The Affirmant Staff is here to support our local chapters and their efforts in Clinical Integration. We do this by bringing together subject matter experts from across our network to share the best practices; negotiating with health plan partners to bend the cost curve and share in the rewards; and using data from tools such as Epic, to help us make higher value decisions at the point of care.
Bill Mayer, MD, MPH, president and CEO
Dr. Mayer has over 25 years of leadership experience in health care and health-related organizations. His roles have included program director at the National Cancer Institute; co-leader of professional health care consulting at The Wyatt Company—now Towers Watson – in Washington, D.C.; corporate medical director, division president and executive vice president at Kellogg Company; medical director at United Health Care; and chief quality officer, chief medical informatics officer and senior vice president for Managed Care and Community Health at Bronson Healthcare. For over 20 years of his career, he also volunteered as a primary care physician at Community Health Centers in the Washington, DC area and Michigan.
Mayer has served on the faculty of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program and the Western Michigan University’s Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine, as a lecturer in epidemiology at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Hygiene and Public Health, as a committee member at the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, and as a reviewer for the New England Journal of Medicine. He has published a number of peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on such subjects as black/white differences in
cancers of the breast and bladder, cancer prevention in primary care, and assessing and improving health
care quality.
In addition to his professional responsibilities at Affirmant Health Partners, Dr. Mayer advises the director of the Michigan Medicaid program as a member of the State of Michigan Medical Care Advisory Council and is a volunteer with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. He is board certified in Preventive Medicine.
Dr. Karin Proos, clinical transformation executive
Karin Proos, Pharm.D., is Affirmant’s clinical transformation executive. As a clinical leader with 20 years’ experience, Karin facilitates collaboration among other health care leaders across Michigan focusing on post-acute care, care management, pharmacy, chronic disease management, quality and utilization outcomes. These programs have resulted in ACO shared savings across multiple health systems. Prior to working at Affirmant Health Partners, Dr. Proos spent much of her career at Spectrum Health working with over 3000 providers in more than 200 ambulatory offices. She developed sustainable pharmacy and medication-use services for these offices and led teams involved in direct patient care activities with MTM, PCMH and multidisciplinary care models. Karin developed programs for safety culture and ISMP/TJC/NPSG best practices as well as drove value through MACRA, MIPS and payer incentives. She also served as a clinical informatics resource for meaningful use, electronic prescribing and clinical decision support and alerts. Outside of work, Karin enjoys spending time with her husband, walking the dog, oil painting, cooking and reading.
Katy Velten, communications executive
As the communications executive, Katy has been instrumental in the successful launch of the Affirmant brand and messaging around our vision to achieve a healthy Michigan at an affordable cost. Katy is responsible for the engagement of education and communication with our six member systems, seven local Chapters, and over 6,000 participating physicians. Outside of Katy’s professional responsibilities, she serves on the board of directors for the Michigan Society for Healthcare Planning and Marketing, mentors with Southwest Michigan First and received her Master’s in Communications from Western Michigan University. In her free time, you can find her with her husband and two daughters enjoying a musical, reading, traveling or golfing.
Paul Peabody, information technology and business intelligence executive
In October 2017, Paul joined Affirmant following his retirement as chief information officer and senior vice president at Bronson Healthcare. Before his four-year tenure with Bronson, he served as the CIO for Beaumont Health, Michigan’s largest health care system, for 30 years. Paul is a highly regarded health care CIO and has installed and worked extensively with Epic electronic health records platform as an early adopter in Michigan and was instrumental in helping Epic develop the Community Connect program. Paul is active in numerous health industry councils and is a founding member and past president of the Detroit Chapter of the Society for information management. He also is a founding member and former VP and board member of the San Diego Chapter of SIM.
Andrea Charmley, clinical transformation consultant
Andrea Charmley, LMSW, MPH, comes to us from Western Michigan University’s Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine where she was the program manager for a behavioral health and primary care integration project. She has experience working in a variety of health care settings and is passionate about making health care affordable and accessible for all people.
Andrea completed her master of public health and master of social work from the University of Michigan holds Advanced Generalist social work licensure. At Affirmant she is responsible for supporting the coordination, integration and analysis of clinical priorities across Affirmant Chapters. In her free time she enjoys reading, knitting, sewing, running, being outdoors and camping with her partner.
Marla Beyer, analyst II, clinical information systems
Marla Beyer joined the Affirmant Health Partners team in June of 2019. Marla comes from Bronson Healthcare Group and brings over eight years of experience in Information Technology, mainly focused on implementing and supporting Epic, Bronson’s electronic health record.
In her free time she enjoys spending time with her husband, daughter and son. They can be found attending sporting events at Western Michigan University (GO BRONCOS!), or one of the kid’s soccer, baseball, basketball, cross country or track events.
Michael Burns, analyst III, clinical information systems
Michael Burns joined the Affirmant team in April 2020 as a Clinical Analyst, where he works on clinical quality measures and reporting. After spending nearly a decade working with and reporting from a variety of electronic health records, Michael has a keen understanding of how to turn data into actionable insights. Michael holds a BBA in Computer Information Systems from Western Michigan University.
Michael is an avid homebrewer, enjoys tinkering with electronics, and spending time with his wife and son.
Angela Johnson, communications specialist
Angela Johnson joined the Affirmant Team in January of 2018 as the Communications Specialist. Angela comes to us from Western Michigan University after finishing her BA in Public Relations in December of 2017. Prior to her current position with Affirmant she worked as our communications intern. Outside of work, Angela enjoys spending time with her daughter traveling Michigan to see family, attending special events and sporting events in their free time.
Rose Blackwood, executive assistant
Coming to Affirmant from Bronson Healthcare in 2018, Rose has over ten years combined experience in industry, NGOs, academia and health care. At Bronson, she spent the majority of her time travelling and providing support for more than 20 practices. During her time at Western Michigan University, she served as Assistant to the Director of Operational Services and succeeded in meeting the library’s core mission to “empower its community… and shape the information universe.”
A humanitarian at heart, Rose has volunteered in various capacities and organizations throughout Michigan: Kalamazoo Public Schools, Girl Scouts Heart of Michigan, Communities in Schools and American Red Cross, among others, have all benefited from her skills and expertise. She enjoys traveling, walking, quilting and other crafts, and is an avid reader. Rose graduated with cum laude honors from WMU with a B.B.A.
Erik Pye, executive assistant
Erik Pye joined the Affirmant Health Partners team in 2018. Erik brings with him ten years of education and eight years of hospitality experience. A true “helper,” Erik spent time in both industries developing training programs, increasing team unity and volunteering on diversity committees and active bystander trainings. While at WMU, he earned an M.A. in Socio-Cultural Studies in Education and has recently started an MBA. Erik brings a passion for teamwork, education, inclusion and an overall positive attitude.
After clocking out, Erik enjoys spending time with his family, cooking, experiencing nature, listening to music, traveling and reading.
Meghan Gaertner, manager of information technology
After joining the Affirmant team in May of 2018, Meghan prepares data extraction and visualization expertise to provide actionable information to health care professionals. She is no stranger to data analytics, having spent time at Bronson Healthcare and Metro Health where she was responsible for fulfilling complex data needs using Epic and supporting business intelligence tools.
A passionate believer in youth empowerment, Meghan supports the YWCA of Kalamazoo in teaching TechGYRLS, a program designed to promote STEM knowledge and gender equality. When she isn’t glued to a computer screen, she loves to spend time with her daughter, Maya. They savor their time by riding bikes, camping, traveling and playing softball.
Jeromy Timmer, transformation strategist
Jeromy believes that improving quality and reducing cost in healthcare is one of the most important challenges facing the United States, which is why he left manufacturing to work in healthcare eleven years ago. Jeromy spent the past eight years as a Continuous Improvement Consultant at Bronson Healthcare, helping develop problem solving capabilities and assisting in building the Bronson Management System. He has a Bachelor of Science in physics from Western Michigan University; when asked how that applies to the challenges facing healthcare, he says it is all about solving complex problems using basic principles. Outside of work Jeromy enjoys spending time with his family, biking and playing music.
Blair Goheen, analyst I, clinical information systems
In March 2020, Blair joined the Affirmant team as an IT Analyst. Blair has spent the last 12 years in the Healthcare industry. She spent the first decade at Borgess Hospital where the majority of her work was in the Clinical Informatics department. As a Clinical Informatics Specialist, she was responsible for CMS’ Meaningful Use quality program throughout the inpatient and ambulatory systems. While at Borgess, Blair became a Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. She left her position as a Clinical Informatics Specialist in June of 2018 and accepted an analyst role as a Business Intelligence Developer at Bronson Healthcare. In the Analytics department, she was responsible for report writing and data analytics to help operational owners make more informed decisions with data.
During her down time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and three children, reading, spending time outdoors, traveling, and socializing with friends.
