Please join the Central Pennsylvania and Western Pennsylvania HIMSS Chapters for the 3rd annual “Healthcare 20/20: The Technology Vision”.

Agenda:

Keynote #1:

An Update from The PA eHealth Partnership Authority

Alexandra (Alix) Goss was named the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Authority in January 2014 after serving as the PA Health Information Technology Coordinator for one year and the program manager of the Authority since 2011. In her roles, she has guided Pennsylvania’s efforts to improve quality and safety of healthcare by working with stakeholders to create and build a statewide network for electronic health information exchange (eHIE). eHIE is shown to improve efficiency in healthcare, reduce costs and make care more convenient for patients. This shared infrastructure will enable unaffiliated organizations to securely exchange health information, allowing providers and patients to make the best possible health decisions.  Alix has worked on the state’s eHIE exchange strategy since 2008, with a focus on technical architecture and privacy and security framework. For more than 20 years, she has held leadership roles in developing national healthcare standards, implementing federal regulations, systems integration and operations management in the private and public sectors of health care. She is currently serving a four-year term as a member of the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS). 

Alexandra (Alix) Goss, Executive Director, Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Authority, was named the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Authority in January 2014 after serving as the PA Health Information Technology Coordinator for one year and the program manager of the Authority since 2011. In her roles, she has guided Pennsylvania’s efforts to improve quality and safety of healthcare by working with stakeholders to create and build a statewide network for electronic health information exchange (eHIE). eHIE is shown to improve efficiency in healthcare, reduce costs and make care more convenient for patients. This shared infrastructure will enable unaffiliated organizations to securely exchange health information, allowing providers and patients to make the best possible health decisions.

Alix has worked on the state’s eHIE exchange strategy since 2008, with a focus on technical architecture and privacy and security framework. For more than 20 years, she has held leadership roles in developing national healthcare standards, implementing federal regulations, systems integration and operations management in the private and public sectors of health care. She is currently serving a four-year term as a member of the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS).

Interoperability Panel

The development of the Health Information Exchange (HIE) is widespread and is becoming a reality albeit with some uncertainty.  The HIE implementation challenge is to create a standardized interoperable model that is patient centric, trusted, longitudinal, scalable, sustainable, and reliable.   An additional challenge is a current challenge is to get EHR vendors to open up their interfaces and get connected to other systems at a reasonable cost to providers. The provider community doesn’t necessarily want a deep dive into the details of HL7, HIE, etc., but they want integration that works.  As patient access to personal health records increases, the demand for data and documentation quality will increase.  And though the HIE has the potential to enhance care quality through clinical decision support, the private sector appears to be tackling the HIE challenge in its own way with initiatives like the Commonwealth Alliance, a consortium of health IT vendors promoting interoperability for the common good.  Regardless of which HIE models prove most effective, one thing is certain, to realize the full potential of health information technology and ePHI the ability to exchange data must improve significantly in the future.

Panelists:

Karen Bell, MD, MMS, is the Director of JBS International’s Center for Sustainable Health and Care and a nationally recognized expert in health IT with clinical and leadership experience in the payer, provider, government, and public health sectors. As Chair of the Certification Commission for HIT (CCHIT), she was primary author of the CCHIT ACO/HIT Framework, the only consensus-developed, publicly available guidance on health IT for accountable care organizations. Dr. Bell was Director and Acting Deputy of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). She has served as a Medical Director at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in several commercial health plans, and at Partners Community Healthcare, Inc. Dr. Bell is among the top 50 influential physician executives named by Modern Healthcare in 2013 and among the top 25 in 2012. 

Jami Young, MPA is a Managing Consultant with Stella Technology.  With over a decade of experience in Health IT, Jami has left footprints building a rural HIE, in California and having the ONC recognize it in 2008 as being one of the first operational HIEs west of the Mississippi River.  Jami led San Diego Beacon’s project integrating 5 large hospital systems and over a dozen community clinics to connect 1.3 million lives.  Currently, Jami is managing the implementation of New York eHealth Collaborative’s Statewide Health Information Network (known as SHIN-NY) service, where the state is standing up a gateway to bridge clinical information from 9 health information exchanges covering the state.     

Jami’s experience with strategy, business development, consulting and project management has afforded her skills to manage projects from concept to operations.  Working with a dynamic team at Stella Technology, Jami has had the opportunity to lead innovative initiatives that involve a conglomerate of participants, worked with many data standard types including CCDA and IHE profiles, and strategized with industry leaders about needs for widespread interoperability.  

Jami received her Masters degree in Public Administration from the University of Southern California.  She is married to Jerry Verdin and has two very active children, Joee (6) and Jax (4).

Michael Sims, MBA, Chief Financial Officer, Delaware Health Information Network. Michael Sims has served as the senior finance executive of DHIN since 2009.  He is responsible for establishing financial reporting, policies, and procedures, business intelligence and analytics, EMR vendor contract development, and new business development.  In 2011, when DHIN migrated from being housed under the State of Delaware to an independent entity, he led the development of a financial sustainability model which contributed to DHIN to achieving independence.

Prior to joining DHIN, Sims led financial management efforts for numerous divisions for 18 years at MBNA and Bank of America, where he was the CFO for the company’s Business Card, Deposits, and Credit Insurance product lines.  He was chosen to lead the financial and analytical efforts of several of the company’s start-up divisions, including Internet and Research and Development.  He earned the Financial Award of Excellence for his work in partnering with 12 domestic and international business lines in evaluating the enterprise impact of the Internet.  While in Research and Development, Sims was instrumental in the financial and strategic development of numerous new products and services.

Jim Younkin, Information Technology Director at Geisinger Health System, Director of Keystone Health Information Exchange, is an energetic, visionary leader with more than 27 years of progressive experience in the health information technology (IT) discipline. His expertise is broad in scope, including population health management, interoperability solutions, healthcare administration, grants and federal contract management, software development, and computer operations. Mr. Younkin is accomplished in innovation, project management, implementation and evaluation. He possesses practical experience in team building, continuous quality improvement and performance improvement processes. 

Technology and the Patient/ Provider Relationship

Abdesalam Soudi, PhD, Lecturer in Linguistics & Linguistic Internship & Consulting Advisor, University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Abdesalam Soudi is a linguist with extensive expertise in medical discourse analysis, doctor-patient conversation and human-computer interaction. He earned his PhD in Linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh on the human-computer interface in doctors’ consultations. His research has several commercial applications to the field of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). He lectures both physicians and hospital stakeholders on the impact of EHRs on Doctor-Patient conversation and has made several recommendations for the doctor-patient-computer interface. Dr. Soudi co-directs a Masters level course on Cultural Competence in medical practice through the Institute for Clinical Research and Education. Dr. Soudi is Advisor of the Linguistic internship and consulting course and Faculty Affiliate with the Global Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh.

eHealth and Telemedicine Panel

Telecommunication and Internet technologies are being used to change the health care industry in unprecedented and irreversible ways.  The value proposition with E-Health and Telemedicine includes a higher quality of care, cost reductions, workflow efficiency, greater access, and widespread availability of healthcare services.  At the level of the individual, telemedicine (the provision of health care services, clinical information, and education over a distance using telecommunication technology) can support improvements in a patient’s health and quality of life, particularly for those with chronic diseases, by enabling safer monitoring at home and reducing the number of hospital visits.  E-Health refers to all forms of electronic health care delivered over the Internet, ranging from informational, educational and commercial "products" to direct services offered by professionals and even consumers themselves.   At their best, these technologies are enabling delivery of health care to remote patients and facilitating information exchange between generalists and specialists to further enable and support the continuum of care across the provider communities.  At their worst, they leave decision makers with far too many choices about the best use of technology, and too many unanswered questions about efficacy, privacy, transparency, security, ethics, risk management, and other important matters.  The expert panel will engage in a discussion about E-Health and Telemedicine with an emphasis on adoption, value, cost and risks.

Moderator: Natasa Sokolovich is currently Executive Director, Telemedicine for UPMC and Senior Director, Affiliated Physician Services, with UPMC’s Physician Services Division. The UPMC Health System, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an $11 billion global health and integrated clinical delivery & finance system which is utilizing advances in technology to transform healthcare delivery.  

Natasa is responsible for overseeing the strategic expansion of UPMC’s Telemedicine program.  The UPMC Telemedicine program was initially launched with TeleStroke and TelePsychiatric services and now includes over 25 clinical specialty services.  The TeleStroke program spans 21 hospital locations across Western Pennsylvania and Northeastern Maryland.  The most recent addition to UPMC’s Telemedicine program includes multi-specialty, virtual clinics and a convenience care, web-based solution to facilitate “on-demand” virtual visits.  As Senior Director, Affiliated Physician Services, Natasa leads a program called UPMC Practice Solutions, which provides a-la carte services to private practice physicians throughout Western Pennsylvania.  

Panelists: 

Dr. Mohammad Arif Ali, Visionary, Strategist, Analyst, has a unique combination of clinical and technical experience and education along with strengths of communication and macro vision. 

Jonathan Levoy, Executive Vice President, Alego Health,  began his employment with Alego Health in November of 2009 as the VP of Business Development & Technology. Mr. Levoy worked hand in hand with Alego Health’s President, Jacqueline Forestall to develop and create the practices that transformed Alego Health into one of the nations’ premier Healthcare IT Companies from the previous temporary healthcare staffing company as it was founded.

Mr. Levoy worked as an executive level Marketing and Operations Executive in several service industries prior to his tenure at Alego Health. His experience has led to a greater understanding and implementation of the customer-centric approach that Alego Health provides to all of its Clients. Jonathan has also pioneered several technological advancements that has made Alego Health one of the industry’s most technologically advanced companies.

In 2013, Mr. Levoy was honored as one of Crain’s Cleveland Business Magazine’s 40 under 40 award winners. His work in the HIT community has included acting as the Chairperson of the mHIMSS Digital Media Taskforce, as a member of the mHIMSS Advisory Board. Currently Mr. Levoy is a member of the Northern Ohio HIMSS Board, a member of ACHE, and is an active corporate member HIMSS & CHIME. Jonathan also presents regularly on Healthcare IT and Business Growth topics. Mr. Levoy attended the University of Akron as a Communications Major. 

Mark Seraly, MD, Secretary, Teledermatology Special interest Group at American Telemedicine Association, Chief Medical Officer and Founder, IAGNOSIS. Inventing the Future of Dermatology and the Next Level of Skin Care|DermatologistOnCall [Point.Shoot.Treat]. Powered by Iagnosis-Your Link to Healthy Skin!

 Iagnosis® was founded with a goal on dramatically increasing access to skin care specialists across the country. Our telehealth company is focused on patient-centered care: expanding choice, unimpeded access to services, improving patient satisfaction, and offering a broader range of clinical services.

Our flagship product, DermatologistOnCall, is a new way for patients to receive skin care, and allows dermatologists to use a "virtual office" platform to provide skin care. This simple and clean teledermatology experience makes the virtual office visit intuitively obvious for both patients and providers, eliminating any aspect of intimidation from healthcare technology.

DermatologistOnCall features a clean user-experience through artistically designed interfaces that make new healthcare technologies fun, easy and intuitive. DermatologistOnCall is the new access point for online skin care.

The long-term goal for our company is to make "iagnosis" synonymous with an intuitive and intelligent Internet-based diagnosis. DermatologistOnCall is a new type of "concierge care" that is no longer a solution just for the wealthy, but an affordable solution for the masses! We have always believed that being user-friendly is critical in gaining market and patient acceptance, and will compel dermatologists to adopt our platform by offering them a new flexible, balanced and life-style oriented way of practicing medicine. 

Health Economics & Analytics Panel 

The explosion of health data and data science techniques, coupled with the challenge of improving the healthcare system, from both a cost and quality standpoint, has led to renewed interest in health economics and data analytics. Health Economists, Policy Analysts, Data Scientists, and the like, serve this role in Pharma, Medical Devices, and BioTech, and have been using data analysis and modeling to understand the application of healthcare products and services to solving the problems of cost and care.  Major changes in how healthcare is delivered and paid-for, as well as advances in enabling technologies; affect all areas of healthcare and healthcare technology. They also give rise to substantial opportunities to create solutions, build new entrepreneurial ventures, adapt existing businesses, and grow both old and new companies. The Health Economics and Analytics panel discussion will include viewpoints from industry experts with experience and perspectives from service delivery, ACOs, medical devices, pharma, venture, healthcare IT, infrastructure, and mHealth.

Moderator: Michael McNees, CEO, Syndicus, has 35 years of experience in the professional services industry, which includes roles  in technical communication, middle management, business development and general management for IT, engineering and scientific business entities. He also has the experience of starting five business units/companies.

McNees has served as CEO of Syndicus since founding it in 2007, and has been instrumental in building Syndicus’ reputation as a Management Services Organization in Maryland – one that is also EHNAC-accredited.

McNees has a master’s degree in professional writing from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor’s degree (English/Writing) from the Pennsylvania State University. He also attended Geneva College for post-bachelor training in Engineering, as well as the University of Maryland to pursue a master’s degree in Life Sciences.

Panelists:

Antony Davies is associate professor of economics at Duquesne University and Mercatus Affiliated Senior Scholar at George Mason University. His primary research interests include econometrics and public policy. Davies has authored over 100 op-eds in over thirty newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, and Philadelphia Inquirer, and is a regular columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He is a frequent lecturer at policy conferences on Capitol Hill. In addition to teaching at the undergraduate, masters, and Ph.D. levels, Dr. Davies was Chief Financial Officer at Parabon Computation, President and co-founder of Paragon Software (now Take-Two Interactive), and co-founder and Chief Analytics Officer at Repliqa (now indiePub Games). Dr. Davies earned his B.S. in Economics from Saint Vincent College, and Ph.D. in Economics from the State University of New York at Albany.

Paul Henchey, M.S., Senior Vice President, Product Strategy, ArborMetrix. Paul is an accomplished business executive with deep experience in healthcare business intelligence. Previously he was responsible for growth strategies and business partnerships for the hospital business of Truven Health Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters). Paul’s prior management experience includes several years as a VP with McKesson Technology Solutions, the software arm of the Fortune 20 healthcare company. As VP of Product Management he led the marketing, product management and business development functions of a $45M independent business unit focused on business intelligence and data warehousing solutions for the hospital market. His responsibilities there included strategic planning, marketing communications, software release management, software design requirements, business partner relations, and new product rollouts. Paul holds a B.A. in Biology from Harvard College and a M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

John Khoury is a multifaceted clinical pharmacist, continually looking to provide leadership to health care-related organizations and/or enhance a health system’s accountable delivery of care to the community. John has more than 15 years of Six Sigma/process improvement, business development, and health care management experience. In addition, he has over seven years of administrative experience managing teams of up to 30 members. John also has extensive business development experience presenting and collaborating with C-Suite executives.

In his current position, John is responsible for executive oversight of Lumeris’ second largest customer and directs a multidisciplinary team that provides clinical and operational expertise for customers engaging in the journey to value based care. He also provides strategic solutioning for accountable care delivery including: benefit design, incentive alignment, process improvement, clinical quality improvement, cost and utilization improvement, and provider-patient engagement.

Michael D. Parkinson, MD, MPH, FACPM, Senior Medical Director of Health and Productivity, UPMC Health Plan and WorkPartners, is the Senior Medical Director overseeing employer health and productivity strategies for UPMC Health Plan and WorkPartners.  Mike is the Past President of the American College of Preventive Medicine, the national medical specialty society of physicians trained in and committed to disease prevention, health promotion and systems-based approaches to improving health and health care.  He formerly was Executive Vice President, Chief Health and Medical Officer of Lumenos, a pioneer of consumer-driven health plans and a subsidiary of Wellpoint.  He was responsible for the development and implementation of an integrated and incentivized health improvement strategy employing evidence-based prevention, care management, account-based benefit designs, employer partnership and consumer engagement.  A retired Air Force colonel, his final assignment was as associate director of medical programs and resources in the Office of the Surgeon General where he was responsible for policy and planning for over 2 million beneficiaries, 70 facilities and a $4 billion budget. While assigned to the US Public Health Service, he provided oversight of federal programs in public health, geriatrics and preventive medicine training. He served on the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Care Purchasing Institute assisting employers to purchase higher quality care.   

Anurag Sinha, Head of Product Management, Geneia. He brings over 20 years of leadership experience in healthcare and technology including product management, innovation, strategy, operations, and client relationship.  At Geneia, he is responsible for launching innovative products and solutions to create value for healthcare organizations.

Prior to joining Geneia, Anurag led product management teams at Cerner, ADP, and Lumeris. In these roles, he directed product vision and strategy, product roadmaps and launch plans. Anurag helped Cerner enter the France EMR market and started a third party administrator benefit administration service. He also led efforts to create a real-time provider revenue cycle solution, build population health solutions for employers, and develop new models to stratify and identify at-risk populations. At Lumeris and ADP, Anurag’s responsibilities included the Health Insurance Marketplace, Enhanced Encounter Quality Consideration (EEQC), and the ADP Marketplace products.

Anurag received a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science from Birla Institute of Technology (India) and a Master of Business Administration from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Keynote #2:

Jim Leonard joins GRM from QHR, LLC where he was VP of Information Technology & Consulting supporting more than 140 hospitals in 38 states. Prior to QHR, Jim was the Chief Information Officer at the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, a 650 bed Level 1 Trauma facility in Memphis, TN. Jim was also CIO at Mary Black Health System, a 210 bed for-profit in Spartanburg, SC with a large Physician group of 32 Primary Care and multi-specialty physician practices comprising 105 employed physicians. During his 25 + year healthcare career, Jim's focus has been on driving improved efficiencies in hospital departments by leveraging the capabilities in technology. He brings this focus to GRM in order to expand the adoption of ORC and it's powerful work-flow toolset. His experience and comfort in the C-Suite allow him to present compelling value propositions for technology adoption which will be a boon to our efforts to expand the use of ORC and partner products in existing as well as new clients.

Cyber Security Presentation

The Anthem breach has emphatically demonstrated that healthcare privacy and security issues have gone far beyond opportunity crimes and carelessness (stolen laptops; mishandled PHI) and are now in the territory of massive organized cyber attacks, and the class action litigation has already started.  The FBI warned health care companies more than a year ago that the industry as a whole was not doing enough to resist cyber attacks, and that the personal data resident in healthcare system files can be as valuable to the bad guys as what they may get from attacking financial institutions.  However, the industry still lags behind financial services providers in regard to cyber security measures.

Companies from all sectors are now coming to the realization that the security measures that are currently implemented in their systems may not be able to protect their company, employees, customers, or data from a cybersecurity breach, because the sophistication of cyber threats is constantly increasing.  This demands that the toolsets deployed on those networks should also be complex enough to mitigate or prevent a breach.

Ridge Global Solutions (RGS) is a leading cyber security company founded by Tom Ridge, first U.S. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and 43^rd Governor of Pennsylvania.  Since formation, RGS has worked with the United States and foreign governments, CIA, and large healthcare systems, including several in Pennsylvania currently.  RGS has demonstrated thought leadership, technical capabilities and resources, with a strong focus in healthcare information technology.

Ben Cotton at RGS will discuss the new nature of cyber threats and the countermeasures.  Ben’s specialties are Security Assessments of Information Systems, Computer Forensics, and Electronic Discovery.  In delivery these services, Ben leverages the many applicable skills he gained from his extensive military service experience in special operations.  Ben also leads incident response and litigation support engagements that include: in-depth computer forensics to recover deleted or destroyed data; host large volumes of electronic data to ensure ready access to that information; or integrating reporting systems into the Intelligence Community (IC) national level database. Ben holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Computers from the University of New York - Regents a Master’s of Science, Information Systems Management from University of Maryland University College and is a Veteran of the United States Army Special Forces.

This day will also feature an outdoor BBQ networking lunch at the beautiful mountain resort, Chestnut Ridge. A networking reception will follow the last panel discussion at 5:00pm. Please join us for what will be a dynamic day of discussion and networking!

Sponsorship Opportunities

Healthcare 20/20 is financed through a combination of participant registration fees and corporate sponsorships.Note: All sponsorship opportunities are fulfilled on a first-come, first served basis. 

Executive Sponsor $5,000

• Introduce a keynote speaker at the event
• Four (4) Passes to the event
• Logo and organization name included in conference program and on chapter websites
• Logo displayed on video loop during the event
• Sponsor table at the event

Corporate Sponsor $2,500

• Opportunity to speak to the group for 10 minutes during lunch or happy hour
• Two (2) Passes to the event
• Logo and organization name included in conference program and on chapter websites
• Logo displayed on video loop during the event.
• Sponsor table at the event

 Associate Sponsor $1,500

• Two (2) Passes to the event
• Logo and organization name included in conference program and on chapter website
• Logo displayed on video loop during the event
• Sponsor table at the event

Please contact Robert Sheesley if your organization is interested in sponsoring this event or fill out the flyer below.

Hotel

Guests can stay at the Hampton Inn in Blairsville (62 Pine Ridge Road, Blairsville, PA, 15717) for a discounted rate of $119/night. Please use the code "HIM" as the group code while booking.