Workforce Solutions Jam | Leveraging AI to Streamline Administrative Tasks in Behavioral Health

Ashley Kjos, PsyD, L.P. is a Minnesota licensed psychologist (#LP5534) and the Chief Executive Officer of Woodland Centers, a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) in west central Minnesota. Dr. Kjos earned her Master’s (2009) and PsyD (2011) in Clinical Psychology at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. After being a staff psychologist at Woodland Centers from 2011 to 2014 then the Clinical Director from 2014 to 2016, she became its CEO in 2016. As CEO, Dr. Kjos is responsible for the overall coordination of the internal operations of Woodland Centers. The agency has a seven county catchment area and a robust continuum of outpatient, rehabilitative, and residential behavioral healthcare programs serving the entire age range. 

Dr. Kjos is very active in behavioral health services across the state through participation in various associations and serving on non-profit boards. She has served on the board of directors of West Central Industries (WCI), a vocational rehabilitation service provider based out of Willmar, Minnesota from October 2019 to present including being the Vice Chair of this board from 2022 to 2023 and Chair from 2023 to present. She has served as a board member on the Minnesota Association of Resources for Recovery and Chemical Health (MARRCH) from November 2019 to present. Dr. Kjos has been actively involved in the Minnesota Association of Community Mental Health Programs (MACMHP) association since 2014 including advocacy for public policy changes, training, collaboration with providers and associations across the state, and innovation of the mental health and substance use system of care in MN. She has served on the MACMHP board of directors from 2019 to present serving as the Treasurer from 2021-2022 and the board chair from 2022 through 2024. Dr. Kjos is committed to transformation of the healthcare system in the state of Minnesota.  

Dr. Garima Singh, MD is a Chief Medical Officer at Burrell Behavioral Health and its parent company, Brightli. She is triple board certified in American Board of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, General Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. She also serves as an adjunct faculty in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Missouri and participates as an expert panel for ECHO Child and adolescent psychiatry. Prior to her current position at Burrell Behavioral Health, she was the medical director at the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopment. Dr. Singh has been actively involved in teaching, multiple committees and research projects related to mental illness and autism. In her current role she also focuses on novel methods of healthcare delivery including telehealth, integrated and collaborative care models especially for rural and underserved areas. She has several publications and has presented in state, national and international level. She specializes in child psychiatry and especially cares of those with special needs, autism, and developmental delays. She is passionate about bullying prevention and expansion of mental health services. 

Dr. Singh grew up in India, earning her medical degree there before completing a fellowship in child psychiatry at Southern Illinois University (SIU) and her general psychiatry residency at the University of Missouri School of Medicine.  

Jim McEvoy is a Principal with Health Management Associates and is accomplished in architecting robust technology solutions for state agencies, health plans and service providers. Jim understands the substantial role data will play in the future of healthcare delivery and works to inform clients around data-driven decisions. He is an experienced project manager and business strategist who has successfully led all phases of diverse Medicaid technology projects. With deep knowledge of CMS reporting, waiver management and pharmacy data, Jim aligns business goals to deliver groundbreaking healthcare IT solutions.

As a vendor for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Jim managed projects to develop web-based enrollment tools, federal reporting tools and data warehousing strategies for the department’s 1915(c) waivers, health home projects, autism state plan amendment, and home and community-based services projects. He mitigated risk factors through careful analysis of data and a flexible technical solution set. He anticipated and managed change effectively in rapidly evolving business environments and the transfer of knowledge among different departmental units. Jim defined processes and tools best suited to each project and moved between agile and waterfall approaches depending on project specifics and client goals. He created detailed project road maps, plans, schedules and work breakdown structures.

Jim has been the subject matter expert for Michigan’s pharmacy data warehousing strategy. He oversaw inbound data loads, pharmacy encounter processing, and extracts to health plans and Michigan’s fee-for-service pharmacy benefits manager. With significant experience in systems engineering, Jim led the design, development and rollout of approximately 40 extract, transformation and load (ETL) processes and a dozen web applications for clients with the state of Michigan.

Jim had the privilege of serving as the project manager for the CareConnect360 web application. This tool is responsible for delivering Medicaid claims and encounters information to a diverse user audience, including health plans, community mental health agencies, health home providers and foster care workers. It currently serves seven different business units inside of Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services.

Jim received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University. Jim lives in the Lansing area with his wife and three children. They can often be found camping or at an MSU football game. When not doing those things, Jim is a rehabilitating runner and co-hosts MSU’s least topical sports podcast.

Zach Boyd, PhD is the Director of the Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy at the Utah Department of Commerce. Dr. Boyd is a faculty member at Brigham Young University’s (BYU) mathematics department, where he teaches applied and computational mathematics. Dr. Boyd’s research lab focuses on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and mathematical modeling in social science applications, such as psychology, economics, and social networks. Before working at BYU, Dr. Boyd was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an NDSEG Fellow at UCLA, a research associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and a Presidential Scholar at BYU.”