Zoë Baird
Zoë Baird is President of the Markle Foundation, a private philanthropy that focuses on using information and communications technologies to address critical public needs, particularly in the areas of health care and national security.
Ms. Baird's career spans business, government, and academia. She has been senior vice president and general counsel of Aetna, Inc., a senior visiting scholar at Yale Law School, counselor and staff executive at General Electric, and a partner in the law firm of O'Melveny & Myers. She was associate general counsel to President Jimmy Carter and an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice. She served on President Clinton's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1993 - 2001 and on the International Competition Policy Advisory Committee to the Attorney General. Ms. Baird served on the Technology & Privacy Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Defense in 2003-2004, which advised on the use of technology to counter terrorism. She is on a number of non-profit and corporate boards, including the Chubb Corporation, the Brookings Institution, and IBM's World Community Grid Advisory Board, among others. Ms. Baird is co-chairman of the Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age.
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Carolyn Clancy, M.D.
Carolyn Clancy, M.D., was appointed Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) on February 5, 2003. Prior to her appointment, Dr. Clancy had served as AHRQ's Acting Director since March 2002 and previously was Director of the Agency's Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research (COER).
Dr. Clancy, who is a general internist and health services researcher, is a graduate of Boston College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Following clinical training in internal medicine, Dr. Clancy was a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She was also an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond before joining AHRQ in 1990.
Dr. Clancy holds an academic appointment at George Washington University School of Medicine (Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Medicine) and serves as Senior Associate Editor, Health Services Research. Dr. Clancy has served on multiple editorial boards (currently Annals of Family Medicine, American Journal of Medical Quality, and Medical Care Research and Review). Dr. Clancy has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and has edited or contributed to seven books. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine and was elected a Master of the American College of Physicians in 2004.
Dr. Clancy's major research interests include various dimensions of health care quality and patient, including women's health, primary care, access to care services, and the impact of financial incentives on physicians' decisions.
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Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D.
Following Senate confirmation by unanimous voice vote, Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D., was sworn in as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on March 25, 2004. Dr. McClellan previously served as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration beginning in November 2002, following Senate confirmation by unanimous consent. During 2001 and 2002, Dr. McClellan served in the White House as a Member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, where he advised on domestic economic issues and was a senior policy director for health care and related economic issues. From 1998-99, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, where he supervised economic analysis and policy development on a wide range of domestic policy issues.
Dr. McClellan's research studies have addressed measuring and improving the quality of health care, the economic and policy factors influencing medical treatment decisions and health outcomes, estimating the effects of medical treatments, technological change in health care and its consequences for health and medical expenditures, and the relationship between health and economic well-being. He has twice received the Arrow Award for Outstanding Research in Health Economics, and he is a Member of the Institute of Medicine. He earned his M.D. from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. A board-certified Internal Medicine physician, Dr. McClellan completed his residency training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Stephen Downs, S.M.
Stephen Downs, S.M., joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) in May 2002 as a senior program officer working with both the Health and Health Care groups on program initiatives in information technology. As a member of the Public Health Team, Mr. Downs works to develop strategies to improve the use of information technology in public health agencies and oversees the Team's investment in the Public Health Informatics Institute.
He has program oversight responsibility for RWJF's Health e-Technologies national program, which is building the science of e-health. In addition, he is the team leader for the Foundation's Pioneer portfolio.
Previously, Mr. Downs was director of the Technology Opportunities Program for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. He is a former research fellow of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Mr. Downs earned an S.M. in technology and policy from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in physics and applied physics from Yale University.
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C. Martin Harris, M.D., M.B.A.
C. Martin Harris, M.D., M.B.A., is the Chief Information Officer and Chairman of the Information Technology Division of The Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio. Additionally, Dr. Harris is Executive Director of e-Cleveland Clinic, a series of e-health clinical programs offered over the Internet.
Dr. Harris' interest and expertise in the area of improving the practice of medicine through the innovative application of information technology, is reflected in his numerous appointments to national technology organizations including: Healthcare Information Technology Advisory Panel, which will serve as the Joint Commission's principal expert resource on the evolution of the national healthcare infrastructure and the form, direction and speed of information technology adoption in healthcare organizations and related entities; Presidential appointment to the Congressional Commission on Systemic Interoperability, which studies the steps required to develop a national health information network; Chairman, Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) Task Force of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS); past Chairman, Foundation Board for the e-Health Initiative, a public policy and advocacy group established to encourage the interoperability of information technology in healthcare; and advisor to the Director of the National Institutes of Health
Dr. Harris received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. His residency training was completed at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar fellowship at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and holds an M.B.A. in Healthcare Management from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
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Gloria Austin
Gloria Austin, was appointed CEO of Brown & Toland Medical Group in May 2000. Brown & Toland is a comprehensive, multi-specialty physician organization serving over 200,000 patients in San Francisco and the Bay Area.
Prior to joining Brown & Toland, Ms. Austin served as Corporate Executive Vice President and President of California for the Talbert Medical Management Company, a spin-off from FHP, Inc. Prior to this position, she worked for more than 18 years with FHP, Inc., a large publicly held HMO. Ms. Austin held several positions of increasing responsibility with FHP, ultimately serving as FHP's Senior Vice President, Corporate Healthcare Delivery. In that role, she was responsible for FHP's staff model operations, including 58 medical centers, two hospitals and two skilled nursing facilities in several states.
Ms. Austin holds an Executive M.B.A. from the University of California at Irvine and a B.S. in Business Management from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. Ms. Austin has sat on numerous hospital and company boards. She currently sits on the board and the executive committee for the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) where she also serves as Chair. Ms. Austin was recently named one of the 100 most influential women in the Northern California Bay Area.
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Wendy Angst, M.H.A.
Wendy Angst, M.H.A., is general manager of CapMed, a division of Bio-Imaging Technologies, Inc. Ms. Angst has been a member of the CapMed team since inception, serving as the CEO prior to its acquisition.
She was instrumental in the creation of the patent-pending USB Personal HealthKey. She is involved with many HIT initiatives, including the Personal Health Technology Council, the Working Group on HIT for Small and Medium Medical Practices and the ASTM E31 standards group for the Continuity of Care Record and SOS Rx.
Ms. Angst has also served on the Connecting for Health Working Group on Policies for Electronic Information Sharing Between Doctors and Patients.
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David Lansky, Ph.D.
David Lansky, Ph.D. joined the Markle Foundation in September 2004, and he is Senior Director of the foundation's Health Program and the Executive Director of its Personal Health Information Technology Initiative. Prior to joining Markle. Dr. Lansky served as FACCT's president from its inception in 1995. For more than 20 years, Dr. Lansky has been a proponent of a more responsive and accountable health care system. He is a nationally recognized expert in accountability and quality measurement and, as a result, has served as a board member or advisor to numerous health care projects and programs. Some of these include the National Quality Forum, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, National Patient Safety Foundation, The Leapfrog Group, and President Bush's 2002 Economic Forum.
Prior to FACCT, Dr. Lansky was a senior policy analyst for the Jackson Hole Group during the national health reform debate of 1993-94. He also led the Center for Outcomes Research and Education at Oregon-based Providence Health System. In this capacity he was responsible for outcomes research, measurement of consumer satisfaction, health risk and health status assessment, development of electronic member and patient records, and communicating with purchasers and the larger community about health care quality.
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James Marcus "Marc" Pierson, M.D.
Marc Pierson, M.D., is the Regional Vice President, Clinical Information & Special Projects at St. Joseph Hospital / PeaceHealth. Dr. Pierson is board certified in Internal Medical and Emergency Medicine.
He completed medical school at Indiana University School of Medicine in 1976 and his residency in Internal Medical at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas in 1979. He practiced Emergency Medicine in Bellingham from 1980 until 1997, when he joined the executive team at St. Joseph Hospital.
As a member of the executive team, Dr. Pierson is responsible for supporting education, training, information systems, Community Health Record, Whatcom Health Information Network (HInet), and laboratory services. He is also the Project Executive for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-supported Pursuing Perfection Project.
Dr. Pierson's real passion in work is clinical quality improvement across the continuum of care including the patients' home. Medical informatics, knowledge management, and social marketing are continuing areas of learning.
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Michael Stocker, M.D., M.P.H.
Michael Stocker, M.D., M.P.H., is President and CEO of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield. Immediately before joining Empire, Dr. Stocker was President of CIGNA HealthCare. Before that, he served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of U.S. Healthcare for the New York market. He was also Medical Director for ANCHOR, a staff model HMO at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago for five years. He was also Associate Chairman of the Department of Family Practice at Cook County Hospital in Chicago and practiced medicine in Chicago for 10 years.
Dr. Stocker earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and his medical degree from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He received his residency training at the Mayo Clinic and at the University of California and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Family Practice. He also received a Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan.
He is a former member of the "Jackson Hole Group," the National Committee for Quality Assurance and the National Quality Forum. He is currently Chairman of the Board of America's Health Insurance Plans and is on the Board of Directors of the New York City Partnership and Chamber of Commerce, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Citizens Budget Commission, the National Institute for Health Care Management, and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health.
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Cynthia Solomon
Cynthia Solomon is CEO of Access Strategies Inc, a healthcare consulting firm located in Sonoma, California. Her company specializes in research, development, and implementation of HIT projects that focus on systems of care for at-risk populations including the indigent, chronically ill, and uninsured. She has over 25 years experience as a health systems consultant in the private and public health sectors.
As the mother of a child diagnosed with hydrocephalus in 1983, Ms. Solomon is an experienced and committed health advocate and co-founder of the Hydrocephalus Association, a national support and advocacy organization for families and individuals living with hydrocephalus. Her son Alex has undergone more than 18 surgical procedures and hospitalizations and it was her frustration with trying to manage and coordinate his complex medical information that led her to developing a web-based personal health record (PHR).
Ms. Solomon's company launched the FollowMe™ PHR in 2000. The FollowMe platform has been recognized as a pioneer in the field of PHRs and has been featured in several national publications including The Economist, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times, Medical Ethics and For the Record. She participated in the Markle Foundation Connecting for Health Workgroup on EHR/PHR integration and developing the recommendations and standards for interoperability between Electronic Health Records and PHRs. She is a member of the National Child Health Data Standards workgroup. Ms. Solomon testified on PHR technology to the NCVHS NHII workgroup in April 2005.
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Carol Diamond, M.D., M.P.H.
Carol Diamond, M.D., M.P.H., is the managing director of the Markle Foundation's health program, designed to accelerate the rate at which information technology enables consumers and the health care system to improve the quality of health care and reduce medical errors. In this capacity, Dr. Diamond heads up the Connecting for Health Collaborative, a partnership of more than 100 organizations working to create a national, interoperable system for sharing health information. Previously, Dr. Diamond was president of U.S. Quality Algorithms® (USQA®), Aetna U.S. Healthcare's performance measurement affiliate, USQA's chief healthcare information officer and head of the company's Health Services Research unit. As USQA president, she led a 400-employee business unit that developed and deployed sophisticated clinical and financial information products and services.
Prior to joining USQA, Dr. Diamond was a consultant for Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Diamond sits on the public advisory board of the American Academy of Family Physicians, co-chairs the Interoperability Workgroup for the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology and is a member of the IRPO advisory board for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Doctor's Office Quality - Information Technology (DOQ-IT) project in New York. Dr. Diamond earned her dual B.A./M.D. at the Medical School of the State University of New York at Brooklyn and her M.P.H. at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Rutgers University.
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Helen Burstin, M.D., M.P.H.
Helen Burstin, M.D., M.P.H. has served as the Director of the Center for Primary Care, Prevention and Clinical Partnerships at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) since January 2000. The Center expands the knowledge base for clinical providers and patients and translates new knowledge and systems improvement into primary care and prevention. The Center supports the US Preventive Services Task Force. Dr. Burstin oversees all health information technology initiatives at AHRQ.
Dr. Burstin is a board certified general internist and health services researcher, and a graduate of the State University of New York at Upstate College of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Burstin completed a residency in primary care internal medicine at Boston City Hospital. After residency, she completed fellowship training in General Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Prior to her appointment at AHRQ, Dr. Burstin was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Quality Measurement at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Burstin is the author of over 60 articles and book chapters in her areas of interest, including access to care and quality, medical errors, patient-provider communication, and disparities. Dr. Burstin is President of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) Foundation and a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of La Clinica del Pueblo, a free Latino clinic in Washington D.C., where she is a volunteer staff physician.
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Paul Sheils
Paul Sheils is President and CEO of Aetna Health Information Solutions, Inc., the new health data and information unit of Aetna Inc. Mr. Sheils is a seasoned healthcare and information publishing executive, with both Fortune 500 and start-up company experience.
Most recently, Mr. Sheils was CEO, President and Director of InterCure, Inc., an innovative medical information and technology start-up with offices in Israel and Princeton, NJ, where he secured FDA approval for InterCure's groundbreaking hypertension treatment device. Prior to InterCure, Mr. Sheils was CEO of Mayo Health Ventures, the venture capital division of The Mayo Foundation, and of MayoClinic.com.
From 1998 to 2000, Mr. Sheils was CEO, President and Director of Medscape, Inc., where he helped grow Medscape.com and CBSHealthwatch.com by Medscape. Mr. Sheils was ranked #15 in Silicon Alley Reporter's 1999 Top 100 Executives, and has made numerous appearances on CNBC, CNNfn, Bloomberg TV and CBS TV. Mr. Sheils led Medscape's successful IPO in 1999 and sold the company to MedicaLogic, Inc. in 2000. Mr. Sheils served as co-Chairman of the combined public company, MedicaLogic/Medscape, Inc.
Prior to Medscape, he served as Vice President and Executive Director of Dow Jones Interactive Publishing, and also led the team that launched The Wall Street Journal Online in 1996.
Before his business career, Mr. Sheils was a corporate attorney, having been General Counsel of Dow Jones Interactive Services and an associate attorney at Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler in New York. He holds a B.A. from Williams College and a J.D. from Fordham Law School.
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Marie Savard, M.D.
Marie Savard, M.D., is a nationally known internist, women's health expert and champion for patient rights and responsibilities. She is the author of three books: Apples & Pears: The Body Shape Solution to Weight Loss and Wellness, How to Save Your Own Life: The Savard System of Managing - and Controlling - Your Own Health Care, and The Savard Health Record.
Dr. Savard has been a health columnist for Woman's Day magazine and technical advisor to the World Health Organization's Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. She is currently the senior medical consultant to the Lifetime TV series Strong Medicine, consultant to the media on women's health, wellness and patient empowerment issues, chair of the Pennsylvania Commission for Women and physician to the Mother Cabrini religious sisters in Philadelphia. She is working with American Healthways to integrate her patient empowerment approach and tools to their disease management programs.
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Esther Dyson
Esther Dyson is editor at large at CNET Networks, where she is editor of its newsletter Release 1.0 and host of many of its events, including PC Forum, the high-tech market's leading annual executive conference. As editor at large, she also contributes insight and content to CNET Networks' other properties. She sold her business, EDventure Holdings, to CNET Networks in early 2004. Previously, she had co-owned EDventure and written/edited Release 1.0 since 1983.
At Release 1.0 and in her private investment activities, Ms. Dyson focuses on emerging technologies, emerging companies, and emerging markets. Among the topics she has covered for Release 1.0 recently is the (potential) impact of IT on health care. Her angel investments include Medstory, a start-up search company for medical information, and Ovusoft, a user-centric fertility software service; previously, she was an investor in and sat on the board of Medscape.
By 1994, Ms. Dyson had already explored the impact of the Net on intellectual property. In 1997, she wrote a book on the impact of the Net on individuals' lives, Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age. It includes a number of chapters about today's hot topics such as security, privacy, anonymity, and intellectual property.
Ms. Dyson is also an active player in discussions and policy-making concerning the Internet and society, and is a member of the Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. A variety of government officials worldwide turn to her for advice on Internet policy issues.
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Newt Gingrich
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is the founder of the Center for Health Transformation, a collaboration of leaders dedicated to the creation of a 21st Century Intelligent Health System that saves lives and saves money. He is also the founder of the Gingrich Group, a communications and consulting firm specializing in transformational change, and serves as a political analyst for FOX News Network, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
A highly sought-after public speaker and world-renowned strategist, Mr. Gingrich served as a Member of Congress for 20 years and as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-1999. Under his leadership, Congress passed welfare reform, the first balanced budget in a generation, and the first tax cuts in 16 years.
Mr. Gingrich is widely recognized for his commitment to creating a better system of health for all Americans, and recently received the 2005 Health Quality Award from the National Committee for Quality. He has been honored with the 2005 National Minority Health Month Foundation Award for his contributions to the elimination of diabetes, and with the 2005 HIMSS Advocacy Award for leadership in advancing information and management systems for the betterment of human health.
Mr. Gingrich serves on the Terrorism Task Force for the Council on Foreign Relations, is an Editorial Board Member of the Johns Hopkins University journal, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, and is an Advisory Board Member of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
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Eric Dishman
Eric Dishman, General Manager of Intel's Health Research & Innovation Group, is responsible for driving worldwide R&D on new health and wellness information technologies across the continuum of care from hospital to home. He has led Intel's pioneering research on home health technologies for families struggling with cognitive decline, cancer, and cardiovascular disease since 1999.
His lab's most recent research focuses on in-home sensor network technologies for assessing and assisting people who are dealing with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Mr. Dishman serves as National Chair of the Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST), a cross-industry advocacy group to accelerate technology R&D for aging-in-place. He is a nationally known author and speaker - and advises numerous companies, universities, & Congressional members - on assistive technologies, telemedicine, and home healthcare.
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Stuart Schear
Stuart Schear is the Director of Communications, Health and National Security Program of the Markle Foundation. Before joining the staff of the Markle Foundation in May 2005, Mr. Schear served as a senior communications officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) for seven years. At RWJF, Mr. Schear conceived and directed several major award-winning communications campaigns, including Cover the Uninsured Week and the Covering Kids & Families "Back-to-School" Campaign.
Before joining RWJF, Mr. Schear's career spanned government service and journalism. As Assistant White House Press Secretary for Television News in 1996 and 1997, Mr. Schear directed the White House's television news interview operation. As a reporter for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and NBC News, Mr. Schear covered every major health policy issue facing the nation. He has also contributed articles and reviews to the Columbia Journalism Review, National Journal, and the American Prospect.
Among many awards and honors he has received, Mr. Schear was named a Media Fellow of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in 1993, and the Non-Profit PR Professional of the Year by PR News in 2002 for his work on behalf of the uninsured. In 2002, Mr. Schear and the team he led at RWJF for the Covering Kids & Families "Back-to-School" Campaign were awarded the David Ogilvy Award, Grand Prize by the Advertising Research Foundation, the top award for market research in the United States.
Mr. Schear is a graduate of Oberlin College, where he earned his B.A. in 1979, and he earned his M.A. at the Graduate School of Journalism of Columbia University in 1984.
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Bill McInturff
Bill McInturff is a Partner and Co-Founder of Public Opinion Strategies, a national political and public affairs survey research firm. Since its founding in 1991, the firm has completed more than 3 million interviews with voters and consumers in all 50 states and over a dozen foreign countries, and conducted more than 1,909 focus groups.
Mr. McInturff conducted the polling for Senator John McCain's presidential campaign and continues to be actively engaged in American politics, conducting national survey research on behalf of the Republican Governors Association. Working with Democratic pollster Peter Hart, Mr. McInturff is the Co-Director of the NBC News/Wall Street Journal National Poll.
Mr. McInturff develops messages to defend and promote client interests on complex public policy issues, and has conducted groundbreaking research on Medicare reform, creating Social Security private retirement accounts, juvenile justice reform, tort reform, health care policy, and a host of other policy issues.
The focus of much of his work has been health care, having completed more than 250 focus groups and more than 60 national surveys on this topic alone. Mr. McInturff's health care clients include the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, America's Health Insurance Plans, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Markle Foundation, Pfizer, Inc., and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
His prior experiences include 'hands on' campaign management experience at the local, congressional, and the presidential level. He also held senior positions with the Republican national party committees prior to entering the field of survey research.
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Matt Handley, M.D.
Matt Handley, MD, is associate medical director, Quality and Informatics, of Group Health Cooperative - one of the nation's largest consumer-governed health care systems. Dr. Handley is responsible for quality improvement and technology, working to create an infrastructure that supports the highest levels of organizational performance. He maintains a primary care practice in Seattle.
Previously, Dr. Handley was medical director of Health Informatics at Group Health, overseeing the implementation and management of the clinical information system. Group Health has led the country in sharing the electronic medical record with patients, providing access to the EMR for over 95,000 patients. Over 800 clinicians at Group Health participate in secure messaging with their patients.
Dr. Handley has worked with groups around the country to develop clinical guideline programs and lectured extensively on topics including evidence-based medicine and implementation of clinical guidelines. Dr. Handley fulfilled a six-month appointment with the Ministry of Health in New Zealand, helping establish programs in evidence based medicine and clinical guidelines.
Dr. Handley attended Northwestern University where he studied biomedical engineering and applied mathematics. He received his Doctor of Medicine at the University of California at Davis and completed residency training in family practice at Group Health.
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John Rother
John Rother is the Director of Policy and Strategy for the AARP. He is responsible for the federal and state public policies of the Association, for international initiatives, and for formulating AARP's overall strategic direction. He is an authority on Medicare, managed care, long-term care, Social Security, pensions, and the challenges facing the boomer generation.
Prior to coming to AARP in 1984, Mr. Rother served eight years with the U.S. Senate, first as Special Counsel for Labor and Health to former Senator Jacob Javits (R-NY), then as Staff Director and Chief Counsel for the Special Committee on Aging under its Chairman, Senator John Heinz (R-PA).
He serves on several boards and commissions, including Generations United, the National Health Care Quality Forum, the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, National Academy on Aging, and Civic Ventures.
Mr. Rother is frequently quoted in the news, and regularly presents at conferences and congressional briefings. Throughout 1996, Mr. Rother was on special sabbatical assignment to study the consumer implications of the managed care revolution and the economic challenges facing the boomer generation.
John Rother is an honors graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
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Kathleen Weldon
Kathleen M. Weldon joined the professional staff of the House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee in March 2004. Her portfolio includes issues related to the Medicare Part D drug benefit, the Medicare Advantage program, disease management, health care information technology, and post-acute care. During the negotiation of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, she served on the staff of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, where she was the committee's lead staff member for negotiations on the Medicare Advantage program. In the 107th Congress, Ms. Weldon was the Senior Health Policy Analyst with the Senate Budget Committee Republican Staff. From 1998 to 2000, she served as Assistant Deputy Mayor for Policy and Budget for Mayor Richard Riordan in Los Angeles. Ms. Weldon began her career as a management consultant with Andersen Consulting, focusing primarily on clients in the health care industry. She received her B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University in 1993 and her master's degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1998.
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Andrea Palm
Andrea Palm serves as the health policy advisor to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), who sits on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee. She handles the Senator's health committee work as well as her health agenda more broadly. A primary focus of her recent work has been Health IT and quality, and the legislation that is currently making its way through the Senate.
Prior to joining Senator Clinton's staff, Ms. Palm served as Legislative Director to the late Congressmen Robert T. Matsui of Sacramento, CA. She handled Rep. Matsui's Ways and Means committee issues, including health care and Social Security. She has also done a variety of low-income policy and direct service work for both non-profits and local government.
Ms. Palm is a native New Yorker and received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. She has an MSW from Washington University in St. Louis, and currently resides in Falls Church, VA with her husband.
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Dean Rosen
Dean A. Rosen runs the health care practice at Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, Inc, a full-service bipartisan government affairs firm in Washington, D.C. Having served for more than a decade in a series of senior legal and health policy positions in both the public and private sectors, he has a deep understanding of America's complex health care system and an equally intimate knowledge of politics and process. He also is a sought after public speaker and press commentator.
From his influential posts on Capitol Hill, Mr. Rosen helped shepherd through Congress a long list of major legislative accomplishments, including the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), the Project Bioshield Act of 2004, the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
For nearly five years prior to joining Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti Inc., Mr. Rosen was the chief health care advisor to Senate Majority Leader William H. Frist, M.D. He served from January 2003 until September 2005 as the Majority Leader's Health Policy Director and from 2001 until January 2003 as staff director for the United Senates Senate Subcommittee on Public Health, which was chaired by Senator Frist (R-TN).
Before joining the Subcommittee on Public Health, Mr. Rosen was senior vice president of policy and general counsel for the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA). He also served as health policy counsel to the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee and health policy coordinator to the Senate Labor Committee.
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Jane Loewenson
Jane Loewenson is the Director of Health Policy for the National Partnership for Women & Families. In this role, Ms. Loewenson oversees the Partnership's work on health care quality, health insurance access, and reproductive health. Before joining the National Partnership, Ms. Loewenson served for seven years as Senior Health Policy Advisor to the former Senate Democratic Leader, Tom Daschle. In that role, she advised the Democratic Leader on all stages of health care legislation, including formulation and drafting of legislative priorities, committee hearings and markups, Senate floor debate, conference committees, and oversight. Ms. Loewenson also worked as a professional staff member for the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee's Subcommittee on Children and Families, as a fellow for former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, and at the National Institutes of Health. Ms. Loewenson graduated from Brown University with honors. She received a Masters Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University.
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Scott Young, M.D.
Scott Young, M.D. is the Director for Health Information Technology at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
He has worked for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and served as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in the Office of Senator Jeff Bingaman. Dr. Young was a founding member and later served as the Executive Vice President for the Utah Healthcare Institute.
Dr. Young is a board-certified family physician. He received an M.D. from the University of Oklahoma and completed his training at the Fairfax Family Practice Residency. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Dr. Young is a recipient of the Mead-Johnson Research Award and the 2000 American College of Physician Executives Award of Excellence
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Alison Rein, M.S.
Alison Rein, M.S., is the Assistant Director of Food & Health Policy at the National Consumers League (NCL), the nation's oldest consumer organization, founded in 1899, to bring consumer power to bear on marketplace and workplace issues. Ms. Rein designs and coordinates campaigns and other activities around NCL's priority issues, including food safety and nutrition, medication safety, and health care quality. In the last year, she has expanded NCL's involvement as a consumer stakeholder in the national discussion about emerging health technologies.
Prior to joining NCL, Ms. Rein served as a health care consultant to a number of private and non-profit organizations, for which she conducted strategic evaluations, market studies, and research efforts aimed at evaluating the cost-effectiveness of numerous drug, biologic, and device interventions. She holds a master's degree in public policy analysis from the University of Rochester, and has co-authored several articles published in peer-reviewed medical journals.
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Holt Anderson
Holt Anderson is the Executive Director of the North Carolina Healthcare Information & Communications Alliance, Inc. (NCHICA). NCHICA is a private, nonprofit membership consortium of approximately 240 healthcare providers, payers, corporate partners, professional associations and government agencies. NCHICA's goal is improving healthcare in North Carolina by accelerating the adoption of information technology.
Mr. Anderson currently serves on the Steering Committee for the NC Immunization Registry and the Advisory Council for the North Carolina Center for Nursing. He is a member of the WEDi-SNIP Executive and Steering Committees and is a Co-chair of the WEDI Regional Affiliates Program. He has spoken extensively on NCHICA initiatives with respect to their HIPAA and clinical initiatives at national conferences and workshops.
Mr. Anderson formerly was an executive officer for an industry/university/government consortium engaged in advanced technology development in microelectronics, communications and supercomputing. Prior to that assignment, Mr. Anderson had a 13-year corporate banking career.
He previously served on the Boards of Directors of the Southern Technology Council, the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, the Computer-based Patient Records Institute (CPRI) and the World Trade Center North Carolina, the NC Economic Developers Association, as well as numerous charitable and civic organizations. He was a Governor's appointee to the Southern Governors' Association Task Force on Medical Technology. In addition, he was a public member of a Legislative Study Committee for Digitization of the State Archives and served on the Social & Ethical Issues Task Force for the North Carolina Vision 2030 Project.
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Micky Tripathi
Micky Tripathi is the President and CEO of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC), a non-profit collaboration of 34 leading Massachusetts organizations. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of MA-SHARE, a community utility service for statewide clinical data exchange in Massachusetts.
Prior to joining MAeHC, Mr. Tripathi was a manager in the Boston office of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a leading strategy and management consulting firm. While at BCG, he served as the founding President and CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange, an Indianapolis-based non-profit company partnered with the Regenstrief Institute to create a statewide health information infrastructure in the state of Indiana. As a manager in BCG's health care practice, Mr. Tripathi also served a variety of U.S. and international clients in the non-profit sector as well as in the bioinformatics, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industries.
Mr. Tripathi holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University, and an A.B. in political science from Vassar College. Prior to receiving his Ph.D., he was a senior operations research analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in Washington, D.C., for which he received the Secretary of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award.
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J.D. Kleinke
J.D. Kleinke is a medical economist, author, and health care information industry leader. He currently serves as Vice Chairman of HealthGrades, a publicly traded health care information company based in Denver, and as Executive Director of Omnimedix Institute, a non-profit health care information technology research and development organization based in Portland.
During the 1990s, Mr. Kleinke was a founding executive of HCIA - now Solucient - a pioneering health care information company. He was also a health care business columnist for the Wall Street Journal.
Before joining HCIA, Mr. Kleinke was Director of Corporate Programs at Sheppard Pratt Health System, the largest private psychiatric hospital in the U.S. While at Sheppard Pratt, Mr. Kleinke developed and managed the nation's first provider-based, managed mental health care system.
Mr. Kleinke's first book - Bleeding Edge: The Business of Health Care in the New Century - is required reading in most physician-executive M.B.A. programs, and most health administration graduate programs in the U.S. His newest book is Oxymorons: The Myth of a U.S. Health Care System.
In both his published work and business activities, Mr. Kleinke has been an eloquent champion of a health care system re-engineered around the principles of sound data; improved access to proven medicines; empowered but accountable doctors and patients; and a streamlined, functioning health insurance marketplace.
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Robert Manchin
Robert Manchin is Chairman of the Gallup Organization Europe, in Brussels, and is Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges. As Senior Vice President of the Gallup Organization, he was in charge of various R&D projects, and developed methodology for social audits in the fields of education, health, local and government administrations. He also ran research programs on monitoring economic, political and social trends in various parts of the world, including the Eurobarometer and surveys in Iraq.
Mr. Manchin has been a visiting professor and invited lecturer in various universities and conferences, and acted as consultant for a number of large international organizations, including the United Nations, UNESCO, and the World Bank.
His current work is concerned with the measurement of well-being and security and developing measures that can be used in evaluating alternative health policy choices.
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Paul Meyer
Paul Meyer is Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Voxiva. Voxiva provides phone and Internet-based applications for disease surveillance, health program management and patient monitoring for health agencies in the U.S., Latin America, Africa and Asia. Before co-founding Voxiva, Meyer was Founder and Chairman of IPKO, the first and largest Internet service provider in Kosovo. Started in the weeks after the 1999 war, IPKO was hailed by the U.N. Secretary General as "a model for future humanitarian emergencies." Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Markle Foundation, studying efforts to bridge the global digital divide. Preceding the Markle Foundation, he worked for the International Rescue Committee, where he launched a number of projects using technology to reunify separated refugee children and families in West Africa and the Balkans. Prior, he was Chief Operating Officer of the Endeavor Initiative.
From 1993 to 1995, Mr. Meyer served as one of President Clinton's White House speechwriters. He has a law degree from Yale Law School and studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University. He was recently named one of 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in Davos. MIT's Technology Review Magazine named him one of 100 technology pioneers and their 2003 Humanitarian of the Year. He is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association and a member of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness.
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Bonnie Parten
Bonnie Parten is a patient/advocate. Her father, Maurice Perreault, was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and diabetes, and then later with renal failure. Trying to navigate through multiple systems to receive correct care was frustrating, and at times, dangerous for her family until they started utilizing a Shared Care Plan. Prior to her father's death in October of 2004, Ms. Parten's family was very active with the Pursuing Perfection Project in Whatcom County. Ms. Parten continues to play a very active role with the program by serving on the Patient Advisory Board, and also on the Shared Care Planning Committee. Ms. Parten speaks willingly to Insurance Carriers and other communities regarding the importance of a computerized Shared Care Plan or PHR. Utilizing the Plan has changed the relationships in her family of seven, and also has educated each member.
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