Our Team

MHQP Staff

Autumn Bailey
Autumn BaileyProgram Specialist
Autumn Bailey joined MHQP in June 2023. As program specialist, she provides support for various MHQP projects including the Patient Experience Survey, the Primary Care Dashboard, and others.

Prior to joining MHQP, Autumn interned at The Massachusetts Health Connector where she created initiatives to advance health equity in the state-based marketplace. She has worked with other non-profit organizations such as Fertility Within Reach where she helped write educational pamphlets on fertility issues in marginalized communities. Autumn has also interned for Alliance for Citizen Engagement where she published policy briefs on healthcare and incarceration.

Autumn received her B.S in Health Science from Boston University. In her free time, she enjoys going to concerts and spending time outside.

Julia Banas, MPH
Julia Banas, MPHProgram Manager
Julia Banas joined MHQP in July of 2021. As Program Manager, she is responsible for supporting timelines and materials for various projects, including the public program survey measurement and reporting and initiatives to promote health equity.

Prior to joining MHQP, Julia interned at the Right Care Alliance (RCA), a grassroots coalition working to put patients’ voices at the center of healthcare. She has also worked in research involving health disparities at Yale University’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies and Boston University’s Slone Epidemiology Center.

Julia received an MPH in Chronic Disease Epidemiology from Yale University and a BA in Political Science from Boston University. In her free time, she enjoys reading and baking.

Jim Courtemanche, SM
Jim Courtemanche, SMVice President, Analytics
Jim Courtemanche joined the MHQP in 2015. As Vice President of Analytics, Mr. Courtemanche works closely with MHQP staff, external workgroup members and the MHQP Board to define and design projects and ensure methodological and operational integrity through all phases of the project. He is also responsible for the development of analytic platforms and applications to support MHQP’s mission, strategic goals, and project objectives.

Jim has over 30 years of experience in healthcare analytics in both provider and insurance settings. Most recently, Jim held analytic leadership positions at the Lowell General Physician Hospital Organization and Steward Health Care Network, directing teams that analyzed and reported cost and utilization performance metrics. During Jim’s sixteen years at Tufts Health Plan, he supported Senior Product enrollment and payment, Medicare risk adjustment programs, Medicare Part D implementation and analytics and provider risk contract financial reconciliation.

Outside of MHQP, Jim regularly performs with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops as a member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Jim received an A.B in Biology from Harvard College and an S.M in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Andrew D'Amour
Andrew D'AmourSenior Director of Business Development
Andrew joined MHQP in 2018. His early career was in banking, first in retail and then managing treasury operations for a mid-sized bond portfolio. After leaving the banking industry, Andrew worked as a Senior Program Manager at Partners Healthcare International, both developing and managing capacity building projects in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southern Europe. Andrew also serves in his town government as Vice Chairman of the Planning Board.

Outside of work Andrew enjoys spending time with his wife and children, primarily shuttling between their myriad sporting events. He also writes music and plays with a small collective of musicians. Andrew received a BA in History at Connecticut College.

Janet Flaherty, MBA
Janet Flaherty, MBAVice President, Finance and Accounting
Janet Flaherty joined MHQP in 2007. As the Vice President of Finance and Accounting, Janet is responsible for the MHQP budget development and accounting operations, and supports business development activity.

Janet has over 25 years of experience in accounting and finance. Prior to joining MHQP, Janet spent 10 years as a Financial Analyst for Millipore Corporation responsible for financial analysis for a worldwide sales division. Prior to Millipore Corporation, Janet worked at Ernst & Young in public accounting, performing audits for industries such as manufacturing, real estate, and healthcare, and becoming certified as a C.P.A.

Janet received a Master’s in Business Administration from Babson F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business, and a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Boston College. In her free time she enjoys spending time walking with her family.

Jason Leistikow
Jason LeistikowSenior IT Analyst/Developer
Jason Leistikow joined MHQP in 2008. As the Senior IT Analyst/Developer, he is responsible for developing and managing the information systems used to support MHQP’s operations. In addition to serving as MHQP’s principal database administrator, he is a key contributor to our report generation and data analytics. Jason also manages MHQP’s Massachusetts Provider Database and oversees several MHQP-affiliated websites such as mhqp.org and healthcarecompassma.org.

Jason brings over 25 years of experience in data analytics and design. Prior to joining MHQP, Jason was an Applications Developer for the State Street Corporation in Boston. At this organization, he was responsible for creating and maintaining systems used to improve operating efficiencies within the organization. Previously, Jason was a Programmer/Analyst for the Picker Institute, a Boston-based nonprofit organization that reported on the quality of patient-centered care in Massachusetts.

Jason received a Bachelor of Business Administration with a focus on Management Information Systems from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In his free time he enjoys photography, spending time with his wife and two kids, and as a native of the “dairy state” of Wisconsin, he is an avid cheese enthusiast.

Natalya Martins, MPH
Natalya Martins, MPHVice President, Programs
Natalya Martins joined MHQP in 2016. As the Vice President of Programs, Natalya works with the President & CEO and other members of the senior team to oversee the operationalization of new strategic initiatives and management of projects that deepen and broaden MHQP’s impact. She also leads initiatives that promote health equity and anti-racism, oversees the ongoing development of MHQP’s clinical guidelines, and works closely with MHQP’s Consumer Health Council.

Natalya is dedicated to promoting and researching evidence-based improvements in the quality of healthcare through an equity lens. Prior to joining MHQP, Natalya conducted research for the Department of Exercise Science at Skidmore College. She has also partnered with Shape Up Somerville, an organization that strives to build healthy and equitable communities, to implement a community-based project aimed at collecting baseline health status data. Natalya also volunteers with the Right Care Alliance, a grassroots coalition that works to center the patient’s voice in healthcare.

Natalya received an MPH from Simmons University and a B.Sc. in Health & Exercise Science from Skidmore College. In her free time, she enjoys running and drawing.

Barbra Rabson, MPH
Barbra Rabson, MPHPresident and CEO
Barbra Rabson is the President and CEO of the Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (MHQP). Under her leadership, MHQP has become a national leader in the measurement and public reporting of health care information, with a particular focus on measuring and improving patients’ experiences of care. In the past few years, Ms. Rabson has focused the organization’s work around three main areas of impact: capturing patient experiences, advancing health equity and strengthening primary care. Of particular note is her role leading MHQP’s most recent work to create a dashboard to monitor the health of primary care in Massachusetts and to launch a Massachusetts Measured Equity initiative.

She is a member of the Milbank Advisory Committee for the Health of US Primary Care Scorecard, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services Quality Measure Alignment Task Force and Quality Subcommittee, the Massachusetts Health Equity Data Standards Technical Advisory Committee, and the Betsey Lehman Center Measurement and Transparency Task Force. She also serves as a public member on the Board of the American Board of Family Medicine and the Board of the Massachusetts Health Policy Forum.

Ms. Rabson received her Master’s degree in Public Health from Yale University and her undergraduate degree from Brandeis University. In her free time, she enjoys sculling on the Charles River and playing her cello.

Jonathan Small, MBA
Jonathan Small, MBADirector of Communications
Jonathan began working with MHQP in 2017 as a communications consultant and has since joined the staff part-time as MHQP’s Director of Communications. He leads all of MHQP communications activities, including brand management, outgoing messaging, content development, and public relations.

Prior to coming to MHQP, Jonathan served for five years as the Senior Director of Marketing, Communications and Technology for the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ) and ten years as the Vice President of Marketing and Communications for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Prior to that, he was Director of Communications for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC) and Harvard Community Health Plan (HCHP). He received an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BA from Oberlin College.

Raji Rajan, MBA, MS
Raji Rajan, MBA, MSAssociate Director of Reporting and Analytics
Raji Rajan joined MHQP in March 2015. As Associate Director of Reporting and Analytics, Raji is responsible for reporting and analytics related to MHQP’s commercial Patient Experience Survey. In this role, she has implemented natural language processing, using Amazon Comprehend, to classify patient narratives captured in the survey. Raji has also worked on a complex analysis in the Total Cost of Care project, using MA-APCD claims data and has been instrumental in developing analytics for many other MHQP research projects. She has over 18 years of experience in the finance/banking industry, developing reporting and application integrations for various business needs. Prior to coming to MHQP in 2015, she worked as a Business Intelligence Developer at Boston Private Bank, where she played a lead role in managing data warehouses and reporting for both banking and investments businesses. Her expertise in data allowed the Bank to deliver complex reports to the deposit sales/management, commercial lending, and financial intelligence units. She designed IT architecture data flows and provided data to integrate multiple external vendor applications and improve work flow efficiencies.

Prior to working for the Bank, Ms. Rajan worked for Fidelity Investments as Senior Software Engineer. In this role, she developed/supported voice response applications and provided feedback with voice recordings on consumer service calls through a “Customer Satisfaction Index” application. She also worked as SAS Programmer and as VRU Developer, using VoiceXML Applications. Ms. Rajan started her career at Parexel International, working with a group of statisticians as SAS Programmer to produce FDA approval reports on clinical trials for various pharmaceutical companies.

Raji received a Master’s in Business Administration from Clark University, a Master’s in Applied Statistics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and a Bachelor’s in Economics from Stella Maris College, India. She enjoys cooking a range of international cuisines with her husband and watching movies with her family.

Nicolle Toledo, RN
Nicolle Toledo, RNProject Specialist
Nicolle Toledo, RN joined MHQP in January of 2023. As a Project Specialist, she assists project managers in planning, organizing, and documenting survey project meetings and she provides quality administrative support across the organization.

Prior to joining MHQP, Nicolle worked as an Acute Care and Evaluation Registered Nurse in Addiction Medicine. In addition to her patient care experience, she has co-facilitated multiple qualitative health service research projects as a Graduate Research Assistant at Yale University, Department of Emergency Medicine, and as a Research Coordinator for the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research at the VA Boston Healthcare System.

Nicolle received a BA in Ethnic Studies from Brown University, where she designed a concentration in Social Justice, Wellness, and Community Health. She attended Yale University’s Graduate Entry Program in Nursing, where she completed the requirements for RN licensure. In her free time, Nicolle is a mixed media creator, comedy enthusiast, and avid mental health advocate.

Molly Totman, MPH
Molly Totman, MPHSenior Director of Quality Initiatives
Molly joined MHQP in 2024 as the Senior Director of Quality Initiatives. She is a dedicated public health professional with expertise in quality improvement, population health management, regulatory compliance, data integration, strategic planning, program management, and program evaluation. She earned her undergraduate degree in Anthropology in 2011 and then her Master of Public Health degree in 2014, both from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After graduation, she was hired at Caring Health Center in Springfield, MA, where she worked for eight years and rose to the position of Quality Director. In 2022, she moved to the role of Quality Director at Community Care Cooperative (C3), where she supported the success of community health centers across the state in value-based care. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Public Health at Johns Hopkins. Molly is interested in leveraging improvement science, along with qualitative, participatory, and implementation science methodologies, to advance healthcare quality and equity.
Symone Woodham, MPH
Symone Woodham, MPHProgram Manager
Symone Woodham joined MHQP in October of 2022. As Program Manager, she provides support in project planning and implementation for the Patient Experience Survey, as well as other projects.

Prior to joining MHQP, Symone interned for Butler Hospital Memory and Aging Program, recognized as a center for clinical research in Alzheimer’s. She has also worked as a research assistant at Boston University, conducting qualitative interviews to identify barriers and facilitators to lung cancer screening among underserved populations.

Symone received an MPH from Boston University and a B.S. in Health Studies from the University of Rhode Island. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, traveling, and spending time with her loved ones.

Consultants and Advisors

Ruth Okin
Ruth Okin
Ruth Okin has worked with MHQP as a consultant since 2014. She works in the finance and accounting department as a payment specialist. In this role, she tracks spending and provides support for budgeting and accounting reports. Ruth has over 30 years of business management experience and works with a variety of clients with support tailored to their unique needs. She holds an MBA from the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University and a BS in communications from Boston University. She enjoys artistic endeavors including creating collages and mosaics, and doing plein air drawing.
Janet Peluso, MBA
Janet Peluso, MBA
Janet Peluso has worked as a consultant for MHQP since early 2016. Prior to that, Ms. Peluso served as MHQP’s Vice President of Finance and Contracting. Janet provides senior advisory services to MHQP in the areas of contracting, business planning and financial management. She has over 25 years of experience in a variety of settings, including non-profits, medical groups, and managed care/insurance companies. Janet has a Master’s in Business Administration from The Wharton School of Business and a Bachelor’s in Accounting and Health Systems Management from the University of Connecticut.