2011 ONC Annual Meeting

November 17, 2011

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will be holding its 2011 ONC Annual Meeting on Thursday, November 17 in Washington, D.C. Biographies of presenters are available below for reference.

Speaker Biographies


Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM,
serves as National Coordinator for Health Information Technology within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Farzad joined ONC in July 2009 as Deputy National Coordinator for Programs and Policy.

Previously, he served at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as Assistant Commissioner for the Primary Care Information Project, where he facilitated the adoption of prevention-oriented health information technology by over 1,500 providers in underserved communities. Dr. Mostashari also led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded NYC Center of Excellence in Public Health Informatics and an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality funded project focused on quality measurement at the point of care. Prior to this, he established the Bureau of Epidemiology Services at the NYC Department of Health, charged with providing epidemiologic and statistical expertise and data for decision making to the health department. He did his graduate training at the Harvard School of Public Health and Yale Medical School, internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and completed the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. He was one of the lead investigators in the outbreaks of West Nile Virus and anthrax in New York City and among the first developers of real-time electronic disease surveillance systems nationwide.

< back to agenda


Josh Seidman, PhD
leads the Meaningful Use Division at ONC, overseeing three areas: helping to evolve meaningful use practice and policy; supporting providers through ONC's regional extension program to become meaningful users of health IT; and oversight of ONC's e-Quality Measurement agenda. During two decades in health care, Dr. Seidman has focused on: quality measurement and improvement; the intersection of e-health and health services research; and structuring consumer e-health interventions to support improved health behaviors and informed decision making. Previously, Dr. Seidman was the founding President of the Center for Information Therapy, which advanced the practice and science of using health IT to deliver tailored information to consumers to help them make better health decisions. At the IxCenter, Dr. Seidman focused on stimulating innovation, diffusing best practices, and evangelizing for a patient-centered orientation to implementation of health IT applications. Dr. Seidman has also served as Director of Measure Development at NCQA and has done research and analysis related to providers at the American College of Cardiology and The Advisory Board Company. Dr. Seidman earned a PhD in health services research and an MHS in health policy & management from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and a BA in political science from Brown University.

< back to agenda


Troy Trygstad, PharmD, MBA, PhD
is the Director of the Network Pharmacist Program and Pharmacy Projects for Community Care of North Carolina, a parent organization of 14 regional care management networks. These networks bring together medical practices, county health departments, hospital systems and mental health providers to integrate care delivery for Medicaid, Medicare, private plans, employers and the uninsured. CCNC and its networks are responsible for developing and evaluating accountable care systems in North Carolina. Under his direction at CCNC, the Network Pharmacist program has grown to include more than 60 pharmacists who are involved in a number of diverse activities ranging from patient-level medication reconciliation to practice level e-prescribing facilitation to network-level management of pharmacy benefits. He also plays an integral role in health information technology adoption and proliferation with CCNC practices and across the state, leading electronic prescribing adoption efforts as well as the development and deployment of a statewide medication management platform. He has also been involved in novel adherence implementations as well as the development of adherence technologies that use administrative claims data to predict, intervene and triage adherence interventions and coaching opportunities. Dr. Trygstad received his PharmD and MBA degrees from Drake University and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy from the University of North Carolina.

< back to agenda


Carol Steltenkamp, MD, MBA
is a board-certified general pediatrician with experience in private practice and traditional academic medicine. She received a BS from Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH and an MD from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. She completed her residency in pediatrics at the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital in Lexington, KY. Dr. Steltenkamp continued her education with a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Kentucky.

Dr. Steltenkamp's clinical interests are general pediatrics and acute care including the Twilight Children's Clinic which she established in 1996. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Kentucky College Of Medicine.

Dr. Steltenkamp is currently the Chief Medical Information Officer for University of Kentucky HealthCare. She is an active member of multiple professional societies and is a national Board Member of the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

Dr. Steltenkamp is the primary investigator of a six million dollar cooperative agreement with the Office of the National Coordinator/Department of Health and Human Services for Regional Extension Centers. Through this, she is the director of the Kentucky Regional Extension Center whose purpose is to ensure that physicians have the necessary tools to successfully implement information technology in their practices. Dr. Steltenkamp also acts as a liaison between physicians in the program and all levels of government and outside organizations, advocating for solutions to help physicians deliver better care through the utilization of health information technology.

< back to agenda


Holly Miller, MD, MBA, FHIMSS
is the Chief Medical Officer of MedAllies, a company that leverages HIT to facilitate physician office redesign to improve healthcare quality, office practice efficiencies and disease management. MedAllies is one of the ten geographic pilot implementations of the Direct Project sponsored by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC for HIT) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). At MedAllies, Dr. Miller's responsibilities include providing operational, tactical, and strategic collaborative leadership related to all of MedAllies projects.

Dr. Miller was formerly a Vice President and the Chief Medical Information Officer of University Hospitals and Health Systems, a community-based system with more than 150 locations, seven wholly-owned and four affiliated hospitals throughout Northern Ohio, where she was the senior clinical executive for information systems and technology, responsible for the leadership and vision for the strategic planning, operations, integration and implementation of clinical information systems and services at UH.

Prior to joining UH, she worked as a HIT Managing Director for the Cleveland Clinic. She was the physician champion for the EHR implementation and coordinated the development of Clinical Internet Strategy at the Cleveland Clinic, supporting the creation and advancement of the eHealth initiatives, and was responsible for the implementation and management of the PHR, Remote Monitoring, and Virtual Visit eCleveland Clinic programs. She also maintained a clinical practice in General Internal Medicine.

She has been active in healthcare informatics research and has been a co-investigator on multiple grants.

As a member of HIMSS since 1999, Dr. Miller is on the HIMSS Board of Directors and is currently serving as the Vice Chair of HIMSS. She previously chaired the HIMSS Personal Health Record Steering Committee and was a physician leader of the HIMSS/AMDIS Physician Community. She currently serves as the Board Liaison to this committee as well as the Board Liaison to HIMSS Europe.

Dr. Miller is a member of the Investing in Innovation Technical Expert Panel (i2TEP) assembled to advise ONC on the development of competitive "challenges" in key health information technology areas. She is currently serving as the co-lead for the Clinical Information Mapping/Vocabulary workgroup and the Success Metrics workgroup of the Transfer of Care initiative of the Standards and Interoperability (S&I) Framework of ONC. She previously served on the Public Programs Implementation Taskforce, and the Health Care Practice Taskforce of the National Governor's Association State Alliance for e-Health. In Ohio, she was appointed to serve on the Ohio Health Information Partnership Advisory Board, by Governor Ted Strickland; and the Department of Insurance Advisory Committee on Eligibility and Real Time Claims Adjudication. She was a member of the CCHIT PHR Advisory Task Force. Dr Miller co-chaired, with Aneesh Chopra, the 2008 HIMSS HIT Advocacy Week in Washington, DC. In 2007, she was selected as one of the 50 Most Powerful Physician Executives by Modern Physician Magazine. She is the lead author on a book about PHRs titled, "Personal Health Records, The Essential Missing Element in 21st Century Healthcare", published in 2009.

< back to agenda


Ted Eytan, MD, MS, MPH
has experience working with large medical groups and technologists to leverage health information technology to ensure that patients and their families have an active role in their own health care. Dr. Eytan currently works as a Director at Kaiser Permanente, in The Permanente Federation, LLC.

His clinical interests are preventive care and reducing disparities in health status among vulnerable populations. He is a regular user of social media tools to promote open leadership.

Blog: http://www.tedeytan.com Exit Disclaimer
Twitter: @tedeytan

< back to agenda


Jay Walker
is the Chairman and Curator of TEDMED, LLC, the world’s leading multi-disciplinary conference on the future of health and medicine and the only independent, licensed TED event. One of America's best-known business inventors and entrepreneurs, Jay has founded multiple successful startup companies that today serve more than 75 million customers. He holds more than 200 U.S. patents. Jay is Chairman of Walker Digital, a privately-held R&D lab founded in 1994 and based in Stamford, Connecticut. The company specializes in creating innovative applications that work with large-scale digital networks such as the Internet. Jay is best known as the founder of Priceline.com, the "name your own price" service that has brought a new level of value to the travel industry.

< back to agenda


Joy Pritts
joined the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Department of Health & Human Services in February 2010 as its first Chief Privacy Officer. Ms. Pritts provides critical advice to the Secretary and the National Coordinator in developing and implementing ONC’s privacy and security programs under HITECH. She works closely with the Office for Civil Rights and other operating divisions of HHS, as well as with other government agencies to help ensure a coordinated approach to key privacy and security issues. Prior to joining ONC, Ms. Pritts held a joint appointment as a Senior Scholar with the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and as a Research Associate Professor with the Health Policy Institute, Georgetown University. She has an extensive background in confidentiality laws including the HIPAA Privacy Rule, federal alcohol and substance abuse treatment confidentiality laws, the Common Rule governing federally funded research, and state health information privacy laws.

< back to agenda


Leon Rodriguez
is the Director of the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services. From January 2010 until September 2011, Leon was the Chief of Staff and Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. In addition to overseeing the administrative operations of the Civil Rights Division, Leon’s leadership portfolio includes civil rights matters involving discrimination based on national origin and immigration status, legislative affairs and community outreach.

From May 2007 to January 2010, Leon served as the County Attorney for Montgomery County, Maryland, in which capacity he was responsible for leading the 45-attorney legal staff of Montgomery County government in providing legal advice and service to all County agencies. In this capacity, Leon devoted a significant portion of his time working with the County’s Department of Health and Human Services as well as its Office of Human Rights.

From May 2001 to May 2007, he was a shareholder in the Health Law department of the law firm of Ober, Kaler, Grimes & Shriver. In 2004, Leon was named “Outstanding Health Care Litigator” by Nightingale Health Care News. While in private practice, Leon served on the board of the Montgomery County Primary Care Coalition, an organization that developed and implemented health care programs for uninsured County residents.

For thirteen years prior to entering private practice, Leon was a federal and state prosecutor in various jurisdictions. From 1997 to 2001, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania assigned to the prosecution of health care fraud cases. Leon served as the First Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1999 to 2001, and as the Chief of the White Collar Crimes Section from 1998 to 1999.

From 1994 to 1997, Leon served as a trial attorney in the Criminal Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. Prior to his first DOJ stint, Leon was an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn, NY for six years. Leon is a graduate of Brown University and Boston College Law School and is fluent in Spanish and French.

< back to agenda


Richard J. Gilfillan, MD
is Acting Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (the Innovation Center) at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). In this role, he works with CMS leadership to develop and implement innovative programs to improve and update the nation’s healthcare delivery systems. Before CMS, Dr. Gilfillan served as President and CEO of Geisinger Health Plan and Executive Vice President for System Insurance Operations at the Geisinger Health System. He was responsible for Geisinger’s managed care companies. At Geisinger, he helped design a bundled-payment, episode-of-care reimbursement system that rewards surgical and medical care providers for high-quality outcomes. Dr. Gilfillan has held several leadership positions in healthcare management: He served as Senior Vice President for National Network Management at Coventry Health Care, where he was responsible for managing a network of 5,000 hospitals and more than 500,000 physicians. He served as General Manager of IBC’s AmeriHealth New Jersey managed care subsidiary, where he developed commercial, Medicare and Medicaid Managed Care Programs. And he was Chief Medical Officer for Independence Blue Cross, where he led a team that provided Quality Improvement and Medical Management programs for three million commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid members. Dr. Gilfillan began his career as a family practitioner. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Georgetown University, and he earned an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

< back to agenda


Claudia Williams
is Director of the State Health Information Exchange Program for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), providing strategic direction to ONC’s efforts to rapidly enable information exchange to achieve meaningful use and health care improvement. She manages the State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program, a half billion dollar initiative to advance local and regional solutions and scalable innovations for health information exchange. Prior to joining ONC, she was Director of Health Policy and Public Affairs at the Markle Foundation, where she helped manage and direct Connecting for Health, a public-private collaborative working to realize the full potential of information technology in health and health care in the United States.

Before joining the Markle Foundation, Ms. Williams was the founder and principle of AZA Consulting, providing policy and strategy consulting in the areas of health coverage reform, health system improvements for chronic care and translating research for policymakers. She directed the Synthesis Project, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to distill evidence on critical policy issues for Federal and State policymakers. Before establishing AZA Consulting, Ms. Williams worked as a senior policy analyst in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at HHS and as a Senior Manager at The Lewin Group. She holds an MS in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health and a BA from Duke University. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana.

< back to agenda


Harris Frankel, MD
is a native of Omaha, Nebraska. He obtained his BA in animal physiology from the University of California, San Diego, in 1982. He then attended the University of Nebraska College of Medicine and received his MD degree in 1986. Thereafter, he did a one-year internship in general internal medicine at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha. He then completed a neurology residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas in 1990. During the last year of training, he served as chief resident for the Department of Neurology at Parkland Memorial Hospital and the Dallas VA Medical Center. Upon completion of his residency training, Dr. Frankel returned to Omaha, Nebraska and joined the private practice of Neurology with Drs. Goldner, Cooper, Cotton, Sundell, Frankel, Franco, and Diesing. After nearly 21 years, Dr. Frankel left private practice and joined the Department of Neurological Sciences at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in April 2011 as Assistant Professor. He is a member of the active staff of the Nebraska Medical Center and now serves as Medical Director for the UNMC-Physicians Clinical Neurosciences Center. Dr. Frankel is board certified in the specialty of Neurology by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Dr. Frankel is a member of a number of professional organizations including the American Academy of Neurology, the Nebraska Academy of Neurology and Neurosurgery, and the American Medical Association. He is the immediate past President of the Metropolitan Omaha Medical Society and currently serves as President of the Nebraska Health Information Initiative, Inc. (NeHII). He chairs the committees on Medicare and the Electronic Health Records Task Force for the Nebraska Medical Association and is also a member of the Association’s Healthcare Reform Task Force. He has also chaired the Professional Advisory Committee of the Midlands Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society with whom he has also served as a member of the National Medical Advisory Board. Prior to joining the faculty of UNMC, he was a trustee with the University of Nebraska Foundation and served as a member of its Development Committee and chaired the subcommittee on Alumni Relations.

Dr. Frankel is married to Dr. Janice Peterson Frankel, and they have four children.

< back to agenda


Lisa Rawlins
is the Executive Director for the South Florida Regional Extension Center. She has over 20 years of experience in the health care industry, serving in a variety of leadership roles: from the provider side in hospital administration; to the policy venue as the senior health policy analyst for the Committee on Health Care in Florida House of Representatives; and the regulatory environment as the Director of the Florida Center for Health Information and Policy Analysis for the State of Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration.

Notable state leadership roles include implementing the state of Florida’s first transparency initiative, which began publicly reporting in 2005 on hospital quality indicators, hospital procedure pricing, health plan customer satisfaction rates, and retail pharmacy pricing information that was highlighted as a national model at the 2006 National Governors Association workshop. Ms. Rawlins also served as the executive director for the Governor’s Health Information Infrastructure Advisory Board which began Florida’s journey on creating a statewide health information exchange. Notable national leadership roles include her service for three years in the nation’s first attempt in creating the criteria for certifiable Health information Exchanges as a member of the CCHIT HIE workgroup. Ms. Rawlins also served as a member of the National Quality Forums “Additional Hospital Priorities for 2007.” In addition, Ms. Rawlins was co-author of one of the nation’s first studies to propose a methodology for calculating preventable hospital readmissions, published in the Health Care Financing Review in August 2007.

< back to agenda


Josh C. Mandel, MD
is a physician and software engineer with a special interest in building tools that support app developers new to the health domain. After earning a BS in computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MD at the Tufts University School of Medicine, he joined the faculty of the Children's Hospital Informatics Program and Harvard Medical School, where he serves as lead architect for the SMART Platforms team (http://smartplatforms.org Exit Disclaimer). With SMART, he's helping to foster an ecosystem of "substitutable" medical applications that can run in multiple EMRs, PHRs, and data mining platforms.

SMART (Substitutable Medical Apps, reusable technologies) is a project funded by The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology through the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) program. The current health IT landscape is characterized by monolithic and slow-to-evolve systems: SMART has brought together researchers, industry partners, clinicians, and other stakeholders to lay the groundwork necessary to enable a tectonic shift to a flexible health IT environment.

< back to agenda


Norma Morganti
is the Executive Director of the Midwest Community College Health Information Technology Consortium grant, led by Cuyahoga Community College. In this role, she is responsible for leadership and oversight of 17 member colleges across 10 states within the Midwest to complete the deliverables of the grant. Sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, the grant supports the rapid development of a workforce to implement electronic health records in Region C by providing training for six identified health information technology roles. Midwest member colleges will be responsible for the training of 5,400 students over the next two years. Norma has also served the college as Executive Director for Health and Public Safety programs within the Workforce Solutions area, supporting credit and non-credit training programs for individual transition, advancement and lifelong learning.

Prior to joining Tri-C, Norma served in administrative capacities within secondary education for over 12 years where she provided strategic leadership for the educational and administrative technology enterprise. During her tenure as Chief Technology Officer, she led initiatives for innovative online learning environments, technology-enhanced classrooms, parent communication and teacher support for individualized student learning. Norma Morganti received a BS degree in Organizational Administration and Personnel Management from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

< back to agenda


Julie A. Jacko, PhD
is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, and a Faculty Fellow in the Academic Health Center’s Institute for Health Informatics. She is the Principal Investigator and Director of the University Partnership for Health Informatics (UP-HI). This $5.1 million grant from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology represents the first public-private partnership funded in the State of Minnesota to infuse our nation’s workforce with individuals who have been trained to perform in one of six mission critical health information technology roles.

Dr. Jacko’s expertise is the design, implementation, and evaluation of interactive computing systems in complex domains such as healthcare and healthcare delivery, with the purpose of enhancing human performance. This is accomplished through research focused on the cognitive processes underlying the interaction of people with complex systems. The ultimate goal is combining robust empirical results with the development of engineering models of human performance that can aid in the design of real-world systems. Dr. Jacko has an exemplary research track record spanning a period of 17 years in which over 160 scientific publications have been generated in these research areas. She has generated over $25 million in research funding in the last 10 years and was one of only 20 recipients of a National Science Foundation Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor awarded young investigators by the United States government. Dr. Jacko served as co-author on the #1 rated published article for 2005 in the International Journal of Medical Informatics. Dr. Jacko has an extensive track record of professional leadership excellence.

In addition, Dr. Jacko has chaired or co-chaired numerous technical conferences and technical conference programs in the fields of human factors and human-computer interaction spanning the last fifteen years. She received her BS, MS, and PhD in Industrial & Systems Engineering from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana where she held the NEC Graduate Fellowship.

< back to agenda


Julie Schilz, BSN, MBA
received her clinical training as a Registered Nurse at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. Her business degree is from Regis University in Denver, Colorado. Julie’s experience collaborating with communities, healthcare organizations and industry stakeholders drives her expertise in care coordination, quality office system redesign programs, reimbursement programs and critical knowledge of Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) and Accountable Care Organizations (ACO). Julie is the Director of Colorado Beacon Consortium (CBC) Community Collaboratives and Transformation programs. CBC is one of 17 organizations funded as a Beacon Community by the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT (ONC). She is a Co-Chair for the Washington DC-based Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative’s (PCPCC) Center for PCMH Advancement. Julie is a Board Member for ClinicNet, a nonprofit organization that serves as a centralized voice for Community-Funded Safety Net Clinics.

< back to agenda


Janet S. Wright MD, FACC
is the Executive Director of Million Hearts, leading this HHS initiative on behalf of CDC and CMS. From May 2008 – September 2011, Dr. Wright served as Senior Vice President for Science and Quality at the American College of Cardiology (ACC). The division she led at the ACC encompasses the clinical guidelines, performance measures, health policy statements, and appropriate use criteria; quality improvement projects like Door to Balloon (D2B) and Hospital to Home (H2H); and the National Cardiovascular Data Registry, a suite of databases containing over 12 million patient records in both inpatient and outpatient care settings. Prior to joining the ACC, Dr. Wright spent many years in practice in Chico, California.

Dr. Wright served on the ACC’s Board of Trustees and chaired the Task Force on Performance Assessment, Recognition, Reinforcement, Reward, and Reporting. She was a member of NCQA’s Clinical Programs Committee and of the Quality Alliance Steering Committee. She served on the board of the Center for Information Therapy, a non-profit organization committed to the provision of personalized health information during each healthcare encounter. From 2003 until moving to Washington, Dr. Wright served as a founding member of the Independent Citizens’ Oversight Committee, the 29 person board charged with administering the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Her primary interests are the design and implementation of systems of care to achieve optimal outcomes for patients and the full deployment of hooks, tricks, and cues that help people get and stay healthy.

< back to agenda


Peter Basch, MD, FACP
practices general internal medicine in Washington, DC, and is an early adopter of electronic health records and ePrescribing. He also serves as the Medical Director for Ambulatory EHR and Health IT Policy at MedStar Health, a nine hospital not-for-profit health system in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, and is providing the clinical and strategic leadership for their ambulatory EHR implementation.

Dr. Basch is a Senior Fellow for Health IT Policy with the Center for American Progress, a Visiting Scholar with the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform of the Brookings Institution, and the Board Chair of Doctors Helping Doctors to Transform Healthcare. He represents the American College of Physicians at the Physicians’ EHR Coalition, which he co-founded in 2004. Dr. Basch is a recipient of the HIMSS Physician IT Leadership Award. He is also currently working with ONC on quality measure development.

< back to agenda


Chris Tashjian, MD, FAAFP
has a passion for practicing quality care at an affordable price. Recently his clinic was recognized for outstanding care by the Buyer Healthcare Action Group. In 2009, his clinic improved its ?ideally controlled? diabetic population from 27% to 47%, ranking this practice in the top 5% of all clinics in America; and one year after EMR implementation, the clinic’s ideally controlled diabetic population rose to 53%. The national average is less than 15%. These outcomes are extraordinary for a family practice clinic in rural, western Wisconsin. Dr. Tashjian feels that implementing a full functioning EMR in 2010 (Cerner Ambulatory ASP) will provide the information necessary to provide the best quality care to the patients he serves.

Chris is Board Certified by the American Academy of Family Practice and is currently Chief of Medicine for the River Falls Area Hospital — a regional facility of Allina Hospitals. Special medical interests include EMR, public health, emergency medicine, quality care & measurement, and physician leadership.

Dr. Tashjian is thought of as a leader and is extremely active in setting policy for the medical community. He serves on the Board of Directors of HealthPartners Inc. where he is Co-Chair of the Medical Board of Governors and Chair of the Health Transformation Committee. In addition, he serves on the Board of Directors for the MMIC Group, the State of Wisconsin EMS Physician Advisory Committee, and Western Wisconsin Medical Associates.

He earned his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, while simultaneously attending the Graduate School of Business working toward an MBA. He most recently graduated from the Physician Leadership College at St. Thomas University.

Dr. Tashjian and his family reside in River Falls WI. His hobbies include Boy Scouts, Rotary, computers, kayaking and bicycling.

< back to agenda


Deborah Aldridge, MS, RN-BC
is the Beacon Program Director of the Community Care of South Piedmont. Deborah has a Bachelor of Arts in Nursing from St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN. She also has a Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Phoenix. Deborah is ANCC Board Certified in Nursing Informatics and is a Steering Committee Member of the Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI). Ms. Aldridge was a Corporate Informatics Educator for Stanly Health Services. She developed and delivered training and assisted in the deployment of a hospital-based clinical documentation system, bar-coded medication administration. She also assisted with discrete data sharing and workflow design. Deborah was also the Manager of Quality and Informatics for Stanly Medical Services – a Stanly Health Services owned physician group practice of 35, multi-specialty providers in 16 practices. She modified, enhanced and coordinated the upgrade of the electronic health record, completed quality care delivery and documentation review and provided documentation guidance and education to all users.

At her current position as the Beacon Program Director at Community Care of Southern Piedmont, Ms. Aldridge oversees and coordinates a $15.9 million federally funded grant award created through ARRA legislation. She is working to implement improved care coordination and cost reduction through the deployment of innovative health information technology.

< back to agenda


Bruce D. Greenstein
is the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. He has extensive experience in the health care field, having worked in both the private and public sector. On the state level, Bruce worked for Governor Lawton Chiles in Florida leading the design and administration of health care programs. On the federal level, he served as Associate Regional Administrator and Director of Waivers and Demonstrations in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he oversaw the state Medicaid programs and led the federal government's Medicaid state reform efforts. Most recently, he served as the managing director of worldwide health for Microsoft Corp. Bruce enjoys combining his technological knowledge and health care experience in his role as DHH Secretary.

< back to agenda

Breakout Sessions: Journey to Change
Session 2

Josh Seidman, PhD
leads the Meaningful Use Division at ONC, overseeing three areas: helping to evolve meaningful use practice and policy; supporting providers through ONC’s regional extension program to become meaningful users of health IT; and oversight of ONC’s e-Quality Measurement agenda. During two decades in health care, Seidman has focused on: quality measurement and improvement; the intersection of e-health and health services research; and structuring consumer e-health interventions to support improved health behaviors and informed decision making. Previously, Seidman was the founding President of the Center for Information Therapy, which advanced the practice and science of using health IT to deliver tailored information to consumers to help them make better health decisions. At the IxCenter, Seidman focused on stimulating innovation, diffusing best practices, and evangelizing for a patient-centered orientation to implementation of health IT applications. Seidman has also served as Director of Measure Development at NCQA and has done research and analysis related to providers at the American College of Cardiology and The Advisory Board Company. Seidman earned a PhD in health services research and an MHS in health policy & management from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and a BA in political science from Brown University.

< back to agenda

John Berneike, MD
is a Family Medicine physician and completed his residency in 2000. He has been the Program Director and Clinic Director at St. Mark’s Family Medicine Residency since 2004.

John began his career at IBM doing work in the computer engineering/information technology field. However, he had an early ―mid-life crisis‖ and went to med school. Though, he still admits to being a computer geek.

John is has been using GE Centricity EMR since 2007. He is the physician champion for EMR in the clinic and provides the IT/EMR support for the clinic. Additionally, he has participated in the GE customer collaboration groups and was a beta tester.

John is a board member and provider committee member of the Utah Health Information Network (UHIN). Currently, UHIN is implementing the Utah-wide HIE (cHIE – clinical health information exchange). UHIN is working with GE and UHIN to interface his clinic’s EMR to the cHIE. In addition, John is a Beacon participant and Utah Medicaid Meaningful Use applicant.

Overall, John is a true believer in the goals and concepts of Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) as a major component of health care reform and fixing our broken health care system in the US. He believes that IT and HIE is needed to be successful at PCMH/reform efforts.

< back to agenda

Harris Frankel, MD
is a native of Omaha, Nebraska. He obtained his BA in animal physiology from the University of California, San Diego, in 1982. He then attended the University of Nebraska College of Medicine and received his MD degree in 1986. Thereafter, he did a one-year internship in general internal medicine at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha. He then completed a neurology residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas in 1990. During the last year of training, he served as chief resident for the Department of Neurology at Parkland Memorial Hospital and the Dallas VA Medical Center. Upon completion of his residency training, Dr. Frankel returned to Omaha, Nebraska and joined the private practice of Neurology with Drs. Goldner, Cooper, Cotton, Sundell, Frankel, Franco, and Diesing. After nearly 21 years, Dr. Frankel left private practice and joined the Department of Neurological Sciences at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in April 2011 as Assistant Professor. He is a member of the active staff of the Nebraska Medical Center and now serves as Medical Director for the UNMC-Physicians Clinical Neurosciences Center. Dr. Frankel is board certified in the specialty of Neurology by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Dr. Frankel is a member of a number of professional organizations including the American Academy of Neurology, the Nebraska Academy of Neurology and Neurosurgery, and the American Medical Association. He is the immediate past President of the Metropolitan Omaha Medical Society and currently serves as President of the Nebraska Health Information Initiative, Inc. (NeHII). He chairs the committees on Medicare and the Electronic Health Records Task Force for the Nebraska Medical Association and is also a member of the Association’s Healthcare Reform Task Force. He has also chaired the Professional Advisory Committee of the Midlands Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society with whom he has also served as a member of the National Medical Advisory Board. Prior to joining the faculty of UNMC, he was a trustee with the University of Nebraska Foundation and served as a member of its Development Committee and chaired the subcommittee on Alumni Relations.

Dr. Frankel is married to Dr. Janice Peterson Frankel, and they have four children.

< back to agenda

Russel B. Leftwich, MD
is the Chief Medical Informatics Officer for the Tennessee Office of eHealth Initiatives. Prior to his current position, Dr. Leftwich was in medical practice in Nashville in internal medicine. He earned a BS in Chemical and Biomedical Engineering from Arizona State University and his MD degree from Vanderbilt University Medical School. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Vanderbilt and a fellowship in Immunology at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, CA. Dr. Leftwich is board certified in Internal Medicine and in Allergy and Immunology.

The Office of eHealth Initiatives is responsible for administration of federal grants and state appropriations around HIT adoption and electronic health information exchange and for promoting HIT and HIE adoption in Tennessee among providers and hospitals. Dr. Leftwich is primarily responsible for communications and outreach to hospitals, physicians and other providers around EHR adoption and electronic health information exchange. He is also active in efforts to promote HIT workforce development in Tennessee.

He has been on the teaching faculty of the UT Internal Medicine Residency program at Baptist Hospital and was Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine and Instructor in Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical School. He has led HIT efforts of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, and the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology, and of the Tennessee Medical Association. He currently serves as a physician advisor for the American College of Physicians’ American EHR Partners, an educational and information resource for EHR adoption and as a board member for the Tennessee chapter of the Health Information Management Systems Society. He is a member of the American Medical Informatics Association, and the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems, the professional association for chief medical information officers, where he serves on the Physician Leadership Committee.

He has completed the American Medical Informatics Association’s 10x10 Informatics course through Oregon Health Sciences University. He also holds a certificate in Leadership Strategies in Health Information Technology from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Most recently, Dr. Leftwich has been involved in the ONC’s Standards and Interoperability Framework initiative and serves as co-lead for the Transitions of Care Clinical Information Model and Vocabulary Workgroup and has led an effort to establish a workgroup around coordination of care. He recently began a term on the newly convened Care Coordination Measures Steering Committee of the National Quality Forum.

< back to agenda

Kim A. Schwartz
has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center (RCCHC), a Federally Qualified Health Center, located in rural Northeastern North Carolina since June 2005. Kim received her MA degree in Counseling Education, Multicultural Honors, from the University of New Mexico in 1996. Prior to her current role with RCCHC, Kim served as CEO for the Guidance Center of Lea County in Hobbs, New Mexico (a comprehensive community mental health center that expanded into primary care as an FQHC look-alike under Kim’s leadership). Kim has practiced as a licensed psycho-therapist, and her professional passions include the integration of behavioral health and primary care and telehealth remote patient monitoring. Kim has many affiliations as well as serves on a number of national, state and regional boards and frequently presents at national and regional conferences which include, American Telehealth Association, National Improving Performance In Practice Annual Conference, Bureau of Primary Health Care New Start Executive Leadership Learning Team, NC Two Worlds Unite, National Rural Health Association, National Association of Community Health Centers, National Council of Community Behavioral Healthcare, National Association for Rural Mental Health, and National Board of Certified Counselors. Kim was recently appointed by the North Carolina Secretary of Health and Human Services to represent NC District 1 on the Medicaid Medical Care Advisory Committee. Kim is married to Reverend Tom Schwartz, and they have two children and three grandchildren.

< back to agenda

Chris Tashjian, MD, FAAFP
has a passion for practicing quality care at an affordable price. Recently his clinic was recognized for outstanding care by the Buyer Healthcare Action Group. In 2009, his clinic improved its ―ideally controlled‖ diabetic population from 27% to 47%, ranking this practice in the top 5% of all clinics in America; and one year after EMR implementation, the clinic’s ideally controlled diabetic population rose to 53%. The national average is less than 15%. These outcomes are extraordinary for a family practice clinic in rural, western Wisconsin. Dr. Tashjian feels that implementing a full functioning EMR in 2010 (Cerner Ambulatory ASP) will provide the information necessary to provide the best quality care to the patients he serves.

Chris is Board Certified by the American Academy of Family Practice and is currently Chief of Medicine for the River Falls Area Hospital — a regional facility of Allina Hospitals. Special medical interests include EMR, public health, emergency medicine, quality care & measurement, and physician leadership.

Dr. Tashjian is thought of as a leader and is extremely active in setting policy for the medical community. He serves on the Board of Directors of HealthPartners Inc. where he is Co-Chair of the Medical Board of Governors and Chair of the Health Transformation Committee. In addition, he serves on the Board of Directors for the MMIC Group, the State of Wisconsin EMS Physician Advisory Committee, and Western Wisconsin Medical Associates.

He earned his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, while simultaneously attending the Graduate School of Business working toward an MBA. He most recently graduated from the Physician Leadership College at St. Thomas University.

Dr. Tashjian and his family reside in River Falls WI. His hobbies include Boy Scouts, Rotary, computers, kayaking and bicycling.

< back to agenda

Breakout Sessions: Journey to Change
Session 3

Claudia Williams
is Director of the State Health Information Exchange Program for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), providing strategic direction to ONC’s efforts to rapidly enable information exchange to achieve meaningful use and health care improvement. She manages the State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program, a half billion dollar initiative to advance local and regional solutions and scalable innovations for health information exchange. Prior to joining ONC, she was Director of Health Policy and Public Affairs at the Markle Foundation, where she helped manage and direct Connecting for Health, a public-private collaborative working to realize the full potential of information technology in health and health care in the United States.

Before joining the Markle Foundation, Ms. Williams was the founder and principle of AZA Consulting, providing policy and strategy consulting in the areas of health coverage reform, health system improvements for chronic care and translating research for policymakers. She directed the Synthesis Project, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to distill evidence on critical policy issues for Federal and State policymakers. Before establishing AZA Consulting, Ms. Williams worked as a senior policy analyst in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at HHS and as a Senior Manager at The Lewin Group. She holds an MS in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health and a BA from Duke University. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana.

< back to agenda


Bruce Greenstein
is the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. He has extensive experience in the health care field, having worked in both the private and public sector. On the state level, Bruce worked for Governor Lawton Chiles in Florida leading the design and administration of health care programs. On the federal level, he served as Associate Regional Administrator and Director of Waivers and Demonstrations in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he oversaw the state Medicaid programs and led the federal government's Medicaid state reform efforts. Most recently, he served as the managing director of worldwide health for Microsoft Corp. Bruce enjoys combining his technological knowledge and health care experience in his role as DHH Secretary.

< back to agenda


Hunt Blair
is Deputy Commissioner of Health Reform in the Department of Vermont Health Access (VT Medicaid) and the State HIT Coordinator. The Division oversees implementation of the digital infrastructure for a statewide Learning Health System to drive delivery system reform, payment reforms, and other state reform initiatives. Hunt is active in the national HIT-HIE community, serves on the ONC HIT Policy Committee Information Exchange Work Group, the Markle Foundation Connecting for Health Steering Group, and is co-chair of the Statewide HIE Coalition. Previously, he served as Vermont Director of Public Policy at Bi-State Primary Care Association, where he established the Vermont Rural Health Alliance to put health reform policy into practice through a network of community health centers, rural health clinics, and critical access hospitals. The New England Rural Health Roundtable awarded Hunt its LeadershipAward in 2008 for his work on Vermont health reform. He graduated with an A.B. Honors degree in Semiotics from Brown University in 1983 and has been conducting post-structural analysis “deconstructing” health care systems ever since.

< back to agenda


James I. Golden, PhD
is the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Health Care at the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS). He oversees Minnesota’s health care programs including Medicaid and MinnesotaCare. DHS is one of the largest health care purchasers in Minnesota serving more than 700,000 program enrollees. Dr. Golden is responsible for eligibility and benefit policy, data initiatives, integration of Medicaid into the Health Insurance Exchange, and health reform initiatives in publicly funded programs. Dr. Golden serves as Minnesota’s State Government HIT Coordinator working to use health information technologies to support health care payment reform, facilitate consumer choice, and contain unsustainable growth in health care costs.

Prior to joining DHS, Dr. Golden was the Director of Health Policy at the Minnesota Department of Health. He also served as the chief operating officer for the Midwest Center for HIPAA Education and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay. Dr. Golden earned his doctorate at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.

< back to agenda


Kathleen Nolan
joined the staff of the National Association of Medicaid Directors within six months of the organization’s launch. At NAMD, Ms. Nolan manages a growing portfolio of state technical assistance on a range of policy and programmatic issues relevant to Medicaid directors. Her key issue areas include implementation of the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid sustainability, system reform and program supports.

Prior to NAMD, Ms. Nolan worked for seven years as Director of the Health Division in the National Governors Association’s Center for Best Practices. As Division Director, Ms. Nolan led all health policy analysis and state technical assistance projects on behalf of the nation’s governors. The division worked with governors’ offices and other state leaders to share and support implementation of best practices on health care issues facing states including health care reform, Medicaid, health IT, and public health programs.

Ms. Nolan also held health policy positions with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Institute of Medicine. Before moving to Washington, Ms. Nolan served as a Program Specialist in the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Kathleen received her MPH from the George Washington University, and her BA in psychology from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

< back to agenda


Ray Scott, MSW
has over thirty-five years experience in the health and human services field having served in the administrations of seven Governors of Arkansas in appointed positions and as U.S. Senator David Pryor’s Chief of Staff during his first term in the U.S. Senate. Most recently, Ray was appointed by Gov. Mike Beebe to serve as the first State Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Previously, at the state level, Mr. Scott has served as the Director of Aging Services for Governor Dale Bumpers (D). Over a four year period, Mr. Scott served as the Commissioner of Social Services, the Legislative & Budget Coordinator and Chief of Staff to Governor David Pryor (D). He was the Director for Arkansas’ Department of Human Services for seven years (two years for Governor Frank White (R), and five years for Governor Bill Clinton (D)). He was appointed by Governor Jim Guy Tucker (D) to the Governor’s Task Force on Health Care Reform. Ray returned to public service during the last two years of Gov.

Mike Huckabee’s (R) administration and was appointed Deputy Director of the Arkansas Department of Health & Human Services. With the election of Gov. Mike Beebe (D), Ray was re-appointed as DHS Deputy Director by Gov. Beebe and remained in that capacity until May, 2007.

For many years, Mr. Scott operated a private consulting and government relations firm specializing in health and human services management consulting, program financing and development, and policy analysis.

Mr. Scott is a 1969 graduate of Henderson State University, Arkadelphia, Arkansas with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Sociology and a 1972 graduate of Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with a Master of Social Work (MSW) degree. He is also an accomplished and published photographer and author with a book of his images with inspirational text and quotes entitled, “Natural Inspiration: Images & Insights,” published in 2005. His photography website is www.rayscottphotos.com Exit Disclaimer

< back to agenda


Lee Stevens,
serving in the Office of the National Coordinator, is the State Health Information Exchange (HIE) Program Policy Manager, overseeing the development and dissemination of policies intended to support the electronic exchange of health information.

Lee has also served as the Manager of HIE plan development and oversight for the Eastern and Southern regions of the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, including technical assistance and long-term planning activities related to enabling exchange. Lee also serves as the liaison for intergovernmental affairs on issues related to health information technology for the Office of the Secretary.

Before coming to the Department of Health and Human Services, Lee served as the Federal Policy Director for the Southern Governors’ Association where he managed the Gulf Coast Health Information Technology Task Force. The Gulf Coast HIT Task Force was created to establish a dialogue on health information exchange between states impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Lee has also served as the Washington, D.C.-based health and human services advisor for North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt and previously as a senior legislative assistant on health issues for former U.S. Congressman Charlie Rose.

< back to agenda

Breakout Sessions: Journey to Change
Session 4

Lygeia Ricciardi
is the Senior Policy Advisor for Consumer e-Health at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) in the US Department of Health and Human Services. She recently launched the federal government’s first Consumer e-Health Program, which strives to empower individuals to be partners in their health through information technology.

For several years prior to joining ONC, Lygeia was a consultant on consumer e-health through her own company, Clear Voice Consulting, where her clients included the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the California Healthcare Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the New York State Department of Health.

Previously, Lygeia was a Director in the Health Program at the Markle Foundation, a Policy Analyst and Speechwriter for the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, a content producer at a dot com, and a Research Associate at Harvard Business School. She earned a Masters in Technology & Education from Harvard, studying extensively with MIT Media Lab co-founder, Dr. Seymour Papert. She writes, speaks and tweets frequently about consumer engagement in health and health care via technology.

Lygeia has lived in Europe, Africa, and the sometimes equally exotic culture of Washington DC, where she currently resides with her family.

< back to agenda


Christine Bechtel
is the Vice President of the National Partnership for Women & Families, a non-profit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington DC. The National Partnership has been the driving force behind some of the country’s most important policies and initiatives, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Consumer Partnership for eHealth. As Vice President, Bechtel oversees the day-to-day operations of the organization, including its work on health care quality, information technology and patient engagement. She also serves on the federal Health IT Policy Committee.

Bechtel was previously Vice President of the eHealth Initiative (eHI), where she led the organization’s membership, public policy and government relations work. She has a background in health care quality improvement from her work with the American Health Quality Association and Louisiana Health Care Review, now eQHealth Solutions, a Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO). As a Senior Research Advisor at AARP, Bechtel conducted public opinion studies with consumers regarding their views on national political issues. She began her career as a Legislative Associate for United States Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD), where she focused on legislative issues ranging from women’s health and stem cell research to Medicare and Social Security.

< back to agenda


Kate Berry
is the Chief Executive Officer of National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC), a public-private partnership that works with its partners, including the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to engage stakeholders in a collaborative way to realize common goals that lead to transformative change. She has more than 20 years of healthcare experience and is a nationally known expert on electronic prescribing and a sought after speaker on related topics.

Prior to joining NeHC, Ms. Berry was Senior Vice President of Surescripts, working with a wide range of healthcare stakeholders at the national and state level to lead and coordinate electronic prescribing, electronic medical record and health information exchange initiatives.

Ms. Berry was also the Executive Director of the Center for Improving Medication Management. The Center was founded by the American Academy of Family Physicians, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Medical Group Management Association, Humana, Intel, and Surescripts. The mission of the Center is to improve outcomes of medication management through collaboration among physician practices, pharmacists, payers/employers, and patients. The Center is encouraging deployment of technology to enable electronic exchange of medication information and build knowledge on how to improve patient adherence with prescribed medications.

Ms. Berry joined NeHC after a career in healthcare management consulting and as a non-profit executive. As a consultant, Ms. Berry conducted a wide range of strategic planning and related engagements with healthcare organizations. At the American Red Cross, Ms. Berry served as Executive Vice President of External Affairs and Chief of Staff.

Ms. Berry holds a Masters degree in public policy from Duke University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and English from Goucher College in Maryland.

< back to agenda


Sarah Chouinard, MD
is the Medical Director of Community Care of West Virginia. She has a degree in neurobiology from the University of Vermont and has conducted scientific research at the University of California. She is a graduate of Marshall University’s School of Medicine and served as chief resident in the family medicine residency program. Since 2003, in addition to serving as the Medical Director of Community Care of WV (an FQHC in Clay, West Virginia), she has served as the Chief Clinical Advisor for the Community Health Network of West Virginia. In recognition of her efforts, Dr. Chouinard now serves as an advisor to the West Virginia Medicaid Program and the West Virginia Health Improvement Institute (WVHII) on health system transformation and pay-for-performance initiatives. Dr. Chouinard is the lead physician for the Meaningful Use Vanguard Group for the WV Regional Extension Center. She also has had the opportunity to participate in an expert panel for NORC and with HRSA for health system realignment. She is a member of the West Virginia Health Information Network board of directors, WV’s state HIE agency, and assists with the clinical initiatives of the WVHII. She serves on NORC’s Technical Expert Panel Teleconference for the Study and Report to Understand the Impact of Health Information Technology in Underserved Communities and Those with Health Disparities. She was recognized by the West Virginia Rural Health Association as “Rural Practitioner of the Year” in 2008 and was recently featured in stories by Governing magazine and CNN on HIT and health reform. She is a co-founder of the Fayetteville Skate Park, a multi-faceted recreational facility promoting physical activity and wellness for youth and adults in southern WV.

< back to agenda


Jeff Donnell
president of NoMoreClipboard, is responsible for operations, strategy development, business development, product management, marketing and customer service.

Jeff has helped NoMoreClipboard gain recognition as one of the top personal health records on the market and helps the company’s leadership team leverage its extensive clinical health and technology experience to continually enhance a PHR application that is consumer-friendly, interactive, secure, mobile and interoperable.

A visible member of Indiana’s health IT community, Jeff serves as a Board Member for the Indiana HIMSS chapter. He has also helped to raise awareness of health IT adoption nationally via public speaking sessions across the nation. He is a sought-after media expert on the topic of health IT relating to personal health and patient empowerment issues and has been featured in BusinessWeek, Healthcare IT News, The Wall Street Journal, Modern Healthcare, Health Data Management and more. Jeff also created and maintains healthcare IT parody organizations Extormity and SEEDIE, using satire to shed light on the need for more affordable, interoperable, and flexible healthcare IT solutions for clinicians and consumers.

Jeff has more than 25 years of management consulting, marketing communications, business development and advertising experience, including a stint as a principal at one of the top business-to-business marketing firms in the U.S. He has also taught advertising at the University of Indianapolis and lectures on business-to-business marketing at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

< back to agenda


Lacey A. Hart, MBA, PMP
is a Project Management Institute certified project manager with a Masters in Business Administration. She is the Director for Mayo Clinic's Health Sciences Research Project Management Office. She is the Program Manager for a large portfolio of research programs including the HHS/Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare IT (ONC) Strategic health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) on Secondary EHR Data Use and the Southeast Minnesota Beacon Community grant, the NIH/NHGRI funded consortium of biorepositories linked to medical records (eMERGE) and National Cancer Institute (NCI) caBIG projects.

< back to agenda


Andrew VanZee, MHA, FACHE
serves as the Statewide Health IT Director for Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA). VanZee is responsible for managing the allocation of the $10.3 million ARRA HIT funding the state received in March 2010. VanZee oversees Indiana's state designated entity, the Indiana Health Information Technology, Inc. (IHIT) and its Board of Directors and works to determine the best use for the HIT funding. VanZee ensures that FSSA's Medicaid HIT efforts are properly coordinated and integrated with all statewide HIE / HIT initiatives. Board certified in healthcare management, VanZee is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. VanZee received a bachelor's degree in biology from Knox College, a master's degree in healthcare administration from the University of South Carolina, and a master's degree in information systems from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

< back to agenda

Breakout Sessions: Journey to Change
Session 5

Ned Ellington, PhD
is currently working with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) at the US department of Health and Human Services in Washington DC to establish the Health IT Research Center (HITRC). The purpose of the HITRC is to support the Regional Extension Centers acceleration the adoption and use of EHR systems.

Prior to this assignment, Dr. Ellington lead the university’s initiative to create the Strategic Partners Office. The goal of this office is to foster, develop, and implement multi-faceted and long-term Industry-University partnerships that support enterprise transformation.

Dr. Ellington has a long history in executive education. He has developed and delivered seminars and workshops on the topics of transformation management, innovation management, lean enterprise management, and total quality management. His consulting activities are focused on strategic planning and critical problem solving in complex organizations.

He recently served as the Associate Director for Research and Analysis for the nation’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program housed within the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s. He also served as the Team Leader for the Manufacturing Futures Research project.

During his tenure at Georgia Tech, he developed and directed several Centers of Excellence in the areas of strategic planning, quality management, information technology, lean manufacturing, and human resource development. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, Dr. Ellington spent 10 years in the plastic, energy management, and food processing industries. His relevant manufacturing positions include production management, sales, customer service, product management, and systems design.

< back to agenda


Charles W. Jarvis, FACHE
is Vice President for Healthcare Services and Government Relations at NextGen Healthcare, Horsham Pennsylvania. He has had this role since January 2005. Mr. Jarvis' responsibilities entail community and partnership development, support of the company’s payer initiatives, and oversight of the company’s grants and client funding assistance program. He is also responsible for internal and external education on the evolution of the healthcare industry with a focus on healthcare information technology (HIT), government stimulus and health reform. Mr. Jarvis is active in the Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA) currently serving as vice chairperson of the organization’s Executive Committee. He also serves on the Policy Development Committee of the e-Health Initiative, Washington DC. Prior to joining NextGen, Mr. Jarvis was in hospital and physician group practice management.

< back to agenda


Rick Reeves, BS Pharm
is Senior Manager of Product Development Services at CPSI. He practiced hospital pharmacy for 15 years. During his practice as a pharmacist, he was heavily involved in implementation of two hospital wide information systems. He was dedicated to Quality Improvement processes and practiced as Consulting Pharmacist in the Cardiac Rehabilitation program for 8 years. In January 1996, he joined CPSI and developed many Clinical Decision Support/Clinical Intervention/ADR Management tools for the clinical pharmacy and ancillary applications. After leaving management of the Pharmacy Department, he developed and managed the Electronic Medical Record applications for Physicians including development of the ChartLink CPOE. He then worked with Corporate Development to encourage EMR adoption and initiated the pursuit of interoperable Electronic Health Records involving CPSI HIE / RHIO opportunities. He has been the project leader for all CPSI EMR certifications, including both the voluntary program and the ARRA ONC-ATCB certifications for ambulatory & hospital systems. He is currently involved with strategies in Product Development involving industry relations and government affairs. He served on the CCHIT Inpatient Workgroup for four years, serving as Co-Chair for two years. He has served on the EHR Association Executive Board since 2008, and chairs the Certification Workgroup for the EHRA. He is a member of ASHP (American Society of Health System Pharmacists) and works with the Pharmacy Informatics section.

< back to agenda


Mark Segal, PhD
is the Vice President of Government and Industry Affairs for GE Healthcare IT. He is past Vice Chair, Executive Committee member, and Vice Chair of Public Policy Leadership for the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association, past Chair of HIMSS’ Government Relations Roundtable and member of its Public Policy Committee. He is also on eHI’s Leadership Council and Policy Steering Committee and Connecting for Health’s Steering Committee.

Before joining GE in 2006, he spent over 20 years in healthcare, at Medical Present Value, Inc. and the AMA. Mark has spoken and been published widely, chaired the National Uniform Claim Committee and was on the WEDI Board. Mark has a BA from the University of Rochester and a PhD from MIT, both in political science.

< back to agenda


Dan Stoke

is the Vice President of the Regional Extension Centers Program for Allscripts. Over the course of his 18 years in healthcare, he has worked for Shared Medical Systems, Healthlink Incorporated, Kodak/Carestream Health and now Allscripts. He has held responsibilities across several functional areas of business including sales and service as well as program management and executive leadership.

Prior to beginning his career in healthcare, Dan earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Kansas, majoring in Anthropology and History with a minor in Political Science.

< back to agenda


Claudia Williams

is Director of the State Health Information Exchange Program for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), providing strategic direction to ONC’s efforts to rapidly enable information exchange to achieve meaningful use and health care improvement. She manages the State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program, a half billion dollar initiative to advance local and regional solutions and scalable innovations for health information exchange. Prior to joining ONC, she was Director of Health Policy and Public Affairs at the Markle Foundation, where she helped manage and direct Connecting for Health, a public-private collaborative working to realize the full potential of information technology in health and health care in the United States.

Before joining the Markle Foundation, Ms. Williams was the founder and principle of AZA Consulting, providing policy and strategy consulting in the areas of health coverage reform, health system improvements for chronic care and translating research for policymakers. She directed the Synthesis Project, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to distill evidence on critical policy issues for Federal and State policymakers. Before establishing AZA Consulting, Ms. Williams worked as a senior policy analyst in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at HHS and as a Senior Manager at The Lewin Group. She holds an MS in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health and a BA from Duke University. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana.

< back to agenda


Scott Afzal

is the Program Director for CRISP, the State of Maryland’s health information exchange initiative and is responsible for the deployment and operations of an infrastructure for health data sharing between healthcare providers throughout Maryland. Scott also acted as the project manager for the HIE planning activities that have taken place in Maryland over the last four years. Scott's is also a Principal at Audacious Inquiry where his responsibilities include establishing strategies for the firm’s growth in the health IT industry.

< back to agenda


David Cochran, MD

is President and CEO of Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc. (VITL). VITL manages Vermont's statewide Health Information Exchange (HIE) and supports electronic health record (EHR) deployment statewide. VITL was selected by the federal Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT to be the Regional Extension Center for the state of Vermont.

Previously, Dr. Cochran was Principal at Lightship Health, LLC, providing strategy consulting to the health care industry.

The bulk of Dr. Cochran’s career was spent at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and its predecessor, Harvard Community Health Plan (HCHP). He was Senior Vice President for Strategic Development, responsible for the development and oversight of Harvard Pilgrim’s Strategic Planning activities as well as the oversight of its e-health and e-business initiatives. Prior to that, Dr. Cochran was a medical director at Harvard Pilgrim and Harvard Community Health Plan. He was responsible for the implementation of information technology to support providers and consumers. His responsibilities included the replacement of an outdated clinical record system, the deployment of clinical guidelines using the organization’s EHR, the development of a clinical pharmacy program and the oversight of several of HCHP’s medical practices.

Dr. Cochran is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. He received his postgraduate training in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

< back to agenda


David Dissinger

is the Director of Integration Services at HealthBridge in Cincinnati, OH. HealthBridge is one of the largest and longest running Health Information Exchanges in the country. David has worked at HealthBridge for 3.5 years and has been involved with NwHIN Connect, Direct Email and the S&I framework.

David is also the Beacon Lead for the EHR Affinity Workgroup, which helped build out the CCD C32 specification guide. David is responsible for architecting HealthBridge’s Beacon Admit Alerts, Transitions of Care and Integration environment. He has also designed and built architecture within Mirth Results that verifies and tracks patients that have a stroke or have been admitted to the ER with a diagnosis of a migraine. The Stroke Project was being managed by the University of Cincinnati, and the Migraine Project was being managed by Aetna Insurance. David was also the lead in building a low-cost rural HIE for the NorthEast Kentucky RHIO using Mirth's Mirth Mux infrastructure.

< back to agenda


Stephen Palmer

serves as the Director of the Office of E-Health Coordination for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. In this role, he is responsible for leading the Office of E-Health Coordination and coordinating the numerous HIT initiatives that are being implemented within the HHS system and externally. Mr. Palmer also serves as the state HIT coordinator, in which he serves to manage the state health information exchange program and coordinate the other federally-funded HIT initiatives throughout the state. Mr. Palmer serves on the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Task Force on Delivery System Reform and HIT and on the HIT Standards Committee’s Implementation Workgroup.

Prior to joining the Health and Human Services Commission, Mr. Palmer served as the lead policy analyst for the Texas Health Care Policy Council in the Office of the Governor, the Governor’s advisor for health information technology, the Project Director for the Texas Health Information Technology Advisory Committee, the Chair of the Texas delegation to the Gulf Coast Health Information Technology Task Force, and an advisory member of the State Alliance for e-Health, an advisory group providing a voice for the states on HIT issues at the national level.

Prior to joining the Office of the Governor, Mr. Palmer worked as a Medicaid/CHIP policy advisor to the Deputy Executive Commissioner for Health Services at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Mr. Palmer also previously worked on the policy staff of the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Prior to changing careers into public policy, Mr. Palmer was an information technology consultant focusing on interface programming and database administration. Mr. Palmer received a Bachelor’s degree in physics and philosophy from Rice University and a Masters in Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and is currently pursuing a PhD in public policy, also from the LBJ School of Public Affairs, where his research focuses on health information technology policy.

< back to agenda


Aneesh Chopra, BA, MPP,
is the United States Chief Technology Officer and in this role serves as an Assistant to the President and Associate Director for Technology within the Office of Science & Technology Policy. He works to advance the President’s technology agenda by fostering new ideas and encouraging government-wide coordination to help the country meet its goals from job creation, reducing health care costs, and protecting the homeland. He was sworn in on May 22nd, 2009. Prior to his appointment, he served as Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia from January 2006 until April 2009. He previously served as Managing Director with the Advisory Board Company, a publicly-traded healthcare think tank. Chopra was named to Government Technology magazine’s Top 25 in their Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers issue in 2008. Aneesh Chopra received his BA from The Johns Hopkins University and his MPP from Harvard’s Kennedy School.

< back to agenda