Julie Grutzmacher
Senior Director of Patient Advocacy and Population Health Initiatives, Prevent Blindness
Service, purpose, and relationships are the throughlines for Julie Grutzmacher’s career. She holds a dual master’s degree in social work and public Health and has more than twenty years of experience advocating for equitable access to and delivery of healthcare services. Her work has led her to co-designing a primary care leadership track for medical residents in an academic medical facility, providing care coordination and health education with pregnant women at increased risk for pre-term birth in federally qualified health centers, conducting psychosocial assessments and grief counseling with families in the neonatal intensive care unit, and advocating for populations impacted by HIV/AIDS both as a Peace Corps volunteer in the kingdom of Eswatini and in a large teaching hospital in Chicago. Today, she serves as the Senior Director of Patient Advocacy and Population Health Initiatives at Prevent Blindness, a national patient advocacy organization, where she was instrumental in establishing the ASPECT patient engagement program which trains the visually impaired and blind community and their allies to be storytellers and advocates for change. She believes in the triumph of the human spirit and the undeniable power of relationships and resources to get you through hard times. She enjoys being a connector for people, a bridge to fulfillment. She is dedicated to creating a space where diverse perspectives can be heard and individuals are empowered to discover and use their voices for advocacy.
