Transition Planning Group Bios
Ms. Lillee Smith Gelinas, RN, MSN (Co-Chair)
Ms. Gelinas, R.N is vice president and chief nursing officer at VHA. As a member of VHA's Clinical Affairs leadership team, she supports efforts aimed at system wide achievement of clinical excellence that focus on several key areas including: evidence-based improvement, effective leadership development, clinical team collaboration, enhancing physician/hospital relationships and making the business case for quality. She also works extensively with both health care organizations and VHA's 18 local offices to 'close the quality gap' through VHA's clinical agenda. Ms. Gelinas spearheaded the formation of the VHA Nursing Initiative that provides direction to help health care organizations improve patient care delivery.
Ms. Gelinas earned her bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of Southern Louisiana in Lafayette and a master's degree in nursing, with honors, from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also studied at the Wharton School of Business.
Laura Adams
Ms. Adams is the President and CEO of the Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI), a collaboration of the top leadership of health care stakeholders working together to transform the health care system in the state. RIQI is one of nine Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs) selected to develop national consensus practices for health information exchange. Ms. Adams is a faculty member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in Boston and has been since its inception. Prior to that Ms. Adams was Founder, President and CEO of Decision Support Systems, a New York-based company specializing in Internet-based health care decision support. She co-authored “A Draft Framework for Measuring Progress Towards the Development of a National Health Information Infrastructure, BMC Medical Informatics Decision Making, June, 2005.
Peter Elkin, MD
Dr. Elkin is a Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He is the Director of the Laboratory of Biomedical Informatics within the Department of Medicine at Mayo. Dr. Elkin currently is the vice-chair of ASTM E31, an international standards committee focused on Health Information, he is the Chair of ASTM E31.01 the subcommittee focused on Controlled Health Vocabularies. Dr. Peter L. Elkin is the primary author of the American National Standards Institute's (ANSI) national standard on Quality Indicators for Controlled Health Vocabularies ASTM E2087, which has also been approved by ISO TC 215 as a Technical Specification (TS17117). Dr. Elkin is a co-chair of the HL7 Clinical Genomics Special Interest Group and the HL7 Clinical Templates SIG.
Dr. Elkin received his Bachelor of Science from Union College and his M.D. from New York Medical College.
Linda Fischetti, RN, MS
Ms. Fischetti is a Health Informatics Architect within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), and is the VHA liaison to HHS’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. She serves as co-chair of EHR work groups in both federal and standards forums; additionally she is staff to the National Committee for Vital and Health Statistics (NVCHS) work group for national health information infrastructure.
Carole Gassert, RN, PhD, FACMI, FAAN
Dr. Gassert is the Associate Dean of Information and Technology for the University Of Utah College Of Nursing. Her focus has been on facilitating teaching with technology, advising the simulation learning center, and implementing the Cerner Academic Education Solution system (UCARE AES). She is a long-standing advocate for nursing informatics (NI), working to establish NI as specialty within nursing and developing the first NI graduate program in the world at the University of Maryland. She spent six years in the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the Federal Government where she served as an Informatics Nurse Consultant to the Bureau of Health Professions and the Division of Nursing and Senior Distance Learning Advisor for HRSA before coming to the University of Utah.
Justine Handelman
Ms. Handelman is currently the Managing Director of federal relations for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. She has over fifteen years experience in providing leadership, strategic analysis, policy development, and federal representation services on legislative and regulatory issues pertaining to health information technology, Medicare, broad-based health care issues, and health insurance.
Bart Harmon, MD, MPH
Dr. Harmon is Chief Medical Officer of Harris Corporation. Previously Dr. Harmon was Chief Medical Information Officer and Director of Information Management for the U.S. Military Health System, responsible for DoD Health Technology requirements and vision supporting 9.1 million people. Dr Harmon served 25 years in the U.S. Army and retired at the rank of Colonel (O-6). He served as co-chair of the NATO Medical Communication and Information Systems Expert Panel, on the Board of the Health Information Technology Standards Panel, on the AHIC EHR workgroup, as co-chair of the DoD/VA Clinical/Health Data Repository Workgroup, and lead multiple health technology requirements and design teams within the Department of Defense. He has defended health technology initiatives in Congressional and Presidential Task Force testimony and with multiple stakeholder groups, to include the DoD Joint Chiefs of Staff requirements processes.
Dr. Harmon received his MD from the University of Washington, his MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health and completed his Medical Informatics Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Kevin Hutchinson
Mr. Hutchinson is currently the CEO of Prematics, an electronic prescription company. Prior to this, Mr. Hutchinson was the founding CEO of SureScripts. While at SureScripts he led the effort to finance, build and deploy a national network for electronic prescribing and health information exchange, which facilitates the secure electronic transmission of prescription information between physicians and pharmacists and provides access to lifesaving information about patients during emergencies or routine care. Mr. Hutchinson is also a member of the eHealth Initiative's Board of Directors and the Markle Foundation's Connecting for Health Steering Group. Mr. Hutchinson was also selected by HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt to serve as a commissioner on the American Health Information Community (AHIC).
Brian Kelly, MD, MBA
Dr. Kelly is an Executive Director in Accenture’s Health & Life Sciences practice. Dr. Kelly joined Accenture after retiring from a 20-year career in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, and is now focusing on helping governments and organizations optimize healthcare delivery through effective business process transformation and the appropriate use of information technology. He has deployed numerous clinical IT systems both at the hospital and the national level.
Dr. Kelly received his MD from New York Medical College, and his MBA from George Washington University.
Gwendolyn Lohse
Ms. Lohse is the Deputy Director of CAQH and the Managing Director of CAQH’s Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange (CORE). CAQH is a collaborative alliance of leading health plans, networks and industry trade associations charged with identifying and implementing cross-industry initiatives that make administrative healthcare information more accessible. Through its sponsorship of CORE, CAQH is making the interoperable exchange of administrative data a reality by developing common business rules and promoting their market adoption. Under Ms. Lohse’s leadership, over 100 organizations, including health plans representing over 75% of the commercially insured, hospitals, vendors, and CMS, have joined CORE and many of those participants are now CORE Phase I certified. Prior to joining CAQH, Ms. Lohse was with PricewaterhouseCoopers serving both domestic and international healthcare clients.
Ross Martin, MD, MHA
Dr. Martin is currently the Director of Health Information Convergence at BearingPoint, Inc. Prior to that Dr. Martin served as director of healthcare informatics at Pfizer. Dr. Martin also a member of the Board of Directors for the American National Standards Institute - Health Information Technology Standards Panel, and member of the Board of Trustees for National Council for Prescription Drug Programs.
Dr. Martin received his MD from the University of Cincinnati, and his MHA from Xavier University.
Stephen Phillips
Mr. Phillips is the Director of Health Policy and Reimbursement with Johnson & Johnson’ corporate Government Affairs and Policy office. In this role, he provides leadership and guidance in the area of government reimbursement to all J&J operating companies. Key areas of focus are changes to the Medicare payment systems for hospitals and physicians, particularly DRG refinements and pay-for-performance. Prior to joining J&J, Steve had over 18 years of experience at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, most recently as the chief of physician reimbursement and, prior to that, as chief of Medicare's inpatient hospital DRG system. In these two positions, he had primary responsibility for all of Medicare’s payment policies in these two critical areas. Steve joined the Federal service through the Presidential Management Intern Program, and completed the Excellence in Government Fellowship Program.
Steve holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration from the University of Georgia, and a Bachelor of Public Affairs from Indiana University.
Rose-Marie Robertson, MD
Dr. Robertson is Chief Science Officer of the American Heart Association, was President of the AHA in 2000-2001 and is Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She received her BA from Manhattanville College and her MD from Harvard Medical School, where she created and directed the Vanderbilt Women’s Heart Institute. Her academic research career has focused on autonomic cardiovascular control. She is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, a founding member of the American Autonomic Society, a founding member and Past President of the Association for Patient-Oriented Research, and has served on numerous review and advisory committees for the NIH, the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and the European Society of Cardiology. She currently chairs the RWJF's National Advisory Committee for the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Award, serves on the Selection Committee of the Secretary of Health and Human Services’ annual Prevention Awards, and co-chairs the AHIC’s Consumer Empowerment Workgroup. She was honored by the CDC in 2001 with its Partner in Public Health Award.
James Turner, CCP
Mr. Turner is Executive Director of Verizon’s IT Communications, Research, and Business Development organization. He is responsible for internal communications as well as marketing IT capabilities and accomplishments to internal audiences and to external media. He is also responsible for leveraging industry research to build and support Verizon’s strategic IT initiatives. Prior to this he was charged with defining and evolving Verizon’s Digital Workplace, the work tools and services that enable a worldwide telecommunications company with 200,000 employees to access information and systems anytime from anywhere.
James earned a Master of General Administration degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Data Processing, Finance, and Banking from Morehead State University. He is also a Certified Computing Professional of the Institute for the Certification of Computing Professionals where he is leading an effort to create a health care IT specialization.
Robert Wah, MD
Dr. Wah is vice president and chief medical officer of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) Public Sector. Dr. Wah served as acting deputy national coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to this he worked for the Military Health System in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as the associate chief information officer and director of information management, with responsibility for developing requirements for health IT tools. In addition, he served 23 years in the Navy Medical Corps, most recently at the rank of captain. Dr. Wah has served as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, the Uniformed Services University F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, and the University of California, San Diego.
Dr. Wah received an M.D. from the Oregon Health Sciences University School of Medicine. He holds two board certifications, and completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass.
P. Jon White, MD
Dr. White is currently the Director of the Health IT Portfolio for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr. White is a family physician that received his M.D. from the University of Virginia and trained as a resident at Lancaster General Hospital in Pennsylvania, where he received the AAFP/Mead Johnson Award for Graduate Education. He has experience in healthcare IT development and implementation in the ambulatory and acute settings, and was most recently CMIO and associate residency director of Lancaster General Hospital. Jon is active in the AAFP, AMIA and HIMSS. His interests include practical application of IT to improve healthcare and medical history.