Roxanne Tena-Nelson, JD/MPH, President & Founder
With more than 30 years of experience in strategy, management and policy, Roxanne brings strategic insight into board governance and health care services, and practical expertise into payment issues and innovative solutions.
Prior to founding Salud Pathways LLC, she served as the senior advisor on continuing care issues at the Greater New York Hospital Association and President of the affiliated Continuing Care Leadership Coalition. As a lead executive in a complex health care organization, she navigated a changing policy and payment landscape forging coalitions or collaborations among a myriad of stakeholders on a broad range of issues: innovation, technology, care coordination, government reimbursement, quality improvement, emergency preparedness, board governance, leadership development, corporate compliance, and other legal and regulatory issues.
Early career experiences included work at a Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, teaching health care law at Adelphi University, writing about aging issues at the World Health Organization, and researching health care issues at the major teaching hospital, UPMC.
Roxanne received her Juris Doctorate and Master of Public Health degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, and her Bachelor of Arts from The Johns Hopkins University.
Who is Salud?
Salud means health in Spanish, and Salud Blasco Tena was Roxanne’s grandmother and the inspiration for a career in continuing care policy. Grandma Salud hailed from the Philippines, raised nine children, taught first grade, established a thriving real estate business, and moved to the U.S. to help her eldest son raise his five children. Salud and Roxanne built their strong intergenerational relationship living in the same house and sharing a room. When Roxanne was in college, Roxanne cared for Salud when she had Alzheimer’s Disease, the experience that launched Roxanne’s commitment to serving older and disabled individuals as a career.
Salud Pathways inspired by Salud, strong intergenerational relationships, caring kindness, and pathways needed to explore and solve critical issues in health care and beyond.