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Meet the Board and Staff of the Physicians' Innovation Network

PIN Board Members and Staff

Suzanne E. Landis, MD, MPH, Chairman of the Board

Dr. Landis has an active clinical practice in Asheville, North Carolina and is a Professor of Family Medicine, University of North Carolina School of Medicine-Chapel Hill. She is a chief architect of Project Access and a founder of the Physicians' Innovation Network (PIN).

"Doctors are the ones most able to awaken communities to the imperative of achieving 100% access and eliminating health disparities. We need to be conveners of community leaders and change agents at the local and national levels. Project Access is a vehicle that engages physicians in how care is delivered and elevates them to a new level of leadership."

James (Jim) B. Powell, II, MD, Secretary/Treasurer and Past Board Chair

Dr. Powell is a clinical otolaryngologist head and neck surgeon. He was the Chairman of the Buncombe County Medical Society when it competitively won the initial Robert Wood Johnson grants leading to the evolution and maturation of Project Access and the founding of PIN. His passion is identifying and nurturing leadership at the community level, not only for physicians in Project Access, but also within the greater community. More recently he has served on the Board of Directors of Mission Hospitals System and on the board of the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina (nine years, including four years as Chairman.)

"When success is not enough, how do we get from success to significance as individuals and as an Association? That even one patient should forgo needed care for want of funds disgraces us all. The heart of Project Access is the collective heart of all participating physicians invigorated by their rediscovery of their own inescapable altruistic ethos, 2500 years of inherited trust. Sometime over the past 25 years physicians allowed themselves to be transformed into providers. Project Access allows physicians to be physicians again. That is its definition and its message."

Perry A. Klaassen, MD, MPH, Clinical Director

Dr. Klaassen has dedicated his entire career to preventive and primary care medicine. Prior to his present position, he served as clinical director for a federally qualified health center in Oklahoma City for 30 years. He is well known for his genuine concern and compassion for his patients and is involved in a number of community-based health activities.

He is presently the Clinical Director for Central Oklahoma Integrated Network System. Among his honors are the 2003 Samuel U. Rodgers Achievement Award from the National Association of Community Health Centers, the 2004 Festival of Hope Honoree - Heartline, the 2004 Alumni Merit Award - Tabor College and the 2007 Gordon H. Deckert,MD., Oklahoma State Medical Association Award for Community Service.

"I am convinced that we have the resources, both financial and human, to resolve the crisis of the uninsured within our nation. By coming together and coordinating our resources within local communities as we do in Project Access, I feel that this crisis can be resolved effectively."

Joseph C. Meek, MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine

Joseph C. Meek, M.D., is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Wichita and is board certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology & Metabolism. A widely published author, Dr. Meek held academic and administrative positions at the University of Kansas Medical Center before moving to Wichita as Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine and later as Dean at the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita. Dr. Meek retired as Dean on July 1, 2001 and continues to serve his patients on a part time basis.

Former president of the Medical Society of Sedgwick County and the Kansas Medical Society, Dr. Meek is a Diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine, serves as a Kansas Delegate to the American Medical Association, and provides physician leadership in Wichita's Project Access.

"Physicians inherently have the "right stuff" when it comes to providing compassionate care for the uninsured. Project Access is the mechanism which allows this care to become manifest."

Karen Minyard, Ph.D., Executive Director (Assistant: Marketa Pettway)

Dr. Minyard is Executive Director of the Georgia Health Policy Center and associate research professor, Georgia State University School of Public Administration and Urban Studies. Dr. Minyard is an advocate for basic restructuring of local health care systems to focus on access to care and health status improvements.

"I participate in PIN because I have seen the importance of physician leadership. I also believe in the power of community. When physician leaders and communities decide to organize volunteerism to improve health and access, the possibilities are endless."

Anne Nelson

Ms. Nelson is the Chief Operations Officer for the Central Plains Regional Healthcare Foundation, the nonprofit organization that oversees Wichita, Kansas' Project Access program. Wichita was the first publicized replication site for Buncombe County's Project Access model outside North Carolina. In turn, Ms. Nelson has provided nurturing support to Project Access leaders of more than 75 communities.

"When disparate groups of people within a community organize to achieve common goals that transcend individuals, especially when each participant must make sacrifices to further the process, you see a transformation within that community. Project Access is a model of transformation. It's an honor to be a part of the national effort to support Project Access communities and the wonderful people working so hard to achieve a shared vision."

James L. Ray, M.D.

Dr. Ray has practiced Family Medicine in Swainsboro, Georgia for the past 33 years. He was one of two physicians that brought to fruition the dream of Access Emanuel in Emanuel County Georgia about 8 years ago. He has been Chairman of the County Board of Health for the past 27 years and has been involved in many attempts to improve access to the health care systems by individuals and families that are not insured and do not have resources to pay for health care.

"Physicians are in an ideal position to encourage involvement by all providers in reaching out to the underinsured. We have the knowledge of health needs and resources to fuse the two in such a manner that uninsured citizens can be given first class care. It is imperative that we instill the desire in our provider base to continue to investigate new methods of distribution of care. Project Access is a very viable method of meeting the patients’ personal needs."

James Walton, DO, Chief Health Equity Officer and Senior Vice President for Community Health Improvement

Dr. Walton is the Chief Health Equity Officer and Senior Vice President for Community Health Improvement for Baylor Health Texas Provider Network (HTPN). His career has focused on management, clinical practice and research in community health improvement for economically disadvantaged populations. In 1998, he participated in a year-long fellowship in Community Health Improvement through the HealthCare Forum/American Hospital Association. He developed and currently oversees the Baylor’s Volunteers-in-Medicine program, is a board member for Central Dallas Ministries and the Lone Star Association of Charitable Clinics and is Chairman of the Board for a Guatemalan orphanage, Love the Child. His clinical work currently concentrates on making home visits to people referred from Baylor hospitals, with a particular focus on neurologically traumatized patients.

Since 2000, Dr. Walton has collaborated with Central Dallas Ministries and the Dallas County Medical Society as Medical Director of Project Access Dallas, a network of over 650 physicians and 15 hospitals providing comprehensive health care access to uninsured people in Dallas County.

"As the health care delivery system works to improve quality, it is critical that we look beyond access of health care to also reduce the inequities in health care delivery and health outcomes. These are issues of social justice as well as health care quality improvement."

Rae Young Bond, Executive Director

Hon. Eric Coleman, President-Elect

Joan Colfer, MD, MPH, Director (Assistant: Perry Walinski)

Peter Ellis, MD, MPH

PIN Staff

Ms. Kayla West, MBA, Executive Director

Ms. West, has worked for the past 15 years in community development involving primary care clinics, health access coalitions, and physician leadership networks. For the past 10 years, she has consulted at the federal, regional and local levels. Kayla first learned about Project Access 8 years ago when she was sent to Wichita, Kansas, to observe how Buncombe County was coaching Wichita’s developing Project Access initiative. She then helped to establish a similar initiative back home in Marquette, Michigan, and has advised many communities since then.

"Eliminating healthcare disparities in access and outcomes is an absolute moral clarity that is achievable in a nation like ours if we start by tapping the natural abundance in our communities. Mobilizing through Project Access, physicians can be leaders in their communities, transforming their healthcare delivery system to achieve greater equity for those who are most vulnerable. It gives me deep satisfaction to work with physicians who have the courage to make a difference and with community partners who welcome their leadership."