Keith Mueller, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator

Keith J. Mueller is the Gerhard Hartman Professor in Health Management and Policy, in the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa. He is also the Director of the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI) and its Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis, and Chair of the RUPRI Health Panel. He has served as President of the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) and as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services. He has also served on national advisory committees to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the National Institutes of Health. He has published more than 300 scholarly articles and policy papers, and received awards recognizing his research contributions from NRHA, RUPRI, and the Universities of Nebraska and Iowa. His PhD is in Political Science from The University of Arizona, and he completed a Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellowship with The Johns Hopkins University. He has participated in numerous discussions of how secure health services in rural communities, including testimony on key policy considerations in rural health to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in 2019 and 2024.

A. Clinton (Clint) MacKinney, MD, MS
Principal Investigator

Dr. MacKinney has worked in health care for 40 years, spending the first 14 years as a rural family physician practicing the full scope of family medicine. He has experience owning a private practice as well as working within a large healthcare system. Currently, he serves as a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Iowa and is a principal on the Rural Health Value team. As a consultant and researcher, he has worked with over 100 rural hospitals. Additionally, Dr. MacKinney is the Chief Medical Officer for Cibolo Health, a firm that implements and supports rural clinically integrated networks. He completed his clinical career as an emergency department physician in rural Minnesota. His professional interests include rural health system transformation, healthcare value, physician-administration relationships, healthcare financing and payment, and rural health policy. Clint and his wife, Ellen, have two grown sons and live in rural Wisconsin with their dog, Remy.

Jennifer Lundblad, PhD, MBA
Principal Investigator

Jennifer Lundblad has served as President and CEO of Stratis Health for nearly 20 years. Dr. Lundblad has an extensive background in leadership, organization development, and program management in both non-profit and education settings. Her doctoral dissertation research was Teamwork and Safety Climates in Small Rural Hospitals, and she has published articles in peer reviewed journals on topics related to health quality and organizational change. She brings to Rural Health Value expertise in change management, dissemination of innovation, process and workflow analysis and redesign, rural-specific quality measurement, and organizational culture improvement across the continuum of care. Dr. Lundblad is a member of the national RUPRI (Rural Policy Research Institute) Health Panel, the University of Minnesota’s Rural Health Research Center Expert Workgroup, the NRHA Age-Friendly Interest Group, and serves on various other national and local boards and in committee leadership positions. She has an adjunct assistant professor appointment at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Karla Weng, MPH, CPHQ
Principal Investigator

Karla Weng, MPH, CPHQ is a Director of Program Management for Stratis Health, providing expertise to a variety of initiatives focused on rural providers and communities. For more than 20 years, Karla has worked on a wide variety of efforts helping rural hospitals and providers improve quality, patient safety, and population health such as development of palliative care services, implementation of quality management methods, preventing readmissions, and clinical quality efforts on topics such heart failure and diabetes. Karla has been leading the technical assistance efforts for the Rural Health Value team since 2012 and was the project director for the FORHP funded Rural Quality Improvement Technical Assistance program from 2015 – 2023.

Karla is a past-president of the Minnesota Rural Health Association, was a 2008 National Rural Health Association Fellow, and previously served as adjunct faculty for the University of Minnesota - Crookston in Health Policy. Karla has a master’s degree in public health administration from the University of Minnesota, an undergraduate degree in community health education from Minnesota State University Moorhead, and is a certified professional in health care quality.

Whitney Zahnd, Ph.D.
Senior Researcher

Whitney Zahnd is an assistant professor of health management and policy and deputy director of the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Her research focuses on addressing rural access to care, rural cancer disparities, and social drivers of health in healthcare settings. She is a 2021 National Rural Health Association (NRHA) Rural Health Fellow, member of the NRHA Rural Health Policy Congress, and chair of the Journal of Rural Health editorial board. She serves as the president of the Iowa Rural Health Association board. Prior to joining the University of Iowa faculty, Dr. Zahnd completed post-doctoral training and served as research faculty at the Rural & Minority Health Research Center at the University of South Carolina and worked as a master’s trained researcher at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. She received her bachelor’s degree in microbiology and master’s and doctoral degrees in community health, all from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Kristin D. Wilson, PhD, MHA
Senior Researcher

Kristin D. Wilson grew up in rural Iowa and after completing her MHA degree, embarked on a career in health care leadership and public health. Upon completing her PhD in Health Management and Policy, her scholarly and consulting/subject matter expertise work has focused on the intersection and collaboration between health care delivery, public health, and social care. She has held leadership positions in health care related organizations and has led initiatives focusing on coalitions, leadership, community benefit, and the intersection of health care delivery, public health, and social care on the local, state, national, and international levels. She has held various academic leadership positions and is currently the Director of the MHA Program at the University of Iowa. She emphasizes the development of emerging health care leaders and fosters cross-sector collaborations to improve population health, particularly in rural areas. In addition to volunteering on community and professional committees and boards, she enjoys world travel, cooking, gardening, music, golf, and DIY experiences, often shared with family and friends.

Kelly O’Neill, RN, BSN, MPA
Program Leader

Kelly O’Neill brings depth of experience in healthcare quality and safety and in leading broad national partner collaboration. She has led and worked with local, state, and national teams on initiatives to improve safety in hospitals, to improve rural health, to improve the quality of care in nursing homes, to advance health equity, and to advance the adoption of evidence-based practices for care and treatment of persons with opioid use disorder. She has served as an implementation advisor for hospitals and clinics working on AHRQ safety initiatives on topics such as falls prevention and antibiotic stewardship. Ms. O’Neill is committed to honoring patients’ rights and nursing home residents’ rights and preferences and has served on CMS Technical Expert panels on Systems Thinking and Person Directed Care in Nursing Homes. She has also served on AHRQ’s Technical Expert Panel for surveys on patient safety culture. She is a Team STEPPS instructor and trained in Just Culture principles and processes. Ms. O’Neill has a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing and a Master of Public and Nonprofit Administration degree.