Biography

Dr. Kimberly Enard received her PhD in health services research with specialization in health policy from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health. She has previously earned a MBA and MSHA, with concentrations in marketing, finance and management, as well as a BA in mass communications. Kimberly is also a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. She has nearly 10 years of experience in healthcare management, marketing, planning/business development and consulting – primarily developing and implementing communication and outreach initiatives targeted to diverse patient and physician populations while working in the hospital industry – and more than seven years of experience as a professional journalist in local and national markets. Kimberly is interested in evaluating differences in actual and perceived barriers to healthcare access/quality for racial and ethnic (R/E) minorities, examining concordance between patient-provider perceptions of care experiences that may impact R/E disparities in healthcare utilization, and conceptualizing, developing and evaluating the effectiveness of patient education and communication mechanisms that may reduce R/E disparities in actual and perceived healthcare access/quality. She is also interested in exploring the role of public-private partnerships in improving healthcare access/quality for vulnerable populations. Inspired by her experience in the hospital industry, Kimberly’s dissertation explores the impact of community hospital closures on the health of R/E minorities. She will be a Kellogg Health Scholar at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.