Business Sustainability Planning Group Members
John P. Glaser, PhD (Co-Chair)
Dr. Glaser is Vice-President and Chief Information Officer, Partners HealthCare System, Inc. Previously, he was Vice-President, Information Systems at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Prior to Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dr. Glaser managed the Healthcare Information Systems consulting practice at Arthur D. Little. Dr. Glaser was the founding Chairman of College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and is past President of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). He is past-President of the eHealth Initiative and has been a member of the Board of the American Medical Informatics Association. He is a fellow of HIMSS, CHIME and the American College of Medical Informatics.
Dr. Glaser holds a Ph.D. in Healthcare Information Systems from the University of Minnesota.
David Bates, MD, MSc
Dr. David Bates is the Chief of the Division of General Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is also the Medical Director of Clinical and Quality Analysis, IS and is on the Executive Committee of the Center of Information Technology Leadership at Partners HealthCare System, Inc. He is a Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and is a Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Health. He serves as one of the Directors of the Clinical Effectiveness Program, and is Chairman of the Board for the American Medical Informatics Association. He is the External Program Lead for Research for the Global Alliance for Patient Safety of the World Health Organization.
Dr. Bates received his BS degree in Chemistry from Stanford University, his MD from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and his M.Sc. in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Christine Bechtel, MA
Ms. Bechtel is the Vice President of the eHealth Initiative (eHI), a Washington D.C.-based non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare through information and information technology. Prior to joining eHI, Ms. Bechtel worked with Congress and the Administration to represent the interests of Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) and professionals working to improve the quality of health care in communities across America. She also served as Senior Research Advisor at AARP and was Director of Community Development for Louisiana’s Medicare Quality Improvement Organization and Louisiana Health Care Review.
Ms. Bechtel holds a Bachelor’s degree in Politics and Public Policy from Goucher College, and a Masters degree in Political Management from George Washington University.
Michael Berkery, MBA
Mr. Berkery is a Senior Vice-President and the Chief Technology Officer of the American Medical Association (AMA). He oversees the areas of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Health Information Technology and Process Transformation. Prior to the AMA, Mr. Berkery spent nine years at CNA Insurance, most recently as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Group Operations. Prior to joining CNA, he spent 25 years at Deloitte & Touche providing consulting services that ranged from strategic planning and management to highly technical information systems projects. In that time, he also worked extensively in association management and technology, working with the American Bar Association, ACGME, American College of Surgeons, American Dietetic Association and other national groups. He worked with the National Association of Realtors to develop and implement a strategy to transition the real estate industry from paper processing to digital processing including automating Realtor’s offices and Multiple Listing Service (MLS) systems. Mr. Berkery serves on the eHealth Initiative’s Board of Directors and is a member of the Planning Committee of the Collaborative for Performance Measure Integration with EHR Systems, jointly sponsored by the AMA and NCQA. He has authored four books and numerous articles on information technology.
Mr. Berkery received a BS in Mathematics at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio and an MBA in Quantitative Business Analysis and Production and Inventory Management at Indiana University.
Rachel Block
Ms. Block has served since August 2003 as the project director for the United Hospital Fund's Quality Strategies Initiative where she has been developing and implementing coordinated efforts to measure, report on and improve health care delivery and outcomes across the health care system in New York. Effective March 1, 2008, Rachel assumed the position of executive director for the New York eHealth Collaborative, a statewide multi-stakeholder organization committed to advancing health information technology adoption and use in New York. Prior to joining the Fund, Rachel worked in the public and private sector leading strategic planning and policy development efforts to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of state health programs. She worked from 1994-2002 at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (previously Health Care Financing Administration), where she held several senior management positions directing policy development and operations of Medicaid, State Children's Health Insurance, and Federal Survey and Certification Programs, with particular emphasis on quality improvement, data and systems issues. Rachel is currently the president of the board for the eHealth Initiative Foundation. She is also a member of the Academy for Health Services Research and Policy.
Troy Brennan, MD, MPH
Dr. Brennan is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Aetna Inc., one of the nation's leading health care and related benefits organizations. In this role, Dr. Brennan directs Aetna’s National Quality Management activities and is responsible for Aetna’s major public health initiatives, which include racial and ethnic equality, genomics, next generation consumer-driven health care, the Aetna Compassionate CareSM Program and integrated depression management. He also provides oversight for the development of Aetna's clinical policies, as well as Aetna's full range of clinical operations, disease management programs and patient management services. Prior to joining Aetna, Dr. Brennan served as president and CEO of Brigham and Women's Physician's Organization from 2000-2006. Prior to these responsibilities, Dr. Brennan served as director of quality measurement and improvement at Brigham and Women's Hospital. In his academic work, he has served as professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School since 1995, and professor of law and public health at Harvard School of Public Health since 1992. Since 1987, he has published 230 peer-reviewed papers and four books. He is also a frequent presenter on health care policy, ethics and law.
Dr. Brennan received his M.D. and M.P.H. degrees from Yale Medical School, his J.D. degree from Yale Law School, and his M.A. degree from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
Wendy Everett, ScD
Dr. Everett is the founding President of the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI), a national health policy research organization that identifies realistic strategies for improving health, increasing health care quality and reducing health care costs. Dr. Everett has over thirty years of experience in the health field, holding executive positions at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center (UCSF) and at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. She directed national demonstration programs for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation and is a Trustee of many health care and philanthropic boards.
Dr. Everett holds two Bachelor of Science degrees, and master's and doctoral degrees in health policy and management from Harvard University.
Thomas M. Fritz
Mr. Fritz is the CEO of Inland Northwest Health Services (INHS), a non-profit organization located in Spokane, Wash. In addition to administering a 102 bed freestanding physical rehabilitation hospital, critical air ambulance service, a wide-spread telemedicine network and other health care services, Fritz has been a driving force in creating a self-sustaining, ever-growing integrated hospital information technology system that currently includes more than 45,000 users in hospitals, clinics and physicians offices throughout Washington, Idaho, southern California and Alaska with more than 2.8 million electronic medical records. The network integrates 38 hospitals and health facilities with common data and technology standards, a single master patient index and supports the facilities with a centralized information technology staff. A member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, Mr. Fritz was appointed to serve on the board of trustees for the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT). He is also a member of the Board of Directors for the National Alliance of Health Information Technology, the National Advisory Board for the eHealth Initiative Foundation’s Connecting Communities for Drug Safety Collaboration and is an appointed member to the WA State Health Information Infrastructure Advisory Board addressing state-wide health information exchange.
Mr. Fritz holds a BA and MA degrees from California State University and a MPA from Lewis & Clark University, Portland, Oregon.
Dan Garrett
Mr. Garrett is the Managing Director of the Health Industry Advisory Practice at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC). Dan has worked with key industry executives across the leading commercial health plan, provider, and life sciences organizations and he has also served as an advisor and board level executive to key industry associations, and Federal Health care agencies. Mr. Garrett is currently working with large Providers around the effective deployment of clinical, financial, and administrative ERP applications, IT governance and effectiveness, as well as sourcing strategies. Dan is also working with some of the largest Providers of Healthcare and assisted living in Enterprise transformation initiatives and the deployment of future state IT and Business architectures. Mr. Garrett is also on the board of directors of the eHealthInitiative and he was a founding member of the Health Care Interoperability Consortium, an alliance between Accenture, Cisco, CSC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Oracle.
Mr. Garret holds a bachelor’s degree in computer and information science from Temple University’s Fox School of Business.
Thomas L. Garthwaite, MD
Dr. Garthwaite is the Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Catholic Health East, a multi-institutional Catholic health system and the 9th largest health system in USA. Dr. Garthwaite is a former Under Secretary for Health in the Department of Veterans Affairs, and a former Director of Health Services for Los Angeles County. He is a member of the American College of Physicians Executives and the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States.
Dr. Garthwaite received his AB from Cornell University, and his MD from Temple University.
Gregory L. Gleason, MBA, CPA
Mr. Gleason is currently Acting Director of Diagnostic Intelligence and Health IT Initiatives at the College of American Pathologists. He is also Managing Partner of NueVista Strategy LLC, a specialized strategy consultancy. Prior to co-founding NueVista, Greg was a partner in several large, global consulting firms (Marakon and Andersen) and a Vice President at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). During his career he has worked with large provider and health plan organizations as well as biotech, medical device and pharmaceutical companies. Over the last five years Greg has worked extensively with the College of American Pathologists on medical informatics and other issues related to pathology and laboratory medicine. His consulting practice is now focused primarily on strategic management processes and information strategy.
Mr. Gleason received his MBA from the University of Chicago. He received his BA (with Honors) in Economics and is also a Certified Public Accountant (State of Illinois).
Mark Halloran
Mr. Halloran is the Chief Information Officer of Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy beneficiary. In this role, Mr. Halloran's responsibilities include providing executive level leadership to deliver high quality, cost effective information technology services, as well as maintaining an effective relationship with Medco's clients, vendors, and industry standards forums. Mr. Halloran also serves on the Management Committee of Medco Health and is responsible for information technology covering all aspects of Medco's business operation. Prior to joining Medco Health, Mr. Halloran was with the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation from 1984 through 1993 where he held several positions with increasing responsibilities in their Information Technology organization.
Alan M. Harvey, MD, MBA
Dr. Harvey is currently the Vice Chair the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, a 50 million dollar demonstration project for interoperable EHR and HIE in three demonstration communities. Dr. Harvey is past president of the Massachusetts Medical Society/New England Journal of Medicine. He was also the director of quality assurance /quality improvement and patient safety for 10 years with the department of anesthesiology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Harvey received his MD from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, and his MBA, with an additional concentration in health systems management, from the University of Connecticut.
Roberta Herman, MD
Dr. Herman is Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Health Services for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. Dr. Herman is responsible for managing Harvard Pilgrim's clinical departments and quality programs including health promotion, outreach, care management and disease management services. As Harvard Pilgrim’s chief physician, Dr. Herman also oversees the health plan’s pharmacy and behavioral health programs, related vendor contracts as well as Harvard Pilgrim’s provider network contracts and relationships.
Dr. Herman graduated from McGill University Medical School (Montreal, Canada) and received a Masters equivalent degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University while doing a fellowship year in Community Medicine.
Kraig Kinchen, MD, MSc,
Dr. Kinchen is the Director of Electronic Exchange of Healthcare Information for Eli Lilly and Company. Prior to this role, Dr. Kinchen was a researcher and manager in Lilly’s health outcomes research group. He is a member of the eHealth Initiative, American Medical Informatics Association, Health Information and Management Systems Society, and American College of Physicians. At Johns Hopkins, he completed his residency in internal medicine and received his fellowship training through the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program.
Dr. Kinchen received his undergraduate degree from Tulane University, his MSc in Social Research and Social Policy from Oxford University, and his MD from Harvard Medical School.
Robert Marotta
Mr. Marotta is Senior Vice-President and Regulatory Counsel of HLTH Corporation (including WebMD Health, its subsidiary), a leading national provider of healthcare information services and technology solutions for participants across the entire continuum of healthcare. Mr. Marotta also presently serves as a member of the Board of Directors and Treasurer of the eHealth Initiative. Prior to joining HLTH, Mr. Marotta was the Senior Vice-President – Regulatory Counsel of Merck-Medco Managed Care, L.L.C., a division of Merck & Co., Inc, now known as MedcoHealth Solutions, Inc., an independent public company.
Ken Majkowski Pharm.D,
Mr. Majkowski, Vice President, Clinical Affairs and Product Strategy, RxHub, LLC, has over 30 years of healthcare experience. He has experience in E-Health, Managed Care, Transplant Services, Pharmacy Mail Services, Medical Devices and Drug Delivery Systems, Home Infusion Therapy and Hospital and Retail Pharmacy. At RxHub, Ken has served as Director of Product Management and Director of Account Management and Vice President of Business Development prior to moving into his present role as Vice President of Clinical Affairs and Product Strategy. Prior to joining RxHub, Ken was Director of Trade Relations and Director of Data Services for HealthNexis, the exchange funded by McKesson, Cardinal Health Systems, AmeriSourceBergen, and Fisher Scientific. Prior to HealthNexis, he was Vice President for Supplier Relations at Embion, an e-procurement service. Ken was also the Vice President for Medical Affairs at United Resource Networks, the Transplant Center of Excellence Division of United Health Group. He served as Director of Transplant Pharmacy Services at Chronimed, a nation wide specialty pharmacy and Director of Clinical Development at Pharmacia Deltec, a medical device company. Ken has 14 years of clinical pharmacy experience in retail, hospital and home care pharmacy.
Ken received his Bachelors in Pharmacy from Purdue University and his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Minnesota.
Donald Mon, PhD
Dr. Mon currently serves as the American Health Information Management Association’ vice president for practice leadership where he is responsible for the Association’s strategic relationships with a variety of standards and other groups active in the development and implementation of electronic health records and health information exchange across various sectors of the healthcare industry and government. Currently, Dr. Mon serves in a variety of industry leadership roles. He is co-chair of the HL7 EHR Technical Committee which has produced the set of ANSI approved functional requirements for EHR systems. He is also co-facilitator of the HL7 PHR Work Group, which has produced the functional requirements for PHR systems. In an ONC funded project managed by NAHIT, he currently co-chairs the Records Work Group which is tasked with defining such key terms as the EMR, EHR, and PHR. He currently serves on the NQF HIT Structural Measures Steering Committee, the CMS Expert Panel on PHRs, and is AHIMA’s voting member to HITSP. Over the course of his tenure with AHIMA, Dr. Mon has been an integral player and facilitator in the US effort to advance health information standards and to implement standards-based EHRs that recognize the needs of all key stakeholders: clinical care, legitimate secondary uses of healthcare data, and care delivery organizations’ legal requirements for business records
Eva Powell, MSW, CPHQ
Ms. Powell is the Director of the Health Information Technology Project at the National Partnership for Women and Families. In this role she is leading an effort to educate and empower consumer advocates to be more actively engaged in health information exchange policy development and implementation. Her work with advocates on both the national and state levels includes technical assistance and education, advocacy, and coalition leadership. The primary goal of the project is to promote health information exchange as a means of both improving quality and enabling consumers to play a more active role in their health care, while ensuring that consumer interests are at the forefront of planning and implementation efforts. Prior to joining the National Partnership, Ms. Powell worked for the federally designated Quality Improvement Organization in NC.
Ms. Powell graduated with honors from Wake Forest University, earning a BA in Psychology. She also completed a Masters of Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Orlando Portale, MA
Mr. Portale is the chief innovation strategist for Palomar Pomerado Health, the largest health district in California which provides healthcare services to an 850 square mile area in southern California. Mr. Portale is responsible for establishing strategic alliances, exploring new business models and leveraging emerging technology as a competitive differentiator. Previously, he was the General Manager Global Health Industry with Sun Microsystems. Prior to joining Sun, he was the director of mergers and acquisitions with WellPoint and a senior healthcare advisor with SAIC.
Mr. Portale holds a Masters in healthcare leadership from the University of California San Diego, School of Medicine.
Rick Ratliff, MBA
Mr. Ratliff is the acting president and CEO of SureScripts. Since November of 2002, when Mr. Ratliff joined SureScripts as the chief operating officer, he has led the effort to establish the national network for electronic prescribing called the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange™. Mr. Ratliff is leading community pharmacy’s efforts to transition from paper-based to paperless prescribing as a means of improving the quality, safety and efficiency of the prescribing process. Prior to joining SureScripts, Mr. Ratliff was co-founder and senior vice president of HEALTHvision Inc. where he created the original business and strategic plan for the company’s clinical messaging business. Previously, Mr. Ratliff served as vice president, healthcare information technologies, for VHA, Inc. While at VHA, he managed the development and rollout of VHAseCURE.net, a nationwide private network designed as a Web-based health information utility for the VHA healthcare organizations across the United States.
Mr. Ratliff graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in Chemical Engineering. He also holds a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Tulsa.
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Jim Scanlon
Mr. Scanlon is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (Science and Data Policy), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he oversees planning, evaluation and policy research activities in health data, health information policy, and public health and science policy issues generally. He also directs a program of policy analyses, research, data development and evaluation in health science policy and data policy. He also serves as the Executive Director of the HHS Data Council and the Executive Director of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics. Previously he worked at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, U.S. Public Health Service, the National Center for Health Statistics, the PHS Office of Health Research, Statistics and Technology, and the Department of Defense.
He holds advanced degrees in statistics, measurement and evaluation as well as planning and public administration from the University of Maryland and the George Washington University.
Carla Smith, MA
Ms. Smith is Executive Vice President of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the country’s largest healthcare association focused on information technology. Smith has nearly 25 years of experience in policy development for the information technology and management systems industry, with the past 16 years focused on healthcare. She champions transformational ideas that will impact quality, safety, efficiency, and payment of care in healthcare delivery. Smith leads HIMSS North America, which encompasses industry leadership, professional development, education, member relations, best practices and government relations. In this capacity, she leverages her extensive experience in nonprofit management to ensure HIMSS North America’s strategic direction and financial health.
Ms. Smith has earned a Nonprofit Management Certification from Case Western Reserve University, and her HIMSS Fellow status. She holds a Master’s degree in Communications from Eastern Michigan University and a Bachelor’s degree in English from Adrian College.
Robert Tennant, MA
Mr. Tennant is a Senior Policy Advisor for the Medical Group Management Association. He focuses on federal legislative and regulatory health information technology issues, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, electronic health records, electronic prescribing and ICD-10. Mr. Tennant participates in numerous industry efforts, including the Board of Directors of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI), WEDI’s Strategic National Implementation Process, the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology EHR Expert Panel, the American Health Information Community Consumer Empowerment Workgroup, the National Uniform Claim Committee, the e-Health Initiative’s Policy Steering Committee, the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare CORE initiative, and the Healthcare Administrative Simplification Coalition. Tennant has received the WEDI Distinguished Service Award and Leadership in Technology award.
Mr. Tennant received his undergraduate degree from Carleton University and his master’s degree from the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
Andy Wiesenthal, MD, SM
Dr. Wiesenthal is associate executive director for Clinical Information Support for The Permanente Federation. From 1983 until 2000, Dr. Wiesenthal served as a pediatrician and pediatric infectious disease consultant with the Colorado Permanente Medical Group (CPMG). He also led CPMG’s quality management program and served as associate medical director for Medical Management, with responsibility for quality management, utilization management, regulatory compliance, risk management, credentialing and physician performance, and informatics. His current work is in the arenas of development and deployment of automated medical records, decision support, and other clinical systems for all of Kaiser Permanente.
Dr. Wiesenthal graduated from Yale University with a BA degree (with honors) in Latin American Studies in 1971 and received his medical degree in 1975 from the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. In 2004, Andy earned an SM in Health Care Management from the Harvard School of Public Health.