Staying in step with its recent momentum of growth and impact, the has added a new member to its team.
Stephanie Woodard, Psy.D., will serve as the Director of Health and Social Policy, bringing her decades of experience in behavioral health to the research team. Woodard comes to the Guinn Center — a nonpartisan, statewide policy research center — from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) where she advised on important policies impacting Nevada. Woodard spent nearly 10 years in her role, working on strategies to improve healthcare access, quality and outcomes for all Nevadans.
“When this position at the Guinn Center became available, it was something I was interested in exploring,” Woodard said. “I had an opportunity to work with Guinn Center Executive Director Jill Tolles when she was an assemblywoman. While working on legislation together, I came to know and appreciate her. To see the vision she had painted for the Guinn Center, and to understand that it was starting to come to fruition, I wanted to be part of that vision and help the organization grow in the health and social policy space.”
Executive Director Jill Tolles, who served three terms as a Nevada assemblywoman before taking on her role at the Guinn Center, collaborated with Woodard on during the 2021 session. This bipartisan piece of legislation successfully established the Attorney General's Statewide Substance Use Working Group to battle the aftermath of the opioid crisis and other substance use disorders in Nevada.
“I knew Stephanie personally during her 13-year tenure at the state as the DHHS Senior Advisor on Behavioral Health,” Tolles recalls. “Her professionalism, expertise, and collaborative leadership style helped to form thoughtful legislation that became a model for other states. She is an absolute pleasure to work with.”
Woodard began her career working in the clinical setting and saw first-hand the challenges Nevadans faced, from the devastating impacts of the opioid crisis to the widespread lack of accessible mental health care. After working with then-Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval on a community integration plan for behavioral health, Woodard realized the population impact she could have by shifting her focus to policy.
"The goal has always been to increase access to high-quality services that people needed and build upon each community’s strengths."
In her role with Nevada DHHS, Woodard helped author several impactful and evidence-based policies still serving the citizens of Nevada today, including adopting the 988 behavioral health crisis phone line, establishing crisis stabilization centers, reauthorizing a substance use working group and allowing fentanyl testing strips to be removed from the definition of drug paraphernalia. Woodard was also the project director for the Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers in DHHS and helped to design the clinic model for Nevada. Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers are local clinics that provide a range of behavioral health services for Nevadans of every age in need of care, regardless of ability to pay, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“I had the unique opportunity to work in and with communities and meet people from all corners of the state to better understand their needs for access to care and support, and where the strengths and gaps in their community were,” Woodard said. “The goal has always been to increase access to high-quality services that people needed and build upon each community’s strengths.”
As she moves into her new role at the Guinn Center, Woodard looks forward to tackling new health and social policy opportunities in Nevada.
“I’m interested in looking into Health Information Technology, the work being done at the federal level, and how Nevada can best optimize health information,” Woodard said. “We anticipate these changes will impact how health information is communicated and used to enhance the quality-of-care patients experience and build efficiencies across public health systems.”
The Health Information Exchange is the electronic exchange of patients’ health information among care providers to improve healthcare delivery quality, safety and efficiency.
“You can imagine, if you have an underlying health condition known by a treating provider and then you go to the emergency room, there's not a lot of ability for those providers who are treating you to communicate with one another in real-time,” Woodard said. “When patients authorize their health information to be shared through a health information exchange, it becomes accessible to treating providers through a shared system. It is exciting to see how technology is evolving in a way that gives patients control of their health information and providers access to important health information, making care safer and comprehensive.”
Woodard also looks forward to collaborating with faculty and students at the University and other Nevada System of Higher Education institutions, including the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, to bridge the gaps between research, policy and practice.
“Our universities play a critical role in furthering scientific inquiry within Nevada. Through strong collaborations, we can elevate evidence-based research and policy across the state,” Woodard said.
In addition to her role with the Guinn Center, Woodard will teach in the School of Public Health as a clinical associate professor in Fall 2024, bringing her expertise and professional experience into the classroom.
“I owe special thanks to Dean Muge Apkinar-Elci for the opportunity to engage in both statewide policy and practice research while teaching within the School of Public Health,” Woodard said.
