Today’s Work is Tomorrow’s News, Says MITRE Healthcare Analyst

MITRE’s Danielle Lohan enjoys the professional satisfaction of furthering federal health programs and policies that serve many different stakeholders. Through our Center for Transforming Health, Lohan supports innovation at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) with advanced service models, rural health improvement, and Medicaid access to home and community-based services. 

Lohan—who holds a master’s in healthcare policy and management from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health—shared her commitment to improving healthcare access, her appreciation of MITRE’s culture of support, and the skill from improv comedy that adds to her success at work. 

Impacting Health Outcomes

Healthcare is something everyone needs—it’s just a matter of when. And everyone will be affected by healthcare policies at some point in their lives. At MITRE, we’re impacting millions of people’s lives and working for the public good.

Here, I know I’m working on initiatives that will be in the news tomorrow, in 10 days, and in 10 years. What we do fuels the long term—it’s important to the future of healthcare delivery.

I was always interested in healthcare, but I didn’t necessarily have the calling to be a provider. Public health drew me in because I wanted to have an impact on the field of accessible healthcare for all.

Delivering Tangible Solutions

I came to MITRE in 2022 from the field, having consulted with the Maryland Department of Health and as an anti-human trafficking specialist. I knew of MITRE’s reputation of having amazing resources for supporting the innovation that’s required in health — for quietly doing the hard work and doing it well.

One of my recent projects was supporting the development of CMS’s WISeR Model, which stands for Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction. Because of its many technical requirements, we worked closely with a team of clinicians who were able to look at all the services affected. We analyzed why a clinician might prefer one service over another, and how that might look in medical coding. The physician team was key to making granular decisions.

Learning from Colleagues

The work is vital—and so is being in a community of collaboration. At MITRE, we have both. It’s wonderful to see the high level of support for our company-wide communities of interest. 

This year, I’m chair of the Women’s Community Resource Group. We recently ran a Women Leading AI panel that brought together professionals from across MITRE to discuss possibilities for impact in the field. We heard not just from veteran AI professionals but early-career professionals who brought the perspective of never knowing a world without AI.

In my free time, I do improv comedy. What works for improv is saying “yes” and looking for ways to integrate different perspectives and voices into the ultimate outcome. It’s about elevating someone else’s idea and synthesizing it. In that way, it’s a lot like policymaking because it’s all about listening and teamwork.

—as told to Nancy Gast Romps