Providing Activists the tools they need for effective policy change
On Losing Julia
Remembering Julia Shipley (Heath)
Honoring a Friend, Advocate, and Co-Founder
There are some people whose influence cannot be measured by titles or accomplishments alone.
Julia Heath was one of those people.
She was the original co-founder of P3Alliance, a physician assistant, an extraordinary advocate for people living with chronic pain, and one of my closest friends.
For years, we stood together in this fight ... celebrating victories, navigating setbacks, and refusing to give up on the belief that patients deserved compassionate, individualized healthcare.
Julia never lost sight of the human being behind the policy.
She reminded all of us that every regulation, every guideline, and every healthcare decision eventually reaches someone's bedside. To her, advocacy was never about politics. It was about people.
Her passing has left a space that cannot be filled.
I already miss our conversations, our brainstorming sessions, and simply knowing she was there. There are moments I still catch myself thinking, "I need to call Julia," before remembering that I no longer can.
While her loss is heartbreaking, I am determined that her impact will continue.
That is why the work ahead - including the outcomes-based accountability initiative set to become Julia's Bill - will be carried forward in her honor.
The greatest tribute I can offer my friend is to keep fighting for the patients she cared so deeply about and to build a healthcare system that continually learns from its outcomes, improves through evidence, and never loses sight of the people it exists to serve.
Julia's legacy lives on in every life she touched, every advocate she inspired, and every patient whose voice she helped ensure would be heard.
To learn more about Julia's remarkable life or to share a memory with her family, please visit her obituary:
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/canton-tx/julia-heath-12961387
Because Every Outcome Represents a Human Life
Introducing Julia's Bill
An Outcomes-Based Accountability Initiative
Healthcare policies should not be judged by their intentions alone. They should be judged by whether they actually improve the lives of the people they were created to help.
For decades, healthcare has measured regulations, compliance, prescribing trends, and countless other metrics. Yet too often, we fail to systematically measure the one thing that matters most:
Did this policy actually improve patient outcomes?
Julia's Bill is an outcomes-based accountability initiative being developed to change that.
The initiative will establish a framework that asks policymakers, agencies, and healthcare leaders to clearly define a policy's intended outcomes before implementation, identify potential unintended consequences, gather meaningful stakeholder input, and then return to evaluate whether those goals were actually achieved.
Instead of asking only, "Did we pass a law?" or "Did we reduce a number?" Julia's Bill asks the question every patient deserves to have answered:
"Did we actually make people's lives better?"
The long-term vision is to establish this framework through Colorado legislation and create a model that can eventually be expanded to other states and policy areas.
Why "Julia's Bill"?
This initiative is dedicated to the memory of Julia Heath. She was a loved physician assistant, patient advocate, dear friend, and the original co-founder of P3Alliance.
Julia devoted her life to helping people living with chronic pain. She believed every patient deserved dignity, individualized care, and to be seen as a person ... not a statistic.
Her compassion, integrity, and unwavering commitment to patients helped shape many of the principles that became the foundation of this initiative.
After losing Julia, I realized this could no longer be just another policy project.
It needed to become part of her legacy.
If Colorado adopts this legislation, it is set to become known as Julia's Bill. A lasting reminder that every healthcare policy should ultimately be judged not by what it intended to accomplish, but by what it actually accomplished for the people whose lives depended on it.
Honor Julia's Legacy
Julia dedicated her life to serving people living with chronic pain. At her family's request, those wishing to honor her memory are invited to make a donation to P3Alliance.
Your gift will help continue the advocacy, education, and policy work Julia devoted her life to, ensuring her compassion and commitment continue to make a difference for patients nationwide.
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2027 Programs & Bills
P3Alliance is already laying the groundwork for what we believe will be a transformative 2027.
In addition to multiple pieces of legislation already in development across several states, we're launching one of the most ambitious initiatives in our organization's history.
Like every year, we're working with advocates in multiple states and hope to have legislation filed across every U.S. time zone by the start of the 2027 legislative sessions.
But in 2027, we're doing something even bigger than passing another bill.
We're building a pilot program to track the real-world outcomes of healthcare legislation.
For too long, healthcare policies have been evaluated by intentions, compliance metrics, and prescribing statistics while giving far too little attention to the patients and healthcare professionals living with the consequences every day.
Millions of dollars have been invested in programs designed to reduce opioid prescribing. Yet remarkably little effort has gone toward systematically measuring the long-term impact those policies have had on pain, function, quality of life, access to care, provider behavior, disability, suicide, or countless other outcomes that truly matter.
We believe it's time to change that.
Our outcomes initiative will focus on measuring what happens after a policy is enacted ... not simply whether it achieved a predetermined metric, but whether it actually improved people's lives.
Click the red banner at the top of this page to learn more about this initiative and how you can help make it a reality. Additional information will be added as the project develops.
P3Alliance continues to gain attention from those who oppose our work. Along the way we've experienced cyberattacks, disruptions to healthcare, targeted providers, and other attempts to slow our progress.
Yet we continue moving forward.
If anything, those efforts remind us that our work is making an impact.
One example is Oklahoma's 2023 pain management legislation. Although the bill has evolved over time, it demonstrates what can happen when patients, advocates, and healthcare professionals work together.
With new partnerships, new tools, and a renewed focus on measurable outcomes, we believe the future of patient advocacy has never been brighter.
How the Healthcare System Makes Pain Worse
Tamera's October 2026 piece on Pain News Network with Pat Anson.