Founder, Managing Director & Chief Care Advocate
Io is GreyZone’s founder and lead Care Advocate. She loves helping people address their medical challenges and improve the quality of care they receive.
Io formed GreyZone after seeing first-hand how complicated it was for people with complex medical conditions to obtain an accurate diagnosis of their symptoms. Her experience was a testing, decade-long journey from health to bed-ridden sickness and back. This journey taught her not to take anything for granted and to keep pushing for answers until a clear understanding exists of what is wrong and an effective treatment plan is put in place.
As a patient advocacy leader at the local and national level since 2011, Io co-founded and served as Executive Director and Board member of the Washington State Health Advocacy Association (WASHAA), now known as HealthAdvocateX. WASHAA was the first state-level, nonprofit patient advocacy organization in the United States with a mission to empower patients to be active participants in their own medical care. Io also served on the Advisory Board for the Care Management Certificate of the University of Washington as well as the Patient Advocate Certification Board (PACB), a national effort to standardize the field of professional Patient Advocacy. Io is currently actively involved in the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM), serving on the Patient Engagement and Practice Improvement committees. She is also an active member of the Washington Patient Safety Coalition, Improving the Diagnostic Process Workgroup.
Io enjoys spreading the word on issues surrounding diagnosis and patient advocacy. She has been an invited speaker at the University of Washington, the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, and the National Association of Healthcare Advocacy Consultants, among others. She has also been quoted in various local and national publications.
In her previous career, Io held scientific and management positions in the fields of life sciences and biotechnology. She was a co-author on two peer-reviewed publications, and feels that inquisitiveness and research skills honed in during those years laid the groundwork for her current career.
Io holds a post-graduate certificate in Patient Advocacy from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a Master of Science (MSc) in Biotechnology Studies from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Business Administration, Marketing Management from The American College of Greece.
For fun, Io enjoys listening to jazz music, singing, and watching summer sunsets while visiting family and friends in Greece.