Johanna Barraza-Cannon

Title: Vice Chair

Johanna Barraza-Cannon has over 20 years of healthcare experience, primarily focused on Medicaid and healthcare for underserved and vulnerable populations. She is currently a Principal at MITRE Corp working directly with federal agencies on improving healthcare policies, operations, and program effectiveness. Johanna works primarily on projects related to Medicaid, quality and performance metrics, data analytics, information technology, long-term services and supports, behavioral health, and value-based purchasing and other payment and delivery innovations. Prior to MITRE, Johanna supported state and federal health and human services agencies as a Director at Guidehouse (formerly Navigant Consulting) and served as the Interim Medicaid Director for the State of South Dakota.

Johanna also has federal experience with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Johanna served as the policy director for the HRSA Office of Health Information Technology where she provided technical assistance to HRSA grantees on health information technology, helped develop and implement HRSA’s HIT strategy for providers serving vulnerable populations, collaborated with HRSA grantees including health centers and rural providers, and also worked on telehealth and remote monitoring issues. At CMS, Johanna served as a technical director for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program issues including policies and regulations, state plan amendments, quality and performance measurement, demonstrations and waivers, data analytics, program evaluation, and technical assistance to states.  She obtained a Master in Public Policy degree with a graduate certificate in health policy from the University of Chicago and her BA in Economics from Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

Johanna is originally from El Paso, Texas, but the DC area has been her home base for over 20 years.