life Choices in their high schools. It is Brad’s intention to build this much needed service into a separate non-profit organization.
Brad has had a diverse career working with young people as a pastor, missionary, football coach, teacher, guidance counselor and small business owner. He coached his three sons youth leagues and continues to be active in youth leagues. Brad received his Associate of Arts degree at Alabama Christian College and his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology and Biblical Studies at Harding University.
Mehari Woldekidan, CIO
Mr. Mehari Woldekidan served as a company executive in the capacity of Chief Health Plans Operating Officer for a Managed Care Company overseeing the department of MCIS, Claims, EDI, File Maintenance and PC/LAN Network management. He managed 5 departments with 2 directors, and 3 managers along with 55 employees overseeing reports of Asthma, EPSDT, Quality control, Financial Reports, and Special projects to improve services efficiency and care for TennCare members while cutting costs for the Managed Care Organization.
As a Manager of Computer Service/ Billing Operations, Mr. Woldekidan implemented and trained PMSI patient scheduling, registration, billing, EMR and collections systems as well reporting. His implementation of Encounter reconciliation process has helped capture lost revenue and improve cash flow for the Meharry Medical Group.
Dr. Julie K. French, ND, RN, CNAA, BC, Principal Investigator
Over 25 years of healthcare experience in nursing and hospital administration. Demonstrated clinical expertise and leadership competence, utilizing skills in management, communication, strategic planning, and data analysis to affect change through system redesign and evidence based decision making. A self-confident visionary who can speak the language at all levels of leadership and lead employees to accomplish mission driven goals.
Shawna Rhynard, Customer Development Director
Shawna is a forensic drug screen collector, phlebotomist, and a medical records specialist. She is fluent and compliant with the strict guidelines for collection practices in accordance with 49 CFR Part 40. She also provides other collectors and breath alcohol technicians with initial and recertification training. Shawna provides quality medical records services to national companies and private doctor’s offices and is compliant with all HIPAA regulations. Before transitioning into the medical field, she worked for the state of Arizona in the Maricopa County Regional School District as registrar working within the guidelines of the Family Rights and Privacy Act. She also headed the SIRS user meetings at the district level. She strives to maintain quality services while protecting the privacy and rights of all individuals.
Lori Jenkins, Executive Assistant
Lori Jenkins is responsible for administrative and project management duties. She has many years of experience in sales support, information systems and project management.
Strategic Partners
Strategic Health Services
Strategic Health Services provides effective health and wellness services including telephonic and on-line health coaching for disease and lifestyle management programs and health assessments to support better health and healthcare.
AARIW (American Association of Refugee and Immigrant Women)
The American Association of Refugee and Immigrant Women is a non-profit organization in Tennessee dedicated to addressing issues of vital concern to refugees and providing services not available through other social service programs. Emerging leaders are encouraged to share with others from their cultural community and to link newcomers with appropriate resources to ensure early economic and social empowerment.
Tracktion Healthcare
Tracktion is a complete Action Tracking Service Provider (ATSP) that can be utilized in corporate, healthcare, and insurance environments with wellness and disease management components. Our mission is to aid you in the ongoing battle of decreasing healthcare costs among your employees. Our focus is designing effective action plans, aiding in the execution of employee actions, and tracking these actions. Through our DetSystem, we offer you the tools, the methods of execution, and the tracking to effectively implement a corporate wellness program that changes lives and decreases healthcare costs. Your success in achieving decreased healthcare costs is based on our Designing Effective Tracking System. The DetSystem includes four effective systematic components.
1. NLHRA is our Next Level Health Risk Assessment System. This system actually makes any HRA effective beyond the point of just mere personal data discovery and population comparison. This system is based on the idea of personal wellness classification through our proprietary fitness score©.
2. CEAP is our CorporateEnvironmental Action Protocol. Through our corporate environmental discovery inspection, we enable the employer to educate us on methods that work best with particular employee motivation and valuing of actions through our credit system.
3. APT is our Action Power Tracker. We take advantage of data entered recognizing the time component to execute the action.
4. RTCU is our Real Time Credit Update which gives the employee the ability to track their personal actions and any value associated at anytime during their wellness initiative.
Tennessee Association of Audiologists and Speech/Language Pathologists
The TAASLP works to meet the needs of persons with hearing, communication, and swallowing disorders and to enhance the professional development of audiologists and speech/language pathologists. This Association is providing hearing and speech development screening for our EPSDT initiative.
Tennessee Nurses Association
The mission of the Tennessee Nurses Association is to promote and protect the registered nurse and to advance the practice of nursing in order to assure a healthier Tennessee. Member nurse practitioners are assisting in our efforts to provide primary care and EPSDT screening services to underserved communities.
Pamela A. Pannell
Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tennessee
Director of Audiological Services
- Clinical Director of Audiological Services in the Department of Pediatrics with emphasis in diagnostic, electrophysical evaluation, hearing aid dispensing and assistive listening devices; inclusive to proper case management and referral, aural rehabilitation and counseling.
- Orchestrate all aspects of Quality Management and recommend appropriate action plans.
- Oversee Newborn Hearing Screening Program and serves as Consulting Audiologist at Metro Nashville General Hospital at Meharry.
- Provide Audiological Services and Hearing Aid Dispensing to all inmates at the State of Tennessee Department of Corrections.
- Associate Professor in Department of Pediatrics to all third year medical students in rotation, shadow students and Audiology Fellows seeking careers in the medical field.
- Administrator of all office functions including composing of medical reports, referrals and letter of medical necessity to insurance companies, supplies and equipment purchase and maintenance.
- Assist in the coordination of the medical clinic Policy and Procedure Manual.
H.O.Y.A.S. Foundation (Helping Our Youth Achieve Success)
The HOYAS Foundation is a non-profit organization established in 2007. The mission of the foundation is to seek, serve and support adolescent youth within the greater Nashville community in the areas of education, health, wellness, and life skills. The HOYAS Foundation in partnership with New Horizon Solutions, Inc. and Gideon’s Army recognize the obstacles facing at risk-youth in rising above the risk factors associated with their environment. Together they have created year round structured programs to support youth in grades K-12. In collaboration, the coalition was developed with a focus on increasing high school graduation rates by addressing factors related to academic support, health and wellness awareness, life skills as well as social support. Our coalition’s objective is to improve high school graduation percentages within the Metropolitan Nashville Public School System in Davidson County with strategic and focused efforts through the established academic and physical program of the HOYAS Foundation, health and wellness initiatives of New Horizon’ s Inc. and the life skills and social development support of Gideon’s Army. Each component is designed to shape and influence the character of its participants and promote the skills sets and valuable tools needed for success in school, college and living a productive life. Our program provides various opportunities including academic support and intervention activities to inspire youth towards high school graduation and reaching their fullest potential. Within the framework of the initiative, participants will be actively involved in a spiraled after school and summer program that offers tutoring, physical activities, trainings, health screenings and character development. The HOYAS Foundation will offer additional opportunities within the local community in an effort to provide adequate support and become a liaison between school and home.