Ms. Cindy Grant

ICD-10 Practice Lead
Telus Health Solutions
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts

Cindy Grant is the ICD-10 Practice Lead for TELUS Health Solutions a leader in electronic health records home and community care benefits management and pharmacy management in North America providing solutions and strategies to enhance decision making and improve outcomes for North Americans.

Dr. Colene M. Byrne

Senior Research Analyst
Westat
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts

Dr. Colene Byrne has 20+ years experience in health research with expertise in evaluating health IT; is evaluator for a VA study of NwHIN-based HIE; and supports the ONC ACDS project by collecting developing disseminating CDS implementation resources.

Dr. Douglas S. Bell

Research Scientist
RAND Health

Douglas Bell is Associate Professor of Medicine at UCLA and Research Scientist at RAND whose research focuses on information technology in health care redesign. He is currently PI on the ACDS Project. He has lead several large scale HIT research projects.

Dr. Blackford Middleton, MD MPH Msc

Corporate Director
Partners Healthcare System
Clinical Informatics Research and Development

Dr. Middleton is co-PI for ACDS. He leads product management for the Partners EMR patient portal enterprise CDS and knowledge management services supports enterprise clinical systems strategy development and conducts clinical informatics researach.

Mrs. Jennifer K. Horowitz

Senior Director of Research
HIMSS Analytics

Jennifer has been with HIMSS Analytics for the past 10 years and presently serves as the Senior Director Research. In this capacity she conducts research on a wide-variety of industry topics. This is the 4th year she's authored the Security Survey.

Ms. Lisa Gallagher, BSEE, CISM, CPHIMS

Senior Director of Privacy and Security
HIMSS Analytics

As the Senior Director of Privacy and Security with HIMSS Lisa is responsible for all of the security initiatives for the HIMSS organization.

Lori P. Jayne

Privacy Officer and HIM Director
Lahey Clinic

HIM Director and Privacy Officer for Lahey Clinic with more than 25 years of healthcare experience in operations design HIM development and management and revenue enhancement. Oversee medical records coding privacy security and regulatory compliance.

Ms. Lisa Blanchat

Meditech/TSystem Analyst
Montrose Memorial Hospital

Dr. Robert Hitchcock, MD, FACEP

Vice President and CMIO
T-System, Inc.

Robert Hitchcock MD FACEP holds dual positions. He is a practicing emergency department physician at Manatee Memorial Hospital and Lakewood Ranch Medical Center in Bradenton Fla. and is vice president and CMIO at T-System Inc.

Mr. Alan Cudney

Executive Consultant
Beacon Partners

Alan Cudney is an executive consultant with over 28 years of experience in healthcare improving patient care through process re-design effective change management and appropriate utilization of clinical information technology.

Mrs. Bonnie L. Wesorick, RN, MSN, DPNAP, FAAN

Founder and Chairman Emerita
elsevier/ cpm resource center

Bonnie Wesorick is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Elsevier/CPMRC and the Founder of the CPMRC International Consortium. She is a master in the theory of polarity management and helped design and research a tool to evaluate how well polarities are being managed in healthcare.

Mrs. Barbara Wadsworth, RN, MSN, MBA, NEA-BC

Sr. VP Patient Services/Chief Nursing Officer
Abington Memorial Hospital

Barbara Wadsworth is the Senior Vice President of Patient Services and the Chief Nursing Officer at Abington Memorial Hospital. Barbara has responsibility for a 250 million dollar budget over 2 500 FTEs responsible for In Patient Nursing Outpatient areas Rehab behavioral health and informatics.

Mr. John K. Dugan

Partner
PwC

John Dugan serves as the Health Industries Provider Revenue Performance Management Practice Leader. John advises healthcare provider organizations on the massive conversion from ICD-9 to ICD-10 medical code modernization project.

Mr. Denis Tanguay

Director of Information Technology
Central Maine Medical Center

Denis Tanguay is director of Technical Services for Central Maine Healthcare (CMHC). He is responsible for the technical infrastructure for CMHC and is also responsible for information security and HIPAA compliance.

Tanguay's experience in healthcare information technology spans more than 20 years. He served as the Manager of Network Systems for Maine Medical Center.

Tanguay has a bachelor's degree in Computer Systems from Daniel Webster College and is a member of HIMSS.

Mr. Jeff Bell

Director, Client Services
CareTech Solutions

Jeff Bell is director of Client Services for CareTech Solutions. He is responsible for services relating to information security and HIPAA compliance; implementation of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and electronic health records and information technology strategy.

Bell's experience in healthcare information technology spans more than 22 years. He served as the director of Information Technology for the Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Michigan. At the Detroit Medical Center he was a served as Manager of System Integration as well as Client Manager of Huron Valley Hospital.

Bell has a bachelor's degree in psychology and computer science from Northern Michigan University with graduate work in management healthcare administration and statistics and additional training in leadership project management IT LEAN / Six Sigma. Jeff Bell is CPHIMS certified.

Ms. Allison Errickson, CPC-H

Director of Coding Compliance
Wolters Kluwer Health

Allison Errickson CPC-H is Director of Coding Compliance for Wolters Kluwer Health. She has 15 years of coding auditing and provider education experience in the in- and out-patient settings.

Jane Cook

Director of Content Management
Health Language Inc.

With over 20 years of Health Information Management experience Jane Cook joined Health Language (HLI) in 2003. Ms. Cook's responsibilities include oversight of content implementation content updates and mapping projects.

Mr. Uday 'Ali' Pabrai, MSEE, CISSP (ISSAP, ISSMP), Security,

CEO
ecfirst

Uday Ali Pabrai MSEE CISSP (ISSAP ISSMP) Security+ is the chief executive of ecfirst an Inc. 500 business. A highly sought after information security and regulatory compliance expert.

Mr. Ken Bradley

Vice President Strategic Planning
Navicure

As VP Strategic Services at Navicure Ken has more than 18 years of experience in the healthcare industry specializing in the development of practice management software and development of systems and applications to process healthcare data.

Ms. Joanne La Grange, RN, MA

Program Director Meaningful Use
St. Joseph Health System

As Meaningful Use Program Director Joanne La Grange successfully led 4 of 15 St. Joseph Health System hospitals to MUS1 readiness. Ms. La Grange has 25+ years in diverse healthcare technology leadership CIS implementation and strategic consulting roles.

Leokadia Okress

Training Consultant
Relational Technologies LLC

Leokadia has supported CPOE implementations at fifteen hospitals nationwide and abroad. She is completing her doctorate in clinical psychology August 2011 and uses this training to promote an interdisciplinary understanding from enterprise to end user.

Ed Ricks, MHA, CPHIMS, CHPS

VP and CIO
Beaufort Memorial Hospital

Ed Ricks MHA CPHIMS CHPS has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare information systems. Prior to becoming VP of Information Services and CIO at Beaufort Memorial he served in the same roll at Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown NY.

Ms. Alison Chi

Director
A Project of Public Health Solutions for the Citywide Immunization Registry NYC DOHMH

Alison Chi has worked in Public Health technology since joining the Citywide Immunization Registry at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in 1997. She has also directed technology projects for NYC's Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention & Control.

Ms. Kristen Forney

Manager
A Project of Public Health Solutions for the Citywide Immunization Registry, NYC DOHMH

Kristen Forney received her MPH in Global Health from Emory University in 2010. She has been working on the interoperability project for Citywide Immunization Registry for the last year.

Rick Krohn, MA, MAS

President
HealthSense, Inc.

Mr. Krohn is a seasoned health care business development and management consultant who has guided physicians, health care systems, and HMOs in their transition to manage care. He is the President of HealthSense; a managed health care business development and management-consulting firm located in Guyton, GA. Client engagements have included strategic and business planning, market research, capital acquisition, single and multi-specialty network development, managed care contracting, risk based compensation plan development, operations management, finance, process reengineering, information systems, product development, and managed care business development. Rick has worked extensively with hospital executives, physicians, HMO executives, support staff, and vendors in a wide range of professional orientations, from new venture business planning and execution to physician specialty network development, to provider education, to HMO restructuring, to managed care contracting and risk based product development. During his career, Rick has developed an expertise in providing solutions to managed care issues and challenges faced by hospital executives, physicians, and payors.

David Metcalf, PhD

Director-METIL
Central Florida HIT Initiative

As a research faculty member, Dr. Metcalf is responsible for inspiring innovation in the field of learning and performance. Dr. Metcalf brings partnerships and existing research and development relationships to the world-class Institute. Dr. Metcalf provides advisory services and develops new innovations in mobile technology for healthcare and other industry segments. The Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab that he leads has provided strategy and solutions for Johnson & Johnson, Google, Microsoft, Tufts, Univ of Miami, US Army, Joint Forces among others. He is a frequent author and presenter in the learning and healthcare professions.

Chitra Mohla

Director, Community College Program
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Chitra Mohla is currently the Director of the Community College Workforce Program in the Office of Provider Adoption Support (OPAS), in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). Ms. Mohla is responsible for administering the Workforce Community College cooperative agreement programs. These programs are designed to create or expand existing health information technology programs at community colleges. Professionals trained through these programs will provide key support to HITECH Act directives such as the Regional Extension Centers, the Health Information Technology Research Center, and the State Health Information Exchange Program.

Gretchen LeFever, PhD

Director, Consortium for Health Information Technology
Tidewater Community College

Dr. Gretchen LeFever has been described as a visionary thinker who sees solutions before others can articulate the problem to be solved. She is passionate about improving patient and personnel safety. As a popular speaker with a strong media presence, Dr. LeFever has appeared on national TV and radio programs such as CNN and the National Public Radio Diane Rehm Show. She has won millions of federal, state, and non-profit grant dollars to conduct epidemiologic and translational research and led an award-winning patient safety and performance excellence initiative for Sentara Healthcare. Results of her studies appear in a range of professional publications such as American Journal of Public Health, Critical Care Medicine, Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, Family and Community Health, Developmental Psychology, Journal of Educational Research, and Psychology in the Schools. Her work has also been discussed in popular magazines such as Psychology Today, Science, and Popular Science.

Patricia Dombrowski

Director, Bellevue College Life Science Informatics Center
Bellevue College

Patricia Dombrowski directs the Bellevue College Life Science Informatics Center and the ONC-funded 10-state Community College Consortia to Educate Information Technology Professionals in Health Care. Bellevue College has been designated the Washington State Lead Organization for American Recovery & Reinvestment Act Health IT initiatives, and recently received a National Science Foundation award to create a national health IT certification, and the preparatory curriculum. Formerly a principal in both a software and a telecommunications company, Patricia Dombrowski has served as V.P. Marketing and V.P. Operations in technology intensive environments. On staff at Bellevue College for the past ten years, she has administered millions of dollars of awards from a wide variety of funders.

Debra Hall

Director, HIM
Hackensack University Medical Center

Melanie Combs-Dyer

Deputy Director, Provider Compliance Group
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Melanie Combs-Dyer Is the Deputy Director, Provider Compliance Group at Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. In her role she oversees the development, implementation, and improvement of the Electronic Submission of Medical Documentation (esMD) pilot that uses a CONNECT gateway and NHIN standards to allow healthcare providers to safely and securely send medical records in PDF format to certain CMS review contractors, the Medicare Recovery Audit program (formerly called RAC program), the Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) and Payment Error Rate Measurement (PERM) programs, the Division of Medical Review and Education, and the Division of Data Analysis.

Jeff Blair

Director of Health Informatics
LCF Research

Jeff Blair is Director of Health Informatics at LCF Research in New Mexico. LCF Research staffs and operates the New Mexico Health Information Collaborative (NMHIC), which is the statewide health information exchange (HIE) network. Mr. Blair has had leadership roles for the National Health Information Network (NHIN) Trial Implementation contract and the State HIE Cooperative Agreement Program (State HIE CAP). He served as co-chair of the Standards Subcommittee of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) for more than ten years. He has been the Chair of the HIMSS HIE Committee. Mr. Blair had a thirty-year career with IBM, mostly in health IT. He has an MBA from Northwestern University and has been elected to the American College of Medical Informatics.

Phyllis Albritton

Executive Director
CORHIO

Phyllis Albritton is the Executive Director of the Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO), a non-profit public-private partnership created to facilitate health information exchange to improve care for all Coloradans. CORHIO has been designated the state-level entity for health information exchange (HIE) in Colorado so that all Coloradans will benefit from federal funding for HIE. In addition, the Colorado Health Foundation has invested in CORHIO's efforts to provide these services statewide.

CORHIO is also the lead for the Colorado Regional Extension Center (Co-REC) – a collaboration among a number of organizations serving safety net and primary care providers and expected to assist the state Medicaid program in developing Colorado's EHR Adoption Incentive Program.

Ms. Albritton has more than 20 years experience in health, education and telecommunications policy; and currently serves on the Center for Improving Value in Healthcare (CIVHC) Board and the HITEC Advisory Board.

Ken Rubin

Chief Architect, Federal Healthcare Portfolio
HP Enterprise Services

Ken Rubin is the Chief Healthcare Architect for the [US] Federal Healthcare Portfolio for HP Enterprise Services. Primarily focused on healthcare enterprise architecture, informatics, and electronic health record interoperability, Mr. Rubin co-chairs and founded the HL7 SOA Workgroup, co-chairs the OMG Healthcare Domain Task Force, and established the Healthcare Services Specification Project (HSSP) - a collaboration between standards bodies to produce health industry SOA standards.

Reed Gelzer, MD, MPH, CCHC

Co-founder
Advocates for Documentation Integrity and Compliance

Reed Gelzer, MD, MPH, CHCC has provided more than 30 years' service to health care, including legal medical records and 11 years in primary care practice. After two years with an EHR vendor, he then focused on EHR system legal validity and data quality, co-founding Advocates for Documentation Integrity and Compliance while researching, presenting, and writing on these topics to national and specialty audiences, recently publishing How to Evaluate Electronic Health Record Systems. He's currently the Senior Physician Informaticist for Buccaneer Computer Systems and Services. Consulting clients include the U.S. Navy Health Care Data Quality Office and the CMS Physician Quality Reporting Initiative. He chaired a Fraud Management project workgroup for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and volunteers extensively in the Health Information Technology domain: on HL7's EHR Records Management-Evidentiary Support (Legal) Profile Working Group, as well as the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), as well as serving on the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) Privacy and Compliance Expert Panel.

Rob Tagalicod

Director
Office of Health Standards & Services (OESS),
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
Department of Health and Human Services

Experience at CMS, Director, Office of Health Standards & Services (OESS): 7/2011 to present, Acting Director, Office of Communications (OC): 10/2010-7/2011; Deputy Director, Office of External Affairs and Beneficiary Services: 1/2010- 10/2010; Special Assistant to the Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Office of the Administrator: 6/2007-12/2000; Previously with Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA); the University of California, San Francisco; and several county health and hospital systems in Northern California.Highlights: Leads the Office of Health Standards & Services (OESS), one of CMS' enterprise business efforts, developing and coordinating the implementation of a comprehensive e-health strategy for CMS; ensuring that individual initiatives tie to the overall agency and Federal e-health goals strategies; and promoting and leveraging innovative component initiatives. OESS projects include Blue Button; 5010/ICD-10 implementation; Administrative Simplification; EHR Meaningful Use; and Health Information Exchanges, in collaboration with ONC. Oversee the EHR Incentive Program, a $30 billion, multi-year budget as authorized by Congress to incent adoption and meaningful use of EHRs as part of transforming health care in America.

Sonia Trepina, MPA

ICD-10 Project Director
Duke Health

Sonia's professional experience covers 15 years in Program and Project Management with eight years specific to healthcare revenue cycle.  As a Project Manager, She has had the opportunity to work on various projects ranging from clinical documentation improvement, acquisitions, observation billing, charge master clean-up, charge capture automation, facility planning and start-ups.  The variation of projects has helped her understand how the pieces of the healthcare organization connect. 

Karen Adams, PhD, MT

Vice President of National Priorities
National Quality Forum

Karen Adams, PhD, MT is Vice President of National Priorities at the National Quality Forum (NQF).  In this role she oversees the National Priorities Partners, a multi-stakeholder initiative that is establishing priorities and goals for health care quality improvement and public reporting.

Darrell A. Campbell, Jr., MD

Chief Medical Officer
University of Michigan Hospital and Health Centers

Darrell A. Campbell, Jr., MD serves as Chief Medical Officer at the University of Michigan Hospital and Health Centers and is also Henry King Ransom Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery.

Richard P. Foster, Jr., MD

Senior Vice President for Quality and Patient Safety
South Carolina Hospital Association (SCHA)

Dr. Rick Foster is the Senior Vice President for Quality and Patient Safety with the South Carolina Hospital Association (SCHA).

Debbie Meisner

Vice President of Shared Services
Emdeon

Nancy Spector

Director, Electronic Medical Systems
American Medical Association

Nancy Spector is the Director, Electronic Medical Systems at the American Medical Association.  Her primary responsibilities are for the coordination, implementation, and management of policy, programs, and standards development in the area of HIPAA administrative simplification and harmonization efforts in electronic health records.  She is the Chair of the National Uniform Claim Committee, which works to promote the development of national standards for the professional claim process and maintains paper 1500 Claim Form and the uniform data set known as the NUCC Data Set. She also participate in national standards development activities representing the AMA and NUCC, such as the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, National Uniform Billing Committee, ASC X12, Designated Standards Maintenance Organization, and Dental Content Committee. I have been a Director on the WEDI Board since 2006.

Mary Hyland, RN, BS, MBA

Assistant Vice President Regulatory Affairs
The SSI Group, Inc.

Mary Hyland currently serves as the assistant vice president of regulatory affairs and chief privacy officer for The SSI Group, Inc. The SSI Group is a leader in EDI software and services, as well as a clearinghouse processing more than $116 billion in claims annually. The company has more than 385 employees with office locations in Alabama, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia, and Colorado. During her nine-year tenure with The SSI Group, Ms. Hyland led initiatives on privacy, security, compliance, and other regulatory programs for State, regional and Federal agencies and programs. She coordinates certification initiatives for the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission, Statement on Auditing Standards No.70 (SAS 70), and Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange
(CORE)/Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare (CAQH). Ms. Hyland also heads initiatives for business continuity/disaster planning. She developed the Quality Assurance Department and Education and Training Division with the creation of computer-based training modules for employees and customers.

Laurie Holtsford

Director, Business Office Support
Community Health Systems

Mary Hyland currently serves as the assistant vice president of regulatory affairs and chief privacy officer for The SSI Group, Inc. The SSI Group is a leader in EDI software and services, as well as a clearinghouse processing more than $116 billion in claims annually. The company has more than 385 employees with office locations in Alabama, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia, and Colorado. During her nine-year tenure with The SSI Group, Ms. Hyland led initiatives on privacy, security, compliance, and other regulatory programs for State, regional and Federal agencies and programs. She coordinates certification initiatives for the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission, Statement on Auditing Standards No.70 (SAS 70), and Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange
(CORE)/Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare (CAQH). Ms. Hyland also heads initiatives for business continuity/disaster planning. She developed the Quality Assurance Department and Education and Training Division with the creation of computer-based training modules for employees and customers.

Patricia B. Wise, RN, MS, MA COL (USA ret'd)

Vice President, Health Information Systems
HIMSS

Patricia B. Wise is Vice President of HIMSS, the largest U.S. cause-based, not-for-profit healthcare association focused on the optimal use of information technology and management systems for the betterment of healthcare.  At HIMSS, Wise is responsible for directing initiatives that drive the quality, efficiency, effectiveness and safety of patient care through various tools and resources. Specifically, she oversees committees and task forces including Ambulatory Information Systems, Enterprise Information Systems, Personal Health Record Information Systems, Financial Information Systems, Patient Safety and Quality Outcomes, Health Information Exchange, Electronic Health Record Association and the Davies Award Program. Wise works closely with the HIMSS Physician Community and Plug In! She joined HIMSS in 2002 as the Director of HIMSS EHR Initiatives and member of the HIMSS Industry Affairs Department and was promoted to her current position in 2005.  Before joining HIMSS, Wise was the Executive Director of Computer-based Patient Record Institute and Healthcare Open Systems and Trials (CPRI-HOST), a consortium of businesses and industries that promoted electronic medical records prior to merging with HIMSS.

Robert M. Tennant, MA

Senior Policy Advisor
Medical Group Managment Association

Robert focuses on federal legislative and regulatory health information technology issues, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), electronic health records, electronic prescribing and ICD-10. He participates in numerous industry efforts, including:

Board of Directors of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI)
WEDI's Strategic National Implementation Process
Certification Commission for Health Information Technology EHR Expert Panel
American Health Information Community Consumer Empowerment Workgroup
National Uniform Claim Committee
e-Health Initiative's Policy Steering Committee
Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare CORE initiative
Healthcare Administrative Simplification Coalition (HASC)

Robert began his work with MGMA in June 1997. He received his undergraduate degree from Carleton University and his master's degree from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Robert also attended the University of Maryland, College Park for Doctoral studies. Robert has also received the WEDI Distinguished Service Award and Leadership in Technology award