Mapping Healthcare Access: Lessons from Tennessee’s Medicaid System

Originally inspired by work completed while pursuing graduate studies at Princeton University.

One of the most rewarding aspects of public policy is the opportunity to use data not simply to describe problems, but to improve people’s lives. During graduate school, I had the opportunity to work on a project examining healthcare access across the state of Tennessee. The project focused on TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program, and sought to better understand how healthcare providers were distributed across the state and what challenges existed for smaller, low-volume medical practices.

At first glance, the project appeared highly technical. Our team was tasked with helping TennCare officials think about reforms intended to improve healthcare quality while controlling costs. Specifically, we examined how the state might better engage smaller healthcare providers in new care delivery models. These reforms aimed to improve outcomes for patients with chronic conditions while reducing unnecessary healthcare spending.

To support this effort, we traveled to Tennessee and met with healthcare providers, government officials, researchers, insurers, and community advocates throughout the state. These conversations provided an important reminder that data alone rarely tells the entire story. People do.

Doctor checking patient's blood pressure | Photo by Nappy on Unsplash

The maps and analyses we ultimately produced were informed not only by claims data and geographic information systems (GIS) but also by the experiences and perspectives of those working directly within the healthcare system every day.

My portion of the project focused on spatial analysis. Using mapping tools, I examined the geographic distribution of low-volume healthcare providers, healthcare spending patterns, emergency room visits, inpatient admissions, and other factors affecting costs throughout Tennessee. The goal was to identify patterns that might help policymakers design more effective interventions.

One lesson quickly became apparent: geography matters. Communities often experience challenges differently depending on where they are located. Rural and urban areas may face distinct obstacles. Access to services can vary dramatically. Resources that appear sufficient on paper may be difficult to access in practice.

Mapping these patterns helped reveal relationships that would have been difficult to identify through spreadsheets alone. Yet the most important lesson from this project had little to do with maps. It was the realization that effective policy requires both analytical rigor and human understanding. The healthcare providers we met were not simply data points. They were professionals working within complex systems while trying to meet the needs of patients facing real challenges. Likewise, the patients represented in the data were not abstract statistics. They were individuals navigating illness, financial constraints, transportation barriers, and other obstacles affecting their health and wellbeing.

This experience reinforced my belief that data should serve people rather than the other way around. Indeed, the most meaningful solutions often emerge when data and human experience inform one another.

Over the course of my career, I have repeatedly returned to this principle. Whether analyzing educational outcomes, assessing humanitarian programs, evaluating fundraising efforts, or exploring organizational performance, data becomes most valuable when it helps us better understand the people and communities we seek to serve.

Today, that lesson continues to shape how I approach leadership. Strong leaders rely on evidence and analysis to inform decision-making. They seek patterns, measure outcomes, and evaluate results. At the same time, they recognize that numbers tell only part of the story. Effective leadership requires listening, relationship-building, and a willingness to understand the lived experiences behind the data.

The TennCare project offered an early opportunity to bridge these two perspectives. It demonstrated how analytical tools can illuminate challenges and identify opportunities. More importantly, it reinforced the importance of approaching public policy, and leadership more broadly, with both curiosity and humility.

That remains one of the most enduring lessons from this work.

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Interested in the full analysis?

Download the original project examining TennCare’s low-volume healthcare providers and the role of spatial analysis in informing healthcare policy decisions across Tennessee.