PathCheck Foundation announces the election of Kristen Valdes, Founder and CEO of b.well Connected Health to its Board of Directors.
CAMBRIDGE, MA - November 28th, 2022 - PathCheck Foundation, a nonprofit started at MIT to develop open source solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic, announces the election of Kristen Valdes, Founder and CEO of b.well Connected Health to its Board of Directors. A seasoned healthcare executive with over 20 years in the industry, Valdes will be instrumental in guiding and advising the foundation during its next phase of growth.
“Kristen’s breadth of experience in the healthcare industry and her unwavering commitment to consumer-directed healthcare will be instrumental as PathCheck steps into its next phase,” said President, Graham Dodge. “We are excited to have such talent join our board that will underscore our mission to bring solutions forward that enable citizens to inform and protect their health.”
Valdes's career has focused on providing quality healthcare to underserved populations in the United States. When her middle child experienced a significant autoimmune disorder, Valdes set out to create a solution that supports patients as they navigate the overly complex and fragmented healthcare system that exists today.
“I feel very strongly that people deserve to be empowered consumers when it comes to their health,” said Kristen Valdes, Founder, and CEO, b.well. “I share the same outlook as PathCheck and I am looking forward to supporting the foundation as it uses lessons learned from COVID-19 to help citizens become their own advocates through access and understanding of health data.”
Prior to b.well, Valdes was a Vice President at United Healthcare running Medicare Advantage plans across 12 states. Kristen started her healthcare career working with CMS on the first national payment integrity programs for Medicare and Medicaid. Kristen then helped to build XLHealth, one of the pioneering Medicare Advantage Plans for the chronically ill. She was responsible for maintaining and growing the profitability of the plan and was instrumental in the acquisition by United Healthcare in late 2012 for $2.4B.
She has been recognized as one of four "Women Transforming Industries," by Accenture and Springboard Enterprises, is a 40 Under 40 Top Named Healthcare Innovator and b.well Connected Health has won various competitions and awards including being named Top Innovator by Accenture in their Global Health Tech Innovation Challenge. Her dedication to consumer-directed health exchange is reflected in her active involvement as a board member of the CARIN Alliance working to liberate data on behalf of consumers. Kristen also serves on several other healthcare boards, advisory boards and serves as an advisor to Springboard and Guidewell women-led companies.
PathCheck Foundation is known for applying NoPeek Privacy frameworks to open source tools for COVID-19 response and most recently published Digital Documentation on COVID-19 Certificates (DDCC) for the World Health Organization (WHO) which impacts ~2 billion COVID Verifiable QR Codes.
About PathCheck Foundation:
Founded at MIT in March 2020 by Dr. Ramesh Raskar, PhD and a small, passionate team of social entrepreneurs. PathCheck rapidly evolved to a network of over 3,000 professional and student volunteers conducting research and development for pandemic response. For more information, please visit: https://www.pathcheck.org