Joy Stewart James

Senior Healthcare Consultant

YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
TBD

Joy Stewart-James, Ed.D. is currently a senior healthcare consultant with MISCHIAN LLC. She recently retired after 16 years at Sacramento State most recently serving as the Senior Associate Vice President for Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) overseeing a staff of 70+ employees and a budget of $12 million. She has extensive experience in strategic planning, change management, employee engagement, clinical operations, new facility construction, facility management, budget, and resource management.

Joy came to college health in August 2007 after working over twenty years for a large hospital health care system in Austin, TX overseeing ambulatory care clinics and several inpatient and outpatient departments.  Soon after joining Sacramento State, she oversaw the design and construction of a new state of the art health facility, The WELL, which opened in September 2010 and includes an urgent care medical clinic, primary care, women’s health, laboratory services, radiology, pharmacy, vision center, health education, counseling, psychiatry services, victim support services, and athletic training.  During her first two years, she successfully integrated health and counseling services and transitioned to a shared electronic health record which supports a holistic, interdisciplinary care model. 

Joy is dedicated to improving the patient experience and creating better healthcare consumers.  Student utilization of SHCS increased from 22% to 55% annually for health services and from 3% to 10% for mental health services through improved access and processes, advanced use of technology, and reducing redundancies.  SHCS is completely paperless and students can access appointments, view records, and message their providers via the patient portal.  Students are routinely screened for depression, anxiety, intimate partner violence, ACEs, exercise, substance abuse, and food insecurity.  Urgent care counseling was implemented in the urgent care clinic and satellite counseling centers were created in Athletics, Residence Halls, Engineering, and Student Service Center.  A comprehensive peer counseling program was implemented in 2020 and has continued to grow.  Pharmacists provide campus and clinic immunization clinics.  In 2014, SHCS created and hired an Associate Director of Campus Wellness that would galvanize and lead efforts toward creating a campus culture of wellness.  The Health Promotion and Wellness staff has grown to 3 health educators, 1 dietician, 11 student managers, and 50 peer health educators that are responsible for outreach, group education and campus environmental systems change work.  SHCS has effectively maintained financial sustainability through leveraging technology, reducing redundancies, and increasing work process efficiencies. 

In 2020, Joy was instrumental in leading the campus COVID pandemic response.   Among the COVID responses she instituted was working with Sacramento County Public Health to position Sacramento State as a vaccination site as soon as the COVID-19 vaccine became available. She received the President’s Medal for Distinguished Service in 2021 for her leadership. 

More recently Sacramento State has played an active role in supporting the County and State efforts addressing the opioid and fentanyl crisis by hosting and participating in conferences, training campus partners in Narcan administration, and participating in the Sacramento County Opioid Task Force.

Joy served on the Executive Team for the CSU Student Health Directors and the CSU System-wide Student Health Advisory Committee.  She has presented to the California State Legislature in various topics that impact the CSU and college health.  She has also presented on medical and mental health integration efforts and the accomplishments of Sacramento State at the CSU Board of Trustees meeting.  In October she served as a panelist for Creating a Campus Culture of Wellness town hall presented by the NIRSA Board of Directors.  During her final tenure at Sacramento State, Joy served as a special consultant to the CSU Chancellor’s Office providing guidance to the 23 campuses on the implementation of SB 24, the College Student Right to Access Act, student health insurance, chaperone policies, and immunization policy.  In 2023, Joy was the recipient of the Wang Family Excellence Award for Outstanding Staff Performance for the CSU.