From 2009 to 2010, she worked as a consultant at Kaiser Permanente's Institute for Health Policy – right in the middle of the debate surrounding US healthcare reform. As a senior expert in health policy at the Bertelsmann Foundation (since 2002), Schlette founded the International Network for Health Policy and designed events on population-based integrated care. Schlette began her career in healthcare in 1989 as a UNICEF staff member in North and East Africa. After completing her Master of Public Health (Harvard University), she advised on health projects and training programs, including in Latin America, before shifting her focus in the mid-1990s to healthcare provision in Germany and knowledge transfer between OECD countries.