Gabriela Labraña, MPH

Gabriela Labraña started her career in Public Health by stumbling onto a degree program in Health Disparities at UC Santa Cruz in 2008. That program opened her eyes to the impact the healthcare system and public health has on the lives of every human. Since then, she has gone on to earn her Master’s Degree in Public Health from UCLA, focusing on program development for community health promotion. For the past seven years, she has been working at CenCal Health, implementing innovative health promotion programs to improve the health and quality of life for the communities she works with and serves, including an award-winning immunization program, an innovative asthma educational program, and various other member and provider-facing educational interventions.

Rachel Ponce, BA

Rachel Ponce is the Supervisor of Population Health at CenCal Health. Ms. Ponce develops, implements, and leads quality improvement and population health programs to improve health equity and clinical care. She leads a team that has oversight of over fifty population health programs including quality improvement and regulatory requirements. The programs she oversees address preventive care, chronic conditions, maternal care, mental health, and social determinants of health. These programs include various activities such as member outreach, health promotion, incentives, community partnerships, and system-wide transformation. She is working to expand her programs across the continuum of care.

Prior to joining CenCal Health, Ms. Ponce worked as an Assistant Health Center Director at Planned Parenthood California Central Coast.  As the Assistant Center Director, Ms. Ponce was responsible for oversight of daily health center operations and clinical staff trainings across the organization. In this capacity she was a subject matter expert regarding improving health center flow and efficiency to ensure patients received timely and comprehensive care.  She was also integral in the development and launch of their Electronic Medical Records system.

Ms. Ponce’s experience in health care is diverse including clinical expertise, technical experience, analytics, quality measurement and improvement, as well as population health. Moreover, all of her experience is based in her compassion for the people she serves – members, providers, and her community. She has held leadership positions in community service groups and regularly partners with community organizations such as the Rotary Club and the American Cancer Society.

Ms. Ponce earned her BA in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from the University of California Santa Barbara. She is also a Change Agent Network Scholar from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Open School I-CAN Leadership Program.