Kamala Allen, MHS

Vice President, Program Operations and Director, Child Health Quality
kallen@chcs.org

Kamala Allen is the vice president for program operations and director for child health quality at the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS). In these roles, Ms. Allen is responsible for ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of the organizational infrastructure that supports programs, overseeing CHCS’ child-focused efforts, and the direction and financial management of several multi-year initiatives. She has extensive experience in the application of quality improvement methodologies and the use of managed care in public child-serving systems.

Ms. Allen has served in previous roles as associate director for special projects for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Medicaid Managed Care Program — where she oversaw the development and execution of state agency training in health care measurement and quality — and as associate director for program analysis and communications. Prior to that, she was a program analyst in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Office of Program Development, and project coordinator for the Centers for Disease Control’s Maryland Center for Adolescent Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, where she co-developed and oversaw the implementation of a school-based health promotion curriculum in two Baltimore middle schools. Ms. Allen serves as a member of several advisory and expert panels and is a member of the National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health’s Board of Directors.

Ms. Allen holds a master of health science in maternal and child health from the Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Hygiene and Public Health. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a concentration in developmental disabilities from the University of California at Los Angeles.