Join Caring as Communities on this mini-series interviewing the frontline community health navigators supporting our nation’s most vulnerable patients. In this episode, Jessica Placencia shares the catalyst for her career change from EMS services to care navigation and the role of small misses in creating barriers to big change.
You can listen to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, and our platform hosting site, Buzzsprout.
Jessica grew up in Arizona, went to college at University of Arizona right out of high school thinking she wanted to study law. After a few poor choices and questionable decisions, she dropped out and moved back home. After a few years, Jessica became an EMT initially and worked for a little over 10 years as one. Jessica met her husband in a volunteer firefighters academy then they worked together as EMTs at the same company. They have an 11-year-old daughter and have been together for 13 years . After seeing the same people over and over, Jessica wanted to do more so she went back to school to get her bachelor’s degree in public health.
After starting with CBCS, Jessica was able to get her master’s in healthcare administration with a focus in Informatics. Currently she is working on her PhD in Healthcare Administration.
