Staff Biography

Michele Patarino, MBA, MSHA

Tobacco Project Director

Michele Patarino worked in a health plan for ten years learning budgeting, project management, research, evaluation and strategic planning. She spent focused time on pharmacy benefit management, health promotion and management, managed Medicaid Child Health Plan and Medicare plans provider communication and compliance issues. In 2000 she became a consultant to a federal contractor and worked on health plan purchasing and management for the Military Health System and evaluating demand management strategies for the Navy. There she completed her first tobacco control project assessing the needs of Colorado's Native American population for STEPP. Michele later worked on the independent evaluation of the STEPP program and helped develop the Colorado Clinical Guidelines Collaborative (CCGC) tobacco project. She has continued working on CCGC's tobacco control project recently planning and managing the expansion to a lead agency for healthcare provider education.