Public Comments Matter: Supporting Data Standards and Interoperability

Friday, October 16, 2026

12 PM ET / 9 AM PT

Federal policies and regulations help shape the data standards that support health information exchange and interoperability. Public comments give stakeholders an opportunity to inform those policies and bring practical experience and community perspectives into the process.

This webinar will explain the federal rulemaking and public comment process, explore how participation across sectors can help inform effective policies that can be implemented in practice, and highlight opportunities to contribute meaningful comments.

Moderator & Panelist

Courtney Lang

Founder and Principal

Langco + Partners |Data Equity Coalition

Courtney@langcopartners.com

linkedin.com/in/courtneylangjd

Courtney Lang is a strategic communications and policy expert with extensive experience transforming advocacy, grassroots mobilization, and high-impact stakeholder engagements. She is the founder and principal of Langco + Partners, a health justice public affairs firm dedicated to building and activating coalitions that accelerate solutions for care across the health delivery system.

A nationally recognized advocate and accomplished change agent, Courtney has advised a wide range of corporate and nonprofit organizations on affordability, inclusion, and access to care. Her leadership has shaped major public health campaigns, accelerated care navigation, and strengthened the interface between physicians, pharmacists, public health leaders, and the patients they collectively serve. She convenes the Data Equity Coalition, bringing together multi-sector partners to advance and harmonize equitable data standards, strengthen data disaggregation, and elevate intersectional identity across research, clinical care, and policy.

She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Trinity Health and recently served as a Board Director for Mental Health America, and adjunct professor of Media Law at her alma mater, Pepperdine University.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Pepperdine University, a Juris Doctor from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, and a certificate in Comparative Health Law and Policy from St. Anne’s College, Oxford University.

Panelists

Chinonye Onwunli

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

Legislative and Regulatory Policy Director

Chinonye.Onwunli@bcbsa.com

Chinonye Onwunli is a Lecturer of Health Administration at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. She is Managing Director, Health Information Technology Policy at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA). Prior to BCBSA she was a Senior Policy Analyst and Branch Chief at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, now Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (ASTP) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Her work has covered Health IT regulation and policy development, in both the government and the private sector. Prior to her work at HHS, Chinonye was a Senior Analyst at the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) a non-partisan legislative branch agency that provides policy and data analysis and makes recommendations to Congress, the Secretary of HHS, and the states on issues affecting Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Before moving to Washington D.C., she was a Medicaid expenditure analyst with Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration where she worked on implementing the state’s Long-Term Care Managed Care program and evaluating Florida’s long-term care waivers. Chinonye was an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow 2019-2020. She holds a Master of Public Health with a concentration in health policy from the University of South Florida. She also holds a Master of Science in Political Science and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Florida State University.

Amy Vertal

Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Senior Program Manager, Census and Data Equity

vertal@civilrights.org

Amy Vertal is Senior Program Manager for Census and Data Equity at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. In this role, Amy coordinates the Census Counts coalition's work to advocate for a fair and accurate 2030 Census. She also co-manages The Leadership Conference Education Fund’s Data Disaggregation Action Network, which seeks to improve race and ethnicity data collection and advance data equity at all levels of government. Prior to joining The Leadership Conference, Amy served as a Policy Advisor to the Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives in the New York City Mayor’s Office, where she worked on several key economic justice and civil rights initiatives.

Previously, Amy was a Community Grants Manager for New York City’s Complete Count Fund for the 2020 Census, where she supported community-based organization grantees conducting census outreach in persistently undercounted New York City communities. Amy holds a Master of Public Health in Community Health and Social Sciences and has supported community-based participatory research projects on food environments, food insecurity, and meal practices among Medicaid-eligible Latino families in northern Manhattan and the Bronx.

Karthick Ramakrishnan, PhD

AAPI Data

Founder and Executive Director

Karthick Ramakrishnan, PhD, has served in leadership roles that span academia, government, public policy, and philanthropy. He is a research director and researcher at UC Berkeley and founder/executive director of AAPI Data, a nationally recognized publisher of demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. He is also the founder of Bolder Futures, a catalyst for intergenerational collaboration and social entrepreneurship and serves as President of the Princeton Club of Western Washington (PCWW).

Ramakrishnan previously served as Executive Director of California 100, a statewide effort that harnessed 20 research centers to envision and transform California’s next century across 15 issue areas. He also served for 4 years as the founding associate dean of UC Riverside’s School of Public Policy and for 19 years as a professor of political science and public policy. He has also served on the Boards of The California Endowment, the U.S. Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee (NAC), and The California Association of Nonprofits. Ramakrishnan also served as president of the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni, as chair of the California Commission on APIA Affairs for 6 years, founded and led the Center for Social Innovation at UC Riverside for 6 years, and founded and led for 3 years the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, an official section journal of the American Political Science Association.

Ramakrishnan has published many articles and 7 books, including Citizenship Reimagined (Cambridge, 2020) and Framing Immigrants (Russell Sage, 2016), and has written dozens of opeds and has appeared in nearly 3,000 news stories. Ramakrishnan was named to the Frederick Douglass 200 and is currently working on projects related to equitable futures and innovative governance. He holds a BA in international relations from Brown University and a PhD in politics from Princeton University.

More information at https://karthick.com.

Together, the Data Equity Coalition advances a shared vision of a healthcare system informed by robust and representative data, guided by diverse voices, and committed to serving all people with dignity, precision, and respect.

https://dataequitycoalition.com

Thank you: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blue-cross-and-blue-shield-association/

and https://www.linkedin.com/company/nmqf/