Alexa Ortiz

Alexa Ortiz, MSN, RN is a health communication strategist who is passionate about the creation, dissemination, adoption, and evaluation of public health interventions that address patient educational needs and target gaps within the current U.S. health care system. As a registered nurse with several years of experience in inpatient and outpatient care, Ms. Ortiz has firsthand knowledge of how effective communication-focused interventions can address barriers to care and improve patient outcomes.

Ms. Ortiz’s prior work includes leading the media strategies update alongside the development and distribution of multimedia communication materials (i.e., social media content, e-mail outreach, newsletters) for the Community Benefit Insight (CBI) initiative. CBI is a web-based tool that enables hospitals, communities, and members of the public to examine hospitals’ community benefit spending allocations and compare these allocations with those made by other institutions serving comparable communities. Ms. Ortiz has also contributed to the multisite implementation and mixed-methods evaluation of Positive Health Check, a video counseling intervention that delivered highly tailored prevention messages to people living with HIV during their primary care clinic appointments.

Ms. Ortiz currently serves as the lead clinic liaison for the implementation evaluation of the Red Carpet Entry (RCE) program, a structural intervention that facilitates rapid linkage to HIV medical care, for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). To assist CDC in preparing the RCE program for large-scale implementation as an HIV care best practice, RTI is creating an implementation toolkit and digital training modules, supporting the implementation of RCE in two communities at elevated risk for HIV in the U.S., evaluating key implementation strategies, and revising and finalizing implementation materials based on this evaluation and clinic staff input.

Ms. Ortiz joined RTI in 2015. Her notable publications include The Development and Management of Community Benefit Insight and Implementing web-based interventions in HIV primary care clinics, Effectiveness of an Interactive, Highly Tailored “Video Doctor” Intervention to Suppress Viral Load and Retain Patients With HIV in Clinical Care: A Randomized Clinical Trial.