Waymark was founded to create more accessible and equitable pathways to better health for people receiving Medicaid benefits. In service to this mission, our core values guide how our teams operate in their daily work to execute on this mission: 

• We act with focused urgency.
• We are bold builders.
• We are humble learners.
• We experiment to improve.

We’re excited to share the winners of our annual Core Value Awards, given to eight Waymarkers who – based on nominations from their peers – embody these values in the work they do every day for the patients, providers, partners, and communities we serve.

Focused Urgency: Griffin Myers and Melissa Jacobs

Griffin Myers, one of Waymark’s Virginia-based Care Coordinators, was nominated for her focused and immediate responses to patient needs – as well as her strong advocacy for patients in healthcare settings.

“She reaches out immediately when a patient needs something from us or from a provider, goes above and beyond to make sure our patients actually bridge with the correct external resources or internal team members, and is amazing to work with,” wrote a peer nominator. “I truly can't think of anyone else for focused urgency.”

Senior Associate for Care Model & Quality Melissa Jacobs received this award for the focus and enthusiasm she brings to Waymark’s internal workflow testing and approval projects. While motivating collaborators toward the shared goal of ensuring Waymark’s care teams can reach more patients faster, she remains passionate about the impact her work has on patients and communities.

“Most recently, she tirelessly pursued a project around improving Pharmacy Outreach Optimization so that each market pharmacy team doesn’t have to recreate the wheel each time a new MCO is added or new data becomes available,” added a nominator. “She has spearheaded this initiative with focused urgency and motivation to help our pharmacy services reach out to the patients who need help the most.”

Bold Builders: Bracie Vose and Parth Sheth

Bracie Vose, one of Waymark’s Washington-based Community Health Workers, received this award for her above-and-beyond approach to in-person care delivery. Nominators noted how Bracie built her own tailored approach to patient care; she approaches each patient’s needs with an open mind and works with them to ensure they’re addressed, no matter how specific

“She’s helped a patient log back into their student portal and access financial aid, sent a patient with mobility challenges online apps/videos for chair exercises, and found an air filter for a patient with poorly controlled asthma and environmental exposures,” wrote one peer nominator. “And, despite living far from many patients she works with, she makes an effort to visit in person to support any needs.”

Similarly, Waymark’s Senior Data Scientist Parth Sheth was nominated for his approach to solutions development and collaboration across Waymark’s Data Science team. In his role, Parth had contributed significantly to Waymark’s clinical efficacy – and has redefined Waymark’s tech capabilities in the process.

“His impact as the first Data Scientist on this team sets the bar high for everyone else,” one nominator wrote. “He’s so quick to develop solutions and get everyone aligned on not only the effect of the solution, but the feasibility and implementation of it too.”

Humble Learners: Silu Zuo and Margalit De Gosztonyi

Washington Clinical Pharmacist Lead Silu Zuo was honored for her consistently rapid response times to care team and patient needs, and her ability to work cross-functionally to ensure care team members had the information they needed to make a positive impact on a patient’s outcomes.

“It’s almost hard to name a single example because quick work is the standard she sets,” one nominator wrote. “Silu often feels like a sort of glue between different care team disciplines, and her insights and responsiveness help us all do better work.”

Waymark’s VP of Implementation Margalit De Gosztonyi received this award thanks to her tireless work building sustainable external partnerships and cross-functional internal workflows to ensure Waymark’s ongoing success as the company enters new markets.

“She does not hesitate to seek thought partnership when she gets stuck driving forward progress during particularly challenging phases of implementations,” said one nominator. “She constantly seeks feedback and perspectives different from her own to iterate and improve upon our approach to implementations, with no pride in authorship but rather a genuine desire to maximize our organizational success.”

Experimenting to Improve: Iman Rahim and Jeffrey Tingen

Iman Rahim, Waymark’s VP of Marketing, received this award to honor his ongoing commitment to testing, evaluating, and iterating on the many ways Waymark engages patients and partners. From testing new patient outreach strategies to targeted event marketing efforts, Iman creates and iterates on processes and approaches with the goal of ensuring Waymark is driving actionable change for our audiences.

“He learns from every experience and incorporates it into future planning,” wrote one nominator. “Marketing is an ever-changing industry, and Iman consistently shows an ongoing commitment to ensuring that the Marketing team experiments with new methods and mechanisms that will equip Waymark to better share our story.”

Similarly, Jeffrey Tingen – Waymark’s Virginia-based Clinical Pharmacist Lead – has led the evolution of Waymark’s approach to care delivery throughout Richmond and Hampton Roads. He was nominated for his proactive approach to team leadership and how that has positively impacted his colleagues; nominators noted his always-on desire to ensure care delivery meetings went beyond results reporting to problem-solving and solutions development that support the efforts of every care delivery function.

“The VA Care Delivery meetings have evolved so much since the launch of Waymark in our market,” added one nominator. “Thanks to Jeffrey’s commitment to pursuing results, we have arrived at a place where our meetings inspire more insightful conversations around the care we are delivering to our patients.”

Congratulations to all our Core Value Award winners – and thank you for your valuable work!