The Policy Nexus: Analytics & Equity

Recent industry reports from Becker’s Healthcare highlight a massive shift: insurers like UnitedHealth and Elevance are betting over $2.5 billion on AI to automate everything from prior authorizations to member navigation. By 2026, systems like 'Avery' are expected to reach 20 million members . While the efficiency gains are touted at 70% , as a researcher in Administrative Chrononormativity , I must ask: Who is auditing the data behind these gains? Efficiency without equity is simply the automation of erasure. My work with the EACAD and DACLAC has already uncovered significant 'blind spot' data, such as the 38% of LGBTQIA+ elders who fear they won't qualify for services. If these $2.5 billion systems are trained on exclusionary historical data, they will continue to penalize Black and LGBTQ+ communities at scale. At The Policy Nexus , we advocate for a new standard: AI information oversight.  We must move toward frameworks that ensure the 'administrative c...

In the world of public policy, we are taught to worship at the altar of the One Best Way. We strive for systems that are streamlined, predictable, and, above all, efficient. But as we dig into the intellectual foundations of public administration, we find that our modern obsession with standardized timelines began with Frederick Winslow Taylor . The Birth of the Stopwatch Culture In the late 19th century, Taylor transformed the factory floor into a laboratory. By using a stopwatch to break down human movement into measurable units, he birthed scientific management  (or Taylorism). His goal was noble in a vacuum: to eliminate the greatest misfortune of the era, inefficiency. Taylor’s 1911 masterpiece essay,  The Principles of Scientific Management , established the rules that still govern our bureaucracies today: Every action must be timed and optimized. There is only one right way to perform a task. Management thinks and schedules; the worker executes. The Policy Nexus: When ...

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The relationship between public universities and the communities they serve is reaching a critical inflection point. As institutional costs rise and perceptions of political bias take hold, the trust gap between higher education and the public continues to widen. I recently attended a webinar that explored these very tensions, offering a roadmap for how institutions can move from technical compliance toward genuine relational bureaucracy. The discussion featured a distinguished panel of leaders who have spent decades navigating the intersection of academic mission and public accountability: E. Gordon Gee: Former President of West Virginia University and a seminal voice in university leadership. David Rosowsky: Senior Advisor to the President at Arizona State University and expert in the "New American University" design. Stephen M. Gavazzi: Director of CHRR at The Ohio State University and a leading researcher on the land-grant mission. Key Themes: Why Trust is Faltering Th...

The conversation often focuses on efficiency as we rush to adopt agentic AI tools like Google’s Project Astra, which not only answer questions but also take independent actions. We talk about AI partners that can schedule our lives and manage our professional logistics. But in the public sector, we have to ask a harder question: When an AI agent takes an action, who is exercising discretion?   Recently, my colleague Annie Bui (DPA-C) shared a fascinating look at the future of these universal AI assistants. Her post sparked a vital question about how these tools fit into our daily professional lives as public administrators and researchers.                                       View the original discussion on LinkedIn  As a DPA student and public commissioner, I look at these tools through the lens of Administrative Chrononormativity . Institutional timelines are already rigid; they ...