Theory Case Study: Anita Despues-Watson At LA Care Health Plan

One of our assigned mentors was Anita Despues-Watson at LA Care Health Plan. Anita works as a director, within the provider network management department. As the director of this department, Anita worked to manage contracting different medical groups/networks to LA Care. She discussed with us the inner workings of her position at LA Care and what she has done in the past. It was evident, through her job experience and current management position. Not only did she hold management positions within LA Care, she had leadership qualities that were discussed in our theory class. These leadership qualities include the ability to “empower others, maximizes workforce effectiveness, and implements planned change for improvement within a system” (Marquis & Huston, 2015).

Anita demonstrated that she held these qualities through her interactions with other employees. I believe that Anita could be classified as a transformational leader because she “empowered others, inspired others with vision, and had long-term vision” (Marquis & Huston, 2015). Lastly, a concept that was discussed within our theory class was

LA Care utilized case management within their health plans. Care management is defined as “collaborative process that assesses, plans, implements, coordinates, monitors, and evaluates options and services to meet an individual’s health needs through communication and available resources to promote quality, cost-effective outcomes” (Marquis & Huston, 2015). This was something that we observed with another mentor Richard Meadows, who was within the medical management department. He, along with the multidisciplinary team, worked to case manage members of LA Care. As its definition states, the team worked to thoroughly assess the members using the Four Quadrant method. Together, the team discussed care planning, in order to implement these resources and address the needs of the