Member Spotlight: Raisa Velasquez
This month the Member Spotlight is on Raisa Velasquez, Quality and Training Manager at Mount Sinai FPA Access Center. Learn more about Raisa below. Want to be a part of our PAC Member Spotlight? Fill out the form here or click here and email completed form to admin@patientaccesscollaborative.net.
How long have you been a member of the Patient Access Collaborative?: Not long but I have engaged with the organization and its content through my department leadership since 2017.
What do you like about being a member?: I appreciate that we at Mount Sinai are part of this organization, the collaboration across the nation to improve access and sharing best practices, wrapped around our central purpose of caring for our patients.
How has your career benefited from being a member?: My career has benefited from the Patient Access Collaborative because I am able to collaborate with members and share guidelines that assist in enhancing Access Center Quality programs across organizations.
What tips or advice would you give new members?: I would encourage new members to embrace the resources and knowledge shared by PAC and seek to collaborate with other members.
What do you love most about your job?: What I love most about my job is the unique blend of forward-thinking leadership, data analysis and the embrace of digital tools. I am passionate about leadership and have studied it for a long time, so I feel incredibly privileged to have a wonderful team and department that allow me to bring those skills to life.
What meaningful project are you working on right now?: I am working on honing into the opportunities that lie with coaching and mentoring my team to assume the training of coordinator classes. I see value in the planning and execution of this from beginning to end, between the critical thinking, teamwork, and agility it will require of my team. My staff will gain portable skills that will pay dividends into their future careers as leaders and professionals in the workforce, and our department will gain leverage by the dynamic buildup of this team's skills.
What career advice do you live by?: It does not matter if you are the smartest person in the room, the purpose of knowledge is to be able to transfer that knowledge in a meaningful way to ideas, people, and things. This is key to create, inspire and lead change.
Where are you from? Where did you go to school? I was born in the city of La Paz, Bolivia in South America and I’ve lived most of my life in New Jersey. I went to Drew University in Madison New Jersey.
What are your hobbies?: I enjoy baking, meditation, strength training (including being a jump rope fanatic) and I am an art enthusiast.
Where is your favorite place you've travelled?: Part of my undergraduate coursework included studying and later visiting the United Arab Emirates. It is a fascinating country mostly known for Dubai and Abu Dhabi, that has been dramatically shaped by the economic boom. It contains an interesting population demographic breakdown, fascinating cultural and social aspects, and the unforgettable deserts and daily 100-degree plus weather.
What's a fun fact that people probably don't know about you?: I had not tried McDonald’s until I was 21 years old - my college friends found this discovery absolutely unacceptable and rushed me to the closest chain.
Who inspires you and why?: Douglas Connant (former CEO of Campbell Soup Company, president of Nabisco Foods, former Fortune 500 CEO) has an amazing story of a failure he faced mid-career when he was fired, and how that event set forth a series of changes and lessons including: self-reflection, untapped potential, the power of empathy and most notably to me: overcoming the sense of feeling defined by his introverted and shy nature. He offers a different perspective which is to look within and find those people in our lives (be it personally or professionally), that have inspired and shaped us – and tells us to strive to be that, for those you lead. It is a way to craft your own “leadership story” that is born from within rather than from external sources, and I find this incredibly empowering.