Mia Arias

MPA - Project Coordinator, National Health Foundation

Mia Arias is Senior Project Coordinator at the National Health Foundation where she is responsible for the management and facilitation of a multi-hospital chronic disease prevention and management consortium as well as the Southern California Patient Safety Collaborative, a peer-to-peer learning collaborative facilitating quality improvement within hospitals.

Ms. Arias has six years of experience working with non-profit community based organizations. Previously, Ms. Arias served as the Simms/Mann Health and Wellness Project Coordinator at Venice Family Clinic, the largest free clinic in the nation. Prior to this, she worked in development at The Children’s Clinic, a non-profit community clinic in Long Beach, CA.

Ms. Arias received her Master Degree in Public Administration with an emphasis in nonprofit management from the University of Southern California and received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Ms. Arias is a graduate of the CORO Health Leadership Program, a leadership training program for health professionals dedicated to improving access to quality healthcare for Los Angeles’ medically underserved communities. She has also been involved with several programs which address issues of obesity, asthma and health disparities in the Long Beach community.

Marion J. Ball, Ed.D.

Senior Advisor, Healthcare and Life Sciences Institute, IBM Research & Founder, T.I.G.E.R. Initiative

Dr. Ball is a member of the Institute of Medicine, and serves on the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine.  She also serves on a variety of boards in the area of health information technology, including serving as President of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA), and as a board member of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), American Health Information Management Systems (AHIMA/FORE), and Co-Chaired the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Board.  She received the Morris F. Collen Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), and is an honorary member of Sigma Theta Tau, the Honor Society of Nursing, and the Medical Library Association (MLA) and most recently was inducted as an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. 

She is the author/editor of 20 books and over 260 articles in the field of Health Informatics.  Her book, Consumer Informatics, received the HIMSS 2005 Book-of-the-Year Award.  The third edition of Introduction to Nursing Informatics was published in 2006, and a second edition of Aspects of Electronic Health Record Systems was published in 2007.  Her previous book entitled Nursing Informatics: Where Caring and Technology Meet has most recently been translated into Chinese and Portuguese, joining the family of other translations into Japanese, German, Korean, and Polish, and the 4th edition will be published in 2009-10.

John Bardis

Chairman, MedAssets

John A. Bardis has been Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of MedAssets since its founding in June, 1999. Mr. Bardis has over 20 years experience in the healthcare industry. Beginning with American Hospital Supply and Baxter International, he held various senior management positions, including Vice President of the Baxter Operating Room Division and General Manager of the Eastern Zone. Mr. Bardis left Baxter in 1987 to join Kinetic Concepts.

Kinetic Concepts, a NASDAQ traded company (KNCI) was the nation's largest specialty bed and medical equipment rental company at the time of his departure as President in 1992. From 1992 to 1997, Mr. Bardis was President and CEO of TheraTx, Inc. TheraTx, another NASDAQ traded company (THTX) was a leading provider of rehabilitation services and operator of skilled nursing facilities. In 1995, TheraTx was named the second fastest growing public company in America by INC. Magazine, growing from $15mm to over $500mm in 5 years.

Mr. Bardis was named Entrepreneur of the year by INC Magazine in 1995. Mr. Bardis graduated with a B.S. in Business from the University of Arizona. He serves on the board of USA wrestling, the National governing body for amateur wrestling, The Health Careers Foundation, Heart for Africa and is Chairman of the Atlanta Fire Youth Hockey Club. Mr.Bardis was also named Team Leader of the U.S. Greco-Roman Wrestling Team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and served as Team Leader in the 2007 World Championships where Team USA won the world team title for the first time in wrestling history.

Dr. Scotty L. Bolding

Chairman and CEO, US Health Record, Inc.

Dr. Scotty Bolding is the Chairman and CEO of US Health Record Incorporated (www.ushealthrecord.com).   He is one of the original cofounders of the company and has been working for over 15 years developing health information technologies to enhance patient care.  He and cofounder Dr. Richard Roblee are the coauthors of the textbook “Interdisciplinary Dentofacial Therapy’ published in 1994 emphasizing that high quality healthcare requires a centralized health record model that is shared by the patient’s healthcare providers.  In 1995, they began developing a web- based electronic personal health record that houses all of the patient’s medical and dental information.  The system has all of the security controls to allow for record sharing, and embedded electronic medical record tools and interfaces to assist the health care providers in populating the record.  The company has continued to develop the system with the latest technologies and now the platform has been recognized as one of the leading solutions for the future of healthcare on the market today.  Their development team recently received the Microsoft Healthcare Partner of the Year Public Sector Award for 2009 for the work on their platform design.

Dr. Bolding has devoted his career to developing both clinical and technological applications that enhance healthcare both for the patient and the provider.  He is an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon by training, and has served as a Board Examiner for the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons.  He remains active in the practice of his specialty which helps him stay in touch with patient care needs and the issues associated with our health care system.   His unique background as an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon has given him keen insight into the delivery of healthcare both from a medical and dental perspective. 

Dr. Bolding has also been consulting with hospitals, industry leaders, physicians, dentist, and patients for over 15 years on various ways to improve healthcare.  He is the founder of Maxsurge Healthcare Solutions, a company that provides consulting and revenue cycle management services for the healthcare industry.  This unique background has allowed Dr. Bolding to be a frequent guest speaker on the value of electronic health record technology and it role in the healthcare industry.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas and studied dentistry at Baylor College of Dentistry where he received a doctorate of dental surgery and a Post Doctoral Master’s of Science degree in Craniofacial Biology.   He then completed his specialty training in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.

Dr. Bolding and his wife Taruna live in Fayetteville, Arkansas and have 4 children.

John Casillas

Founder, Medical Banking Project

John Casillas founded the Medical Banking Project, a member-driven forum, to research, document and facilitate "medical banking™", a term he coined to denote "the latent integration of banking technology, infrastructure and credit resources with healthcare administrative operations." He is an authority in medical banking subject matter and provides technical assistance to policy makers, banks, healthcare administrators, lawyers and others. He maintains that medical banking will revolutionize healthcare financing and operations and open a new paradigm in the business relationships between banks and healthcare. He actively supports medical banking initiatives for both private and public organizations.

John organized and moderated a 24-month HIPAA Policy Roundtable webcast series featuring national experts and the "HIPAA Gang" that defined national policy issues around the intersection of banks and healthcare in the areas of privacy, security and transactions compliance. He provides technical consultation to commerce and assisted the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Health & Human Services, testified before the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, served as a Commissioner for the Electronic Healthcare Network Accredication Commission (after proposing a new "bank clearinghouse" accreditation that he helped to develop) and was medical banking SME for the Healthcare Financial Management Association. He authored the first HIPAA compliance e-learning module for banks.

John founded the National Medical Banking Institute, an educational arm of the Project, to advance cross-industry understanding of the scope of change made possible by engaging the bank healthcare stakeholder. He established a Leadership Forum (a national medical banking Lab for industry), is editor of The Medical Banking Report and works to create "Charitable Communities Network™ a bank-driven community care platform with a news broadcasting component.
John's work and articles are extensively published in the trade journals, including the Health Data Management, Banking Law Journal, Collections & Credit Risk Magazine, Nasvhille City Paper, Journal for Healthcare Administrative Management, Health Care Law Monthly (LexisNexis), The ADVISOR (International Privacy Officer's Association), the SWACHA website and many others. He has been interviewed by Forbes, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, HIMSS NewsCast, Ingenix, Nashville Business Journal (where he received the 2005 Top Healthcare 100 Award for national influence) and many other media outlets. He has addressed the Federal Reserve Board of Dallas, National HIPAA Summit Conference, Faces of a Healthy Future conference on health disparities, Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, Association for Electronic Healthcare Transactions, LegalTech New York, HIPAA Colloquium at Harvard University, TAWPI, Consumer-Driven Healthcare Conference, HSA Summit and others.

Prior to founding the Project, John started an electronic medical debt trading platform (partially owned by THA Solutions Group, a for-profit subsidiary of the Tennessee Hospital Association); and prior to that, co-founded Realistic Cashflow Management (RCM), a provider of health data management services for mostly Mid-Atlantic academic health centers. In 1992 he led development of a medical remittance IT platform in conjunction with a bank lockbox. A case study was published by Health Data Management.

RCM was acquired by a national bank marketing firm where John assisted development of an IT platform to support medical receivable financing contracts originated through a network of some 1000 community banks. During this time he interviewed over 125 bank officers and hospital CEOs. He felt that, spurred by HIPAA, a new "medical banking" niche industry could emerge. In 1996 he published a newsletter that was distributed to bank holding companies in order to initiate cross-industry dialogue; however, the issue was not prominent. He joined WebMD (ENVOY) in 1997 to direct product strategy. In 1998, he wrote the nation's first White Paper addressing HIPAA's potential impact on banks, widely used by top banks to assess risk.

John graduated in Cytotechnology at Thomas Jefferson University: College of Health Professions located in Philadelphia, PA. He served for five years as president of the Blue Mountain Academy Alumni Association (PA) to help high school students.

John Clymer

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Loma Linda University School of Public Health
Senior Advisor, Alliance to Make US Healthiest
Senior Advisor, Directors of Health Promotion and Education
Member, U.S. Task Force on Community Preventive Services

John Clymer advises boards and CEOs on strategic partnerships, leadership, organizational growth, and health policy.  Additionally, he is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at Loma Linda University School of Public Health where he works with the new Center for Health Policy and Leadership. 

From 2001-2008, Clymer was president of Partnership for Prevention.  Under his leadership, PfP quadrupled its budget; won passage of landmark Medicare legislation that for the first time put prevention on a level playing field with disease diagnosis and treatment; developed a health reform framework on which Barack Obama based his prevention and public health agenda; formed the Leading by Example CEO Roundtable which was recognized in Harvard Business Review’s “Breakthrough Ideas” in 2006; and, with former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, established the National Commission on Prevention Priorities.  Clymer leveraged PfP’s influence through strategic partnerships with AARP, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Chamber of Commerce and World Economic Forum. 

Clymer serves on the U.S. Task Force on Community Preventive Services, World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Chronic Disease and Malnutrition, and several advisory boards.

Clymer often serves as a keynote and plenary speaker on health policy, health reform and human capital management.  He authored a chapter in Igniting the Power of Community: The Role of CBOs and NGOs in Global Public Health (Springer, 2009) and co-authored a chapter in ACSM’s Worksite Health Handbook: A Guide to Building Healthy and Productive Companies (Human Kinetics, 2009).  He has testified before various legislatures, given numerous formal Congressional briefings, and appeared on NBC Nightly News, Fox News, CNBC, public radio, and in print media such as The New York Times. 

Duane Dauner

President and Chief Executive Officer, California Hospital Association

C. Duane Dauner was appointed president/CEO of the California Hospital Association (CHA) in 1985.  CHA is devoted to statewide representation and advocacy for California’s hospitals. CHA is one of the nation’s largest state health care associations, representing 400 hospitals and health systems.

Mr. Dauner has been active in national hospital and health care issues, serving on numerous American Hospital Association (AHA) and American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) boards and committees. He has authored numerous articles and a book; is a nationally known leader on health is-sues; and has lectured at several California university graduate programs.

In 2002, Mr. Dauner received ACHE’s highest honor, the Gold Medal Award, and he has been hon-ored by the Partners in Care Foundation, National Health Foundation, UCLA and Health Care Execu-tives of Southern California.

Mr. Dauner was an assistant professor at Washburn University of Topeka, Kansas prior to beginning his hospital association career at the Kansas Hospital Association in 1966. In 1975, he became president and CEO of the Missouri Hospital Association.

Mr. Dauner holds BA and MA degrees from Wichita State University. He and his wife Diane reside in Sacramento, California.

Curtis Dikes, RN

National Director Clinical Informatics Technology Integration, Kaiser Permanente;
Past-President & Board Member, American Nursing Informatics Association

Curtis Dikes is National Director Clinical Informatics Technology Integration at Kaiser Permanente, interacting with business and clinician partners to identify and deploy clinical care technologies that foster clinician efficiency, promote quality of care and patient safety, and otherwise support clinical improvement goals. 

He is an innovator in technology design and integration engendering optimal healthcare design and delivery, using his background as a clinician with expertise in nursing informatics, advanced practice nursing and biomedical ethics. An active member of advisory boards, including the American Hospital Association (AHA) Solutions, Inc. and Vocera, Inc., Curtis is also a board member, including Past-President, of the American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA), a steering committee member of the Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI), and an active member in the HIMSS and American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE) communities. 

Dr. Dev GnanaDev, MD, MBA, FACS 

President, California Medical Association Medical Director, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center

Dr. Dev A. GnanaDev, medical director and chairman of the surgery department at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, has a long and distinguished career in the field of health care.

A physician leader who was installed as President of the California Medical Association (CMA), Dr. GnanaDev has worked tirelessly throughout his 27-year professional career to improve the health and well-being of residents in San Bernardino County, with a special focus on the medically underserved. Dr. GnanaDev, who has spent his entire career as a physician in the public hospital setting, has been instrumental in starting several programs designed specifically to improve the health and well-being of those who are less fortunate.

He started one such program, ARMC’s Cardiac Health Management Program, in 2002 using money from his own pocket. The program provides free services to qualifying patients who no health insurance who are recovering from a heart attack or coronary bypass surgery.

Working in collaboration with the San Bernardino County Probation Department, Dr. GnanaDev founded New Beginnings, a laser tattoo-removal program at ARMC that helps former gang members remove the stigma of their former lives and become productive members of society. Perhaps the largest measure of Dr. GnanaDev’s impact on the underserved may be in the very hospital in which he works. In the mid-1990s, Dr. GnanaDev spearheaded a grass-roots campaign to win approval for construction of ARMC, which opened in 1999 as the replacement facility for the old San Bernardino County Medical Center.

Largely because of Dr. GnanaDev’s tireless efforts in gaining support for a project that many considered too expensive, the 373-bed Medical Center in Colton, located 60 miles east of Los Angeles, was built, providing the residents of San Bernardino County with one of the most modern health care facilities in the world. Today, ARMC is one of the state’s busiest and most highly respected “safety net” hospitals, providing quality health care to all those who need it, regardless of ability to pay, insurance or immigration status. ARMC truly is a hospital for the underserved. Approximately 38 percent of its patients have no insurance, and 49 percent rely on publicly funded programs such as Medi-Cal or Medicare for their health care coverage.

Dr. GnanaDev served as corporate recruiting chairman for the Walk to Cure Diabetes of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation in 1997 and also served on the Board of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Inland Empire Section, from 1997-98.  He was actively involved with the San Bernardino County Medical Center in establishing children’s safety fairs to prevent or diminish the incidence of childhood injuries. He has been a member of the ARMC Foundation with special interest in rehabilitation of children with extensive burns, and works with the local Firefighter’s Associations in raising funds to send children to Burn Camp and also to distribute burn prevention literature to schools.

Dr. GnanaDev served on the Blue Ribbon Committee for UC Riverside’s recently approved School of Medicine. His hope is that the new School of Medicine will help to reduce a disparity in health care by training more Hispanic doctors to provide culturally and linguistically sensitive care to the large Hispanic population in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

Dr. GnanaDev has received various honors and recognition for his outstanding work and commitment to those who utilize public health programs for their health and well-being. The two most notable awards were the 2007 American Medical Association Foundation’s Pride in the Profession Award and the 2005 Physician Recognition Award from the Medical Board of California. Both awards are designed to recognize those who dedicate their careers to those who are less-fortunate.

His passion for helping this segment of the population prompted Dr. GnanaDev to seek the presidency of the CMA, an advocacy organization that represents more than 34,000 California physicians. He was elected president-elect of the CMA in October 2007. Dedicated to the health of all Californians, the CMA is active in legal, legislative, reimbursement and regulatory areas on behalf of physicians and their patients. Dr. GnanaDev’s upcoming presidency of the CMA will enable him to play a leading role on the state level in improving access to quality health care for the uninsured and underinsured.

Dr. GnanaDev is highly respected by his peers, his friends, his patients, and local elected officials for his long-standing commitment to improved health care.  He exemplifies the true leader in the physician community and the community at-large.

Anne C. Haddix

Chief Policy Officer, Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

Anne C. Haddix, PhD, is acting Chief of the Office of Strategy and Innovation and acting Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer. She has been CDC’s Chief Policy Officer since May 2006 and serves as a principal advisor to the CDC Director. She is responsible for providing leadership and long-term perspective on policy development, review, and analysis for CDC’s role in improving the public's health. She also serves as CDC’s Chief Regulatory Policy Officer. Anne is a member of the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research and is playing a pivotal role in CDC’s efforts to influence health reform.

Anne joined CDC/ATSDR in 1992 in the former Prevention Effectiveness Branch in the Epidemiology Program Office as the first PhD-trained economist at CDC. She later became the chief of the Prevention Effectiveness Branch. Along with former CDC employee Dr. Steven Teutsch, Anne founded and successfully cultivated economic analysis as a scientific discipline at CDC, eventually training more than 2,000 CDC staff, and also establishing the Prevention Effectiveness Fellowship program. Anne left CDC in 1998 to become an associate professor in the Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, but returned to CDC in 2004.

She received her PhD in agricultural economics in 1993 from the University of Georgia. She graduated from California State University Fresno in 1985 with an MS in agricultural economics. She received her BA in biology from California State University Fresno in 1979.

Stuart Haniff, M.H.A

Director of Resource Development, Inland Empire United Way & Event Emcee

Stuart Haniff of the United Way has 20 years of continuous fundraising, administration, and health care management experience, including leadership, resource development, planned giving, and operations.

Mr. Haniff joins Inland Empire United Way’s mission to engage a caring community to respond to human need by helping disadvantaged kids succeed in school, providing easy access to health and social services, developing opportunities for volunteers to create positive change, and strengthening financial stability opportunities for low-income families and individuals.
Before taking the lead as Director of Resource Development at Inland Empire United Way, Mr. Haniff served as the Director of Development at Make-A-Wish Foundation of Orange County and the Inland Empire, the largest chapter of a highly recognizable nonprofit with a mission to grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy.

Prior to Make-A-Wish Foundation, Mr. Haniff was the Executive Director at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center Foundation, the fundraising arm of the county hospital in the largest geographic county in the United States with a commitment to achieving an adequate and diverse nursing workforce in the Inland Empire.

Mr. Haniff was the recipient of the Bank of America Neighborhood Builder Award which gave him the opportunity to meet and speak with non-profits across the country on the healthcare issues in the Inland Empire. He was also recognized by 951 Magazine as one of the “51 to Watch” for 2008.

Stuart Haniff holds a Master of Health Administration degree from University of La Verne and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from University of California, Los Angeles.

Paul Jarris, MD, MBA

Executive Director, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)

Paul E. Jarris, MD, MBA was appointed Executive Director of ASTHO effective June 19, 2006. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Jarris served as State Health Official of the Vermont Department of Health from 2003 to 2006. Dr. Jarris served as Medical Director for Vermont’s largest nonprofit HMO, Community Health Plan, from 1992-1996.

He was President and CEO of Vermont Permanente Medical Group from 1998-2000 as well as CEO of Primary Care Health Partners, Vermont’s largest statewide primary care medical group, from 1999-2000. Throughout his career, Dr. Jarris has maintained an active clinical family practice, including work in federally qualified health centers and a shelter for homeless adolescent youth. He is certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and the American Board of Medical Management.

Dr. Jarris graduated from the University of Vermont and received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1984. He interned at Duke-Watts Family Medicine Residency Program in Durham, N.C. and completed his residency at the Swedish Family Practice Residency Program in Seattle, Washington. Following residency training, he received a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Washington.

Zachery Jiwa

Business Development Manager for Connected Health, Microsoft Health Solutions Group

Zachery Jiwa is the current Business Development Manager for Connected Health within Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group.  He joined Microsoft in 2008 where he spent his first year with the company as Senior Product Manager for Connected Health focusing on Electronic Health Records and Health Information Exchange strategy, recently moving into the Business Development organization.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Mr. Jiwa has served the HIT community his entire career with leadership roles for both hardware and software vendors in addition to provider organizations.  As the Healthcare Product Manager for Motion Computing, he led product strategy for the Motion C5 Mobile Clinical Assistant helping bring a new hardware platform to clinicians in the healthcare market.  As a CIO for Children’s Hospital of Austin, he focused on deployment of EMR and telehealth technologies to the ambulatory pediatric practices of Central Texas as well as coordinating a smooth transition to the campus of the new Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas in the Spring/Summer of 2007. 

While living and working in Austin, TX, Mr. Jiwa also served as President of the Austin HIMSS Chapter where he provided leadership and guidance to the Texas Health Information Technology Advisory Committee and initiated coordination of the first, HIMSS sponsored, Texas State HIT Advocacy Day held in 2009.  Mr. Jiwa began his career as an implementation manager for an ambulatory Practice Management/EMR company where he helped hundreds of physicians and clinicians adopt technology and improve care.

Christine G. Leyden, RN, MSN

Vice President and General Manager, Client Services Division, URAC
Chief Accreditation Officer

Washington, D.C. January 8, 2008 – URAC announced today it has named Christine G. Leyden, RN, MSN, as the new vice president and general manager of its Client Services division. Leyden will also serve as the organization’s chief accreditation officer. URAC is the Washington, D.C.-based independent accreditor which offers more than 20 accreditation and certification programs along the continuum of care. Currently URAC accredits more than 400 health care management organizations operating in all 50 states.

Leyden has served with URAC for six years, first as an accreditation reviewer who works directly with a wide spectrum of health management organizations--such as health plans, health networks, utilization review organizations and care management companies--to understand and apply URAC’s standards across a breadth of organizations and accreditation programs. Leyden most recently served as director of accreditation, overseeing all accreditation activities from a client’s initial application process through accreditation field review and final consideration of the Accreditation Committee. She was active in the standards development process for URAC’s new Pharmacy Benefit Management and Drug Therapy Management accreditation programs, its recently announced international vendor certification program and in URAC’s Medicare Advantage deeming initiative.

In her new role, Leyden will lead customer support and ongoing account management functions in Client Services. This division also interacts with clients throughout desktop and on-site review of accreditation applications and helps organizations to share best practices. Leyden will continue to be responsible for the management and clinical oversight of accreditation reviewers, as well as the interface with stakeholder-based accreditation committees.

"Christine has more than 15 years of managed care expertise across the health care continuum," said Alan P. Spielman, URAC’s president and chief executive officer. “She has a proven track record and is already well-known to our clients through her hands-on accreditation experience. Christine’s field experience and her work in the URAC standards development process have well prepared her for this leadership role.”

Leyden is a registered nurse with a master’s degree in community health with a concentration in continuity of care. Her expertise includes work in consulting, Medicaid case management, disease management and quality improvement, and as a director of case management and utilization review. Leyden has published numerous articles concerning case management, disease management, and managed care. She has served as president of the American Association for Continuity of Care, and as a section editor for Pediatric Nursing. Her clinical background includes positions with the National Institute of Health, National Cancer Institute, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and in children’s home care.

About URAC
URAC, an independent, nonprofit organization, is well-known as a leader in promoting health care quality through its accreditation and certification programs. URAC offers a wide range of quality benchmarking programs and services that keep pace with the rapid changes in the health care system, and provide a symbol of excellence for organizations to validate their commitment to quality and accountability. Through its broad-based governance structure and an inclusive standards development process, URAC ensures that all stakeholders are represented in establishing meaningful quality measures for the entire health care industry. For more information, visit www.urac.org.

Jeanine Martin

US Health Provider Strategist, Microsoft Corporation

Jeanine Martin is a US Health Provider Strategist at Microsoft. She has been in the Health and Life Sciences Industry for the last 15+ years. She is the Past President of Women in Technology International and the Founder of Women in Technology of TN. She is a Founding Officer of the TN HIMSS Chapter and she formed the 1st CIO Advisory Council for HIMSS on behalf of her statewide Chapter.

She formed the 1st National Health IT Summit during the Office of President Bush to showcase his funded RHIO’s. She is a member of the HIMSS HIE Roundtable as the Liaison for the SoCal HIMSS Chapter and a member of the HIMSS HIE Technology Best Practices Task Force. She is also a Nurse Advocate that works with the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Task Force, CARING-AMIA and the TIGER Initiative that presented to the World Health Congress.

Finally, she is a member of Microsoft's 5 year Global Health Strategic Planning Committee, a Liaison between HIMSS National and the Microsoft Healthcare User Group, formed MS’ 1st National Clinical Council that she kicked off at AMDIS, she is a member of Microsoft’s Health Provider Advisory Council and Microsoft’s Cross-Industry Advisory Board.

John Mattison, MD

Chief Medical Information Officer, Kaiser Permanente Southern California

John Mattison, MD, oversees all information systems deployment in the Southern California region of Kaiser Permanente, which includes more than 5,000 physicians, 3 million members, 140 clinics and 13 hospitals.

In 2003, he became program director for the Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect® program, a comprehensive health information system that includes one of the most advanced electronic health records available.  Here he led the largest deployment of KP HealthConnect in Southern California, which has been fully implemented in every clinic and hospital to date - representing the single largest deployment of a completely integrated electronic health record. 

Dr. Mattison began working for Kaiser Permanente San Diego in 1989 where he practiced internal medicine. In 1992, he was appointed as the assistant medical director and chief medical information officer.

As a true believer and thought leader in the development and deployment of personal health records, he wrote his first electronic health record in 1984 and has strived to use fully automated medical records in his practice since that time and challenging others to do the same. 

He currently chairs the Kaiser Permanente National IT Infrastructure Governance Group, the regional business governance group for all regions, and is a member of numerous other national governance groups. As a respected leader in health IT, he consults internationally on the subject and interoperability standards.  He is the co-founder of the Clinical Document Architecture – the international standard for sharing patient records between institutions under the umbrella of HL7. Dr. Mattison has published numerous papers on medical informatics and frequently speaks at national events on the topics of health IT, interoperability and medical informatics.

Prior to his work with Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Mattison specialized in internal medicine and critical care. From 1984 to 1989, he practiced internal medicine and critical care at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation where he served as director of the Medical and Surgical Intensive Care Unit while chairing committees on pharmacy, quality and utilization.

Bevey Miner

Vice President Executive Director, National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI) and Vice President, Government Affairs, Allscripts

Bevey Miner was hired by Allscripts in 2006 to help design a program to offer free electronic prescribing to every physician in America. As Executive Director of the National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI), Ms. Miner was responsible for securing sponsors, managing physician outreach, policy and government relations and media and marketing programs to help promote NEPSI, a coalition sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Dell, Sprint, Cisco, Fujitsu, WellPoint and Aetna.  The mission of NEPSI is to eliminate the more than 7,000 deaths and 1.5 million injuries annually that are caused by medication errors. By offering a free electronic prescribing solution to every physician in America, the program has successfully succeeded in increasing the adoption of ePrescribing thereby increasing the quality of care and reducing these preventable errors.
 
Ms. Miner just recently added a new focus to her efforts at Allscripts as VP of Government Affairs. She is responsible for following the current ARRA funds dedicated to healthcare and determining how to engage multi-stakeholder organizations to support Allscripts solutions as they seek out a piece of the more than $35 billion dedicated to health care reform in America. 

Before joining Allscripts, Ms. Miner was Vice President at Healthvision where she promoted clinical connectivity through the use of an interoperable health information exchange (HIE), This solution is the foundation of many connected health communities around the country today.  Ms. Miner has held a number of positions with healthcare technology and technology companies during the last 20 years.

Previous to her focus on healthcare technology, Ms. Miner was a key player in the adoption of interstate banking.  Through her public affairs efforts with Citigroup, Ms. Miner negotiated the passing of interstate banking in Arizona and the first introduction of the ATM machine, which ultimately led to the reform of our financial system and the advent of secure ubiquitous access to financial information.

Ms. Miner started her career as a journalist for the Arizona Republic and the ABC affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona.

Helga Rippen

former Chief Health Information Officer, Hospital Corporation of America

Work History
1999 – present Director of Medical Informatics, Pfizer Health Solutions Santa Monica, California

Developing an informatics strategy for Pfizer Health Solutions that best support the needs of the health care sector.

1996 - 1999 Director & Founder, Health Information Technology Institute - Mitretek Systems McLean, Virginia

Increased the visibility of Mitretek Systems, a 501(c)(3), in the health domain through the creation of the Health Information Technology Institute (HITI). Developed and pursued a successful long term strategy resulting in international recognition aligned with quality and health informatics. As a part of this strategy I have developed a HITI corporate image and mission statement, convened a Blue Ribbon Panel (to provide feedback to HITI), obtained national and international exposure, established a web presence (http://hitiweb.mitretek.org), assembled a robust team of experts (within and external to HITI), and expanded Mitretek’s client base (e.g., national and local medical associations, hospitals and academic medical centers). In addition, I have developed the following:

Myocardial Infarction Alert System. Conceptualized and wrote a grant submission to the National Library of Medicine that provided a mechanism to use the Internet and information technology to decrease the time to treatment for patients experiencing a heart attack.

Prevent It! – an Internet based application for employers. First phase completed, an Internet cardiovascular disease module based on the USPS Task Force’s Guide to Clinical Preventive Services, that provides individuals recommended clinical preventive services based on their risk factors.

Health Summit Working Group – an expert group of key stakeholders in health informatics and the established criteria for assessing the quality of health information on the Internet. Products include two documents a white paper and a policy paper (http://hitiweb.mitretek.org/hwsg). Many organizations are endorsing the policy paper and using these documents to ensure the quality of their site, as a method to help them "evaluate" the quality of other sites, and to educate consumers. These documents have been translated into numerous languages and is being used internationally.
Information Quality Tool (IQ) - a web-based educational tool that can help consumers and developers evaluate sites. Preliminary studies have shown that the tool can effectively separate "high quality" from "low quality" sites. More testing is being planned to assess the tools reliability and validity (http://hitiweb.mitretek.org/iq).

CancerDesk - a prototype of a Internet physician-patient platform for patients with breast and prostate cancer for health care delivery organizations. The prototype is designed to assess impact of using different web-technologies on patients and providers.

Health Informatics Training – provide a two to three month rotation to Preventive Medicine Residents who are interested in health informatics from Johns Hopkins University and Internal Medicine Residents from Prince George’s Hospital Center.

Technical Paper on Electronic Medical Records – review of the current state of the art, with an emphasis on physicians and the office setting.

1998 - present Associate Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health Washington, DC

Created a new course: Health Informatics – Applications and Public Policy Implications. This course provides students exposure to leaders in the health informatics.

1994 - 1996 Preventive Medicine Resident, Johns Hopkins University

Served in an expert capacity in the following roles:

Senior Health Fellow - Mitretek Systems McLean, Virginia

Developed a business plan incorporating information technology as the mechanism to support patient centric care for a cancer center.

Fellow - Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Washington, DC

Initiated the development of a continuing medical education credit supplement to facilitate implementation of the Put Prevention Into Practice Program for the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Department of Health and Human Services. Designed the product to generate funds, providing a return of 300% to 400% over cost, for the associations that will implement the program

Expert - Consultants in Epidemiology and Occupational Health Washington, DC

Applied epidemiologic tools to analyze an established medical surveillance system in an industrial setting. Redesigned, with company input, their system to facilitate an assessment of employee health and exposure to sodium azide. Wrote a ground-breaking paper on the industrial and occupational health impact of the sodium azide industry on employees to provide occupational health guidelines for reducing future employee exposure in the industry. Developed a database system for a medical surveillance system, which will reduce error rates by 90% and data entry times by 50%. Tailored system for epidemiological assessment to guide engineering and industrial hygiene. Resulted in the addition of controls to investigate significant findings.

Physician & Analyst - Occupational Safety and Health, Office of Occupational Medicine Washington, DC

Originated and completed a database system for inquiries to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, Office of Occupational Medicine. Resulted in a reduction in physician time requirements by approximately 3,000 hours a year. Provided rapid reporting of inquiry profiles, quality assurance, and resource identification. Product was recommended for use agency-wide to help answer inquiries in a unified manner and help direct management and future activities.

Provided expert responses in occupational health for inquiries directed to the Occupational Safety and Health, Office of Occupational Medicine. This expertise served as the basis for two industry citations for carbon monoxide exposures and elimination of exposure risks

Analyst - Office of Technology Assessment Washington, DC

Wrote a background paper on coverage decisions by medical directors for laser technologies to provide the basis for future recommendations for uniform and rational approaches to coverage decisions. Analyzed health technology trends to direct future policy activities at the federal level while at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment.

Consultant - American College of Preventive Medicine Washington, DC

Performed under extreme time constraints and successfully completed a review of preventive interventions and their costs for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Product was used to guide their cost-effectiveness recommendations

Instructor - Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland

Taught an undergraduate course in public health.

SAS Programmer - Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland

Developed SAS program to calculate expected mortality rates, corrected for age, race and sex in an HIV and control populations to enable investigators to evaluate their findings in a meaningful manner.

1993 - 1994 Medical Intern - Georgetown University, Fairfax Hospital Fairfax, Virginia

Hands-on experience as a physician in the delivery of health care in hospital, clinic, work and community settings. Successfully completed transitional internship training in pediatrics, surgery, internal medicine, critical care, and emergency and ambulatory medicine.

Successfully completed an INOVA grant for the evaluation of health care delivery at the clinic level for the chronic diseases hypertension and diabetes. Developed and initiated the implementation of a chronic disease patient management program. Worked with corporations and associations to provide educational materials to health care providers and patients at no cost to the clinic. These activities have led to a significant improvement in the management of hypertensive and diabetic patients.

1991 - 1992 Diplomacy Fellow - U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Washington, DC

Represented and led the Agency for International Development’s Dracunculiasis eradication activities at the Interagency Group on Dracunculiasis Eradication and at the Guinea Worm Summit, a senior policy meeting, at the Carter Center. Identified provision of an uncontaminated water supply as primary activity for the Agency in this endeavor. This approach resulted in a significant reduction in mortality, in addition to a decrease in Dracunculiasis.

Successfully developed and wrote a $100 million environmental health program to provide technical assistance in the various sectors of environmental health to developing countries for the Agency for International Development. Praised for the quality of the program by the company awarded the contract. Hands-on and formal training in team management to support the program cycle process used in the successful programs discussed above. Initiated and completed numerous projects from conception, through development, implementation, and evaluation. Evaluated numerous projects to help guide the future direction and million dollar funding decisions. Provided technical appraisals of numerous grant requests guiding awards of several million dollars.

1987 - 1988 Research Fellow - University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada
Investigated sickle cell adhesion using immunofluorence techniques.

1986 - 1987 Research Fellow - Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry Munich, Germany
Built a prototype Couette-flow apparatus to study the effects of shear on fibrin polymerization. Taught PASCAL.

Herb Schultz

Senior Advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger

Herb Schultz, 44, of West Hollywood, has been appointed senior health policy advisor for the Office of the Governor. Most recently, he has served as vice president of government programs for McKesson Health Solutions, where he oversaw disease management and nurse advice government Medicaid and Medicare programs. Schultz previously was acting director of the California Employment Development Department and acting secretary and undersecretary for the Labor and Workforce Development Agency. Prior to that, he was deputy director of external affairs for the Department of Managed Health Care and served as director of the Advisory Committee on Managed Health Care.

Mr. Herb K. Schultz serves as senior health policy advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger.  Most recently, he has served as Vice President of Government Programs for McKesson Health Solutions, where he oversaw the company’s disease management and nurse advice programs for Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries.  Schultz previously was Acting Director of the California Employment Development Department in the first year of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Administration.  He served as a member of then-Governor Gray Davis’ Cabinet as Acting Secretary for the Labor and Workforce Development Agency.  Mr. Schultz was appointed Undersecretary before his Cabinet-level appointment, and remained in both roles until the end of the Davis Administration. 

Prior to that, he was Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Department of Managed Health Care, which including serving as Director of the Advisory Committee on Managed Health Care. Schultz went to college and graduate school in Washington, DC, having received his Undergraduate Degree in Political Science and International Studies from The American University and has a Masters Degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University.

Tom Williams, MBA, MPH

Executive Director, Integrated Healthcare Association

Tom Williams serves as Executive Director of the Integrated Healthcare Association, promoting quality improvement, accountability and affordability of health care in California. He is engaged in management of IHA's programs and initiatives, including the statewide pay-for-performance program, medical technology value-based purchasing initiative; and healthcare affordability.

Mr. Williams has extensive executive-level experience in medical group management, managed healthcare, and health insurance, including 15 years as an executive at Aetna. He has served on numerous private company and non-profit boards involved in healthcare and the environment.

Mr. Williams received a B.S. in environmental biology from the University of California at Santa Barbara and earned his Masters in Business Administration and Public Health from the University of Hawaii. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of California at Berkeley in public health with a focus on quality improvement in healthcare.

Dr. William A. Yasnoff

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Health Record Banking Alliance

William A. Yasnoff, MD, PhD, FACMI, a well-known leader in health informatics, heads a national health information infrastructure consulting firm and is also founder and President of the non-profit Health Record Banking Alliance. 

Previously, as Senior Advisor, DHHS, he organized the 2003 DHHS conference on NHII and facilitated the President's 2004 endorsement of universal electronic medical records and creation of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.  Author of over 300 publications and presentations, he earned his Ph.D. in computer science and M.D. from Northwestern.  He was elected to Fellowship in the American College of Medical Informatics in 1989.

David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P

National Coordinator, Health Information Technology - Department of Health and Human Services

David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P., was appointed on March 20, 2009, as the Obama Administration's choice to serve as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. As National Coordinator, Dr. Blumenthal leads the implementation of a nationwide interoperable, privacy-protected health information technology infrastructure.

Dr. Blumenthal previously served as a physician and as the director of the Institute for Health Policy at The Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Medicine and Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School.

From 1987-1991 he was Senior Vice President at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, a 720-bed Harvard teaching hospital. From 1981 to 1987 he was Executive Director of the Center for Health Policy and Management and Lecturer on Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  During the late 1970s, Dr. Blumenthal was a professional staff member on Senator Edward Kennedy's Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research.  He served as chief health adviser to the Dukakis Presidential campaign, and a senior health adviser to the Obama for President campaign.

He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences, and serves on several editorial boards, including the American Journal of Medicine and Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.  He is also a National Correspondent for The New England Journal of Medicine.  He serves on advisory committees to the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Social Insurance, the Open Society Institute and other foundations.

Dr. Blumenthal was the founding chairman of AcademyHealth (formerly the Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy), the national organization of health services researchers.  He is also Director of the Harvard University Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement.  He is recipient of the Distinguished Investigator Award from Academy Health, the national organization of health services researchers, and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Rush University for the Health Sciences.  He has served as a trustee of the University of Chicago Health System and currently serves as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (Penn Medicine).

His research interests include the dissemination of health information technology, quality management in health care, the determinants of physician behavior, access to health services, and the extent and consequences of academic-industrial relationships in the health sciences.