Sara Schmitt

Sara Schmitt is the Managing Director of Research, Evaluation, and Consulting at the Colorado Health Institute. She joined CHI in January 2012. She supports the development and execution of CHI’s research, evaluation, and consulting portfolios.

Sara provides strategic support and facilitation for the Metro Denver Partnership for Health (MDPH), a multisector collaboration to advance health in the metro Denver area. She also leads CHI’s work on the Colorado Health Observation Regional Data Service (CHORDS), a network of health and public health partners working together to use electronic health record data to support public health monitoring and evaluation. In this role, she facilitates CHORDS governance activities and oversees network development and expansion.

In 2019, Sara led CHI's work facilitating the environmental scan for hospital partners participating in the MDPH Public Health-Health Systems Collaboration Work Group as part of the Hospital Transformation Program.

Before joining CHI, Sara was a policy analyst at the Colorado Rural Health Center, the state office of rural health, and recruited physicians and other medical professionals for clinics and hospitals in Colorado’s rural and underserved regions. She spent several years in managed care and program development at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She also has worked in policy advocacy and provided supportive services for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Sara earned a bachelor’s degree from DePaul University and a master’s degree in health administration and policy from the University of Chicago. 

Sample Projects:

• Colorado Health IT Roadmap
• The Anti-Hunger Community Toolkit
• The Value of Partnership: How Colorado's Co-Responder Programs Enhance Access to Behavioral Health Care
• Telemedicine research
• Colorado Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Needs Assessment

Skills: Facilitation and convening, evaluation, data and information governance, needs assessment.

Focus Areas:

• Multisector collaboration
• Public health and prevention
• Health information technology

I Do This Work Because… Every one of us has had an experience related to health that has changed our lives, or the lives of those around us. I work to inform and advance sound health policy so that I may stay connected with those experiences and shape the ones yet to come.