Meet the Team

Patrice Nicholes

Bureau Director
Health Information and Analysis Programs

[email protected] | (385) 244-8786

Ryan Christenson

Health Care Data Analyst - Analytics Team Lead

Ryan joined the Health Care Information and Analysis/Health Care Statistics program (HIA/HCS) in a research consultant/data analyst role. He performs data quality and reporting for the All Payer Claims Database and the Health Care Facilities Database and helps with process improvement and documentation.

Ryan's education includes a BS in Civil Engineering from BYU, graduate work in Transportation Engineering at Texas A&M University and an MBA from the University of Utah. Past work experience includes a first career in traffic and transportation engineering, during which he cemented a lifelong love of working with others, learning new skills and designing solutions for complex problems. He picked up presentation, spreadsheet/macro programming, database, XML, Javascript and other skills along the way.

Ryan’s second career has been focused on data, primarily in the healthcare industry, where he has had roles such as reporting analyst, quality assurance engineer, implementation engineer and business analyst. He also taught a SQL course at Ensign College for one semester. Most recently he has been at the Utah Department of Health in a unique position where he worked for the Division of Disease Control and Prevention’s Informatic Program, but was stationed at the Utah Health Information Network (UHIN), a private nonprofit that runs the primary health information exchange for healthcare providers in the state of Utah. This was a wonderful opportunity to get hands-on with a true “big data” environment, learn some valuable new skills such as R, and help his team gain insights about leveraging UHIN’s data to gain insights about several chronic disease conditions in Utah such as diabetes and hypertension.

When he’s not working, Ryan enjoys reading books (especially fantasy/sci fi and biographies), gardening, and family time / games of all sorts (croquet, volleyball, board/card games). He’s married with four children (three at home and one away at college).

Mike Martin

Compliance Manager

Mike has been with the Health Care Information and Analysis/Health Care Statistics program (HIA/HCS) since 2002. He currently works on the Business Team, performing several office functions including data privacy, compliance oversight, administrative rulemaking, project management and ERISA Opt-In. Mike serves as the HIA/HCS Records Officer and also provides assistance to the Data Use Subcommittee, a subcommittee of the Utah Health Data Committee. Mike is recognized as a Certified Public Manager in the State of Utah and is a Great Basin Public Health Scholar.

Mike graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in economics. Afterward, he received an MBA from the University of Phoenix. During his initial years with HIA/HCS, Mike managed several projects evaluating various Medicaid programs, created news releases announcing HDC products, co-authored a set of consumer reports using HDC data, worked as a Legislative Liaison for UDOH, and served as a part-time staff member for the UDOH Ombudsman Office.

Kimberly Partain McNamara

Senior Research Analyst

Kimberly is the Senior Research Analyst for the Health Care Information and Analysis/Health Care Statistics program (HIA/HCS). She joined the Utah Department of Health in 2000 as a Research Consultant for the Office of Public Health Assessment, where she spent 13 years before moving to her current role with HIA/HCS. During her time with OPHA, Kimberly was the manager of the Utah Health Status Survey and later worked on the IBIS project as the survey’s data manager. Kimberly’s main responsibilities and work with HIA/HCS include managing the CAHPS project, acting as Utah’s representative for the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), and working with facilities data. Her interests include all aspects of survey design and analysis, learning new programming languages and techniques, and the dissemination of data with end-users in mind.

Kimberly has a master’s degree in family ecology with an emphasis in environment and behavior and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Utah. She has over 20 years of SAS programming experience. In her spare time, she serves on the board of directors for the American Migraine Foundation as a patient advocate, is a Girl Scout leader, and works on designing her garden with her family. Her favorite week of the year is when she unplugs and spends time off grid with her family at the cabin her Grandpa built on a very cold creek, high in the Colorado Rockies.