nriAHEC Staff

Executive Director
Yvette M. Mendez
YvetteM@northernriahec.org

Yvette has been the Executive Director at Northern Rhode Island Area Health Education Center (nriAHEC) since April 2006. During this time, she established the organization as an independent 501 © 3 corporation. She has lead the organization in establishing a board of directors, strategic planning and program development.

In the fall of 2006, Ms. Mendez was approached by the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University to be a Small Group Faculty/Behavioral Scientist for first year medical students. Her role is to teach interview skills, cultural humility and other skills in a small group setting.

Prior to arriving at nriAHEC, Ms. Mendez was the Project Manager of the Su Salud project at Neighborhood Health Plan of RI. She managed a three year, one million dollar Hablamos Juntos grant funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Hablamos Juntos is the national program office that supports ten health care organizations working to improve health care for Latinos by breaking down language barriers that can compromise the over all quality of care. The project focused on essential benchmarks for improving health care services mainly to increase the availability and quality of interpretation services for Latino patients.

Additionally, Ms. Mendez continues to play a key part in assisting the Community College of Rhode Island in establishing the first health interpreter training program in Rhode Island. The program consists of 3-semesters where students are taught Basic Medical knowledge & terminology in Spanish and English as well as the Principles of Medical Interpreting (Ethics & Confidentiality). This program will enter its third year of operation in the fall of 2007.