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Faculty Biographies

Publication
Article
Evidence-Based Diabetes ManagementPatient-Centered Diabetes Care: Putting Theory Into Practice 2014
Volume 20
Issue SP9

Biographies of faculty that participated in PCDC 2014.

Josh Benner, PharmD, ScD

President and Chief Executive OfficerRxAnte, Inc

Dr Benner is president and chief executive officer of RxAnte, a provider of science-based information technology solutions for improving quality and lowering the cost of healthcare. RxAnte helps healthcare organizations improve medication adherence objectively and efficiently by applying proprietary predictive analytics and decision analytics to ensure that the right patient gets the right intervention at the right time. Dr Benner is a leading voice on medication adherence, and his award-winning research and numerous publications have shed new light on the problem of nonadherence and identified promising approaches to addressing it. Previously, Dr Benner was fellow and managing director at the Brookings Institution’s Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform, where he focused on medical technology policy. Prior to Brookings, Dr Benner was principal at ValueMedics Research, an analytic and consulting services firm. Following the successful sale of ValueMedics to IMS Health in 2007, he served as senior principal in health economics and outcomes research and global lead for medication adherence at IMS. Dr Benner received his PharmD degree from Drake University and his Doctor of Science in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health. He remains a visiting scholar in economic studies at Brookings, and is an adjunct scholar in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Jan Berger, MD, MJ

PresidentHealth Intelligence Partners

Dr Berger founded Health Intelligence Partners as a consultancy that focuses both nationally and globally on healthcare business strategies and solutions, leveraging her more than 30 years of business and clinical expertise. Dr Berger’s passion is to use communications to engage, educate, and empower patients in their health. She is considered a national expert in quality innovation, medication adherence, HEDIS improvement, clinical Star measures, and sustained health engagement. Previously, Dr Berger served as senior vice president and chief clinical officer for CVS Caremark. During that time she had P&L, management, strategy, and M&A responsibilities. Before joining CVS Caremark, Dr Berger had 15 years’ experience in healthcare administration within health plans and academic arenas. Dr Berger is a prolific author, with more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and several recently published books, including Leveraging Health, Thirteen Common Pitfalls in Consumer Health Engagement, and Medical Liability for Pediatricians. Additionally, she serves as the editor-in-chief of The American Journal of Pharmacy Benefits, on the boards of Care Core National, Meals to Heal, and the University of Arizona School of Pharmacy, and on the advisory boards of Truvaris and RxAnte. She is also a member of numerous business and healthcare committees. She earned both an MD degree and a master’s degree

in jurisprudence from Loyola University in Chicago. She holds a certificate in healthcare business administration from the University of South Florida and a black belt in Six Sigma. She is currently an assistant professor at Northwestern University School of Medicine in Evanston, Illinois.

Michael A. Evans, BS, RPh

DirectorAmbulatory Clinical Pharmacy ProgramsEnterprise PharmacyGeisinger Health System

Over the past 20 years, Mr Evans has held multiple positions within Geisinger Health System (GHS), participated in projects, and served as co-investigator or consultant for several industry-sponsored studies. As a result of these previous experiences, he is aware of the importance of communication among clinicians and project members, and of the development of a realistic research plan, timeline, and budget. In his current role within GHS, he is actively involved in the management of chronic diseases/therapies such as anticoagulation, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, oral chemotherapies, anticonvulsants, and chronic pain, and leads the medication therapy disease management programs.

Robert A. Gabbay, MD, PhD, FACP

Chief Medical OfficerJoslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School

Dr Gabbay has 20 years of clinical and research experience and is chief medical officer and senior vice president at Joslin Diabetes Center. His research focuses on improving primary care healthcare delivery to enhance diabetes outcomes and patients’ experiences. Dr Gabbay served as faculty chair of Pennsylvania’s statewide Chronic Care Model, with a focus on the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) initiative (Chronic Care Initiative) involving more than 150 primary care practices with support from 17 payers. He also worked as principal investigator on 2 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)-funded PCMH projects before coming to the Joslin Diabetes Center. The first studied the experience of 25 practices in the first regional rollout of the Pennsylvania initiative in Southeast Pennsylvania. Under the R18, Dr Gabbay is using a mixed methods approach to evaluate the clinical and proximal outcomes of the PCMH intervention, the effects of the intervention on resource utilization and costs, and patient and provider satisfaction and experience with the PCMH intervention. In the second study, Dr Gabbay was selected by AHRQ to help develop state-level infrastructure for primary care transformation under AHRQ’s Infrastructure for Maintaining Primary Care Transformation (IMPaCT) program. Pennsylvania was one of 4 states selected for this initiative aimed at laying the foundation for a nationwide primary care extension service. Dr Gabbay has also worked with the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians (PAFP) in both collaborative

and investigational roles. Dr Gabbay served as principal investigator on the PAFP Residency Program Collaborative Evaluation, which evaluated the clinical and proximal outcomes of a PCMH intervention at 26 family medicine residency practices across Pennsylvania. He played a collaborative role as well, working alongside the PAFP during the statewide Chronic Care Initiative.

Starlin Haydon-Greatting, MS, BSPharm, FAPhA

Director of Clinical ProgramsIPhA

Ms Haydon-Greatting serves as the Illinois Pharmacists Association’s (IPhA’s) director of clinical programs, working to establish the Illinois Pharmacists Network. She serves as the IPhA Patient Self Management Program (PSMP) pharmacy network coordinator. The IPhA PSMP includes programs for diabetes, prediabetes, and cardiovascular health, with asthma and depression modules in development. The IPhA PSMPs are modeled after the Asheville Project and based upon the APhA Foundation’s Health- MapRx program. Besides managing the network, Ms Haydon-Greatting coaches patients in the pharmacist-based care management program on prediabetes, diabetes, cardiovascular health, asthma, and depression. Ms Haydon-Greatting served for many years as director of drug use review and quality assurance for the Illinois Department of Public Aid (Medicaid) before bringing her expertise in technology and health informatics to the field of population health management. She serves on the Pharmacy Quality Alliance Adherence workgroup and the National

Quality Forum Endocrine Steering Committee. Ms Haydon-Greatting’s lifelong interest in and dedication to education and training regarding diabetes stems from her personal experiences with gestational diabetes, family with diabetes, and the Illinois Diabetes Policy Coalition. She has dedicated the last 10 years to educating, training, and practicing processes involved with the Asheville Project and the HealthMapRx models, especially with the Diabetes Ten City Challenge, where a pharmacist-driven patient-centered model provides improved medication adherence, patient outcomes, and reductions in overall medical expenditures. Currently, she is the administratordirector of the IPhA Patient Self Management Programs for Diabetes and Cardiovascular Health, which are value-based disease management programs and medication therapy management services for self-insured employers. Ms Haydon-Greatting has received numerous awards for her volunteer work and professionalism, and in 2013 was named by the American Pharmacists Association as a fellow of The APhA-Academy of Pharmacy Practice and Management.

Scott Hines, MD

Co-Chief Clinical Transformation OfficerMedical Specialty Division LeaderCrystal Run Healthcare

Dr Hines is co-chief clinical transformation officer and physician leader for Crystal Run Healthcare’s medical specialties division, which includes endocrinology, nephrology, dermatology, rheumatology, infectious disease, pain management, and physical rehabilitation. Dr Hines is board certified in internal medicine, endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism. Dr Hines earned his medical degree from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, and completed his residency in internal medicine at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH. Dr Hines completed his endocrinology fellowship at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, MD. In 2006, Dr Hines joined Crystal Run Healthcare. In his role as co-chief clinical transformation officer, Dr Hines helps to develop and implement the clinical programs necessary to deliver value-based care. These include the development of best practice guidelines, a variation reductionprogram, and various quality improvement initiatives. Dr Hines has delivered multiple presentations highlighting the practice’s value-based care initiatives for other medical groups and at various national meetings, including the American Medical Group Association and the Group Practice Initiative Network. Dr Hines is also a physician reviewer for the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s (NCQA’s) patient-centered medical home program.

Nadia S. Islam, PhD

Assistant ProfessorDepartment of PopulationHealth NYU School of MedicineDirector, NYU Prevention Research Center

Dr Islam is an assistant professor in the department of population health at the NYU School of Medicine. She specializes in community-based participatory methods and cardiovascular health disparities research within Asian American and immigrant communities. She is also the deputy director and co-investigator of the NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH), a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded P60 National Research Center of Excellence, which is dedicated to reducing health disparities facing Asian American communities. At CSAAH, she is the project principal investigator (PI) of the DREAM Project (Diabetes Research, Education, and Action), a 5-year NIH-funded study that

examines the impact of a community health worker (CHW) program designed to improve diabetes control and diabetes-related health complications in the Bangladeshi community in New York City. Dr Islam also directs the NYU Prevention Research Center and serves as PI of 3 research sub-studies in the research core, including the RICE (Reaching Immigrants through Community Empowerment) Project, a CHW diabetes prevention intervention in the Korean and South Asian communities, and MARHABA (Muslim Americans Reaching for Health and Building Alliances), a study examining barriers to and facilitators of breast and cervical cancer screening among Muslim women in New York City. Dr Islam is a medical sociologist with a doctorate in socio-medical sciences from Columbia University. She currently serves on the American Diabetes Association Taskforce on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders. Dr Islam previously served on the board of the Public Health Association of New York and was the chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Caucus of the American Public Health Association. Dr Islam is coeditor of Asian American Communities and Health (Jossey Bass Publishers, 2009).

Geoffrey Joyce, PhD

Associate Professor, PharmaceuticalEconomics and PolicyLeonard D. Schaeffer Center for HealthPolicy and EconomicsUniversity of Southern California

Dr Joyce is an associate professor of pharmaceutical economics at the University of Southern California, director of health policy at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) post doctoral training program. Dr Joyce is the author of over 60 book chapters and articles published in leading journals, and his work, which focuses on the costs of medical care and the role of insurance, has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and U.S. News and World Report, on NBC Nightly News and National Public Radio, and in other media. He published a series of studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association examining the impact of alternative pharmacy benefit designs on prescription drug utilization and spending. Other studies by Dr Joyce have examined the lifetime costs of chronic disease, the cost-effectiveness of highly active antiretroviral therapy for HIV-infected patients, and differences in medical care utilization and costs under alternative financing arrangements and treatment settings. He is currently examining physician prescribing behavior and the impact of Medicare Part D.

Rebecca Wilkes Killion, MA

Director, Professional DevelopmentMcKenna Long & Aldridge LLP

Ms Killion serves as the director of professional development at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP in Washington, DC. She holds a BA from Smith College and an MA from the University of Arizona. In 1997, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes mellitus and is now a patient representative and voting member of the FDA’s Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee, which oversees therapies and products for the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes. Her appointment has been renewed for 4 consecutive terms. As a diabetes patient and advocate, Ms Killion has addressed pharmaceutical companies, international medical conferences, government agencies, and scientific organizations on patient issues and perspectives.

Meaghan Kim, BS, RN, CDE

Director of Diabetes Population HealthAtlantiCare

Ms Kim is the director of diabetes population health at AtlantiCare, with responsibility for care across the continuum of services (hospitals, physician practices, nursing homes) for the diabetes population. She has oversight of systemwide diabetes education programs, and has designed and implemented disease-specific care pathways and new models for the delivery of diabetes care. Ms Kim is a registered nurse and certified diabetes educator with a degree in public health from Richard Stockton College. She is actively pursuing her master’s degree in health administration, which is to be completed in 2014. She is a member of the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) and currently serves as a national mentor for the National Certification Board for Diabetes Educators. She has served on speakers’ bureaus for Eli Lilly and Company and Pfizer and is an active certified insulin pump/continuous glucose monitor trainer.

Maria Lopes, MD, MS

Chief Medical OfficerCDMI

Dr Lopes is an obstetrician and gynecologist, and has been in clinical practice for over 6 years. She has a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Wesleyan University and received her medical degree from the University of Connecticut. She also has a master’s degree in administrative medicine from the University of Wisconsin. Dr Lopes has been in the managed care industry for over 18 years as chief medical officer of Group Health, Inc, and formerly served as chief medical director of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield NJ. Dr Lopes has extensive experience in disease and case management, employee health and wellness, and quality initiatives to improve Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) and clinical outcomes. Dr Lopes has been responsible for medical policy development and implementation, correct coding initiatives, working against fraud and abuse, physician profiling, and the development of a medical home pilot project in New York. Currently, Dr Lopes is chief medical officer at CDMI, a pharmacy and medical benefit management company working with 40 different health plans covering 60 million lives. She is involved in clinical program development including pathways in care, quality initiatives to improve HEDIS/MedStar measures, adherence and compliance programs, patient assessment tools, and formulary management to reduce cost trends (as chair of the pharmacy and therapeutics committee). She has worked with AMCHealth, an affiliate of Geisinger Health Systems, as chief medical officer, where she was involved in innovative strategies to impact patient engagement and innovation in patient outreach to improve care coordination as part of Geisinger’s strategic HIT initiatives in the patient-centered medical home demonstration project.

Teresa L. Pearson, MS, RN, CDE, FAADE

Owner and Chief Executive OfficerInnovative Health Care Designs, LLC

Ms Pearson, a master’s-prepared RN and certified diabetes educator, is the owner and chief executive officer of Innovative Health Care Designs. She is also a clinical consultant for Hallel and Habicht Consulting, where she is currently facilitating PCMH implementation at various primary care sites and is integral to the development of a virtual accountable care organization in Southwestern Minnesota. Previously, Ms Pearson was the director of diabetes care for Fairview Health Services, where she provided direction and oversight for diabetes care services at over 40 primary care sites with 20 diabetes educators and 12 pharmacists. Prior to working at Fairview, she was director of professional education at the International Diabetes Center and advisor for diabetes care at HealthPartners. She has served on numerous advisory boards and committees, including the executive board for the AADE; the Minneapolis-St Paul Diabetes Educators; various committees of the ADA; the Therapeutic Patient Education Congress of Europe; and the Minnesota Diabetes Control and Prevention Program Steering Committee. Ms Pearson is a member of the editorial board for The Diabetes Educator and International Diabetes Monitor. Currently she is the editor in-chief of AADE in Practice and is a master trainer for the CDC’s National Diabetes Prevention Program.

Ms Pearson is a frequent guest speaker nationally and internationally. She has made more than 1000 presentations and written more than 50 articles on clinical diabetes care, facilitating behavior change, screening for diabetes, prevention of diabetes, team management of diabetes, and healthcare reform issues. Ms Pearson has received several awards for her work and has been named a fellow of the AADE.

Edmund Pezalla, MD, MPH

Vice President, National Medical DirectorAetna

Dr Pezalla serves as national medical director for pharmaceutical policy and strategy for Aetna in the Office of the Chief Medical Officer. He was the head of clinical services for Aetna pharmacy management from 2007 to 2009. Prior to joining Aetna, Dr Pezalla was the vice president and medical director for clinical services from 2004 to 2007 at Prescription Solutions, now OptumRx. Dr Pezalla also served as head of clinical science for Pfizer Health Solutions from 1996 to 2001, and was chief of pediatrics from 1991 to 1995 at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fremont, California. Dr Pezalla received his medical degree from Georgetown University and completed a flexible internship and pediatric residency at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He received his master’s in public health from the University of California at Berkeley in 1995 and was a health services research fellow and postdoctoral fellow in health policy at the University of Michigan from 2001 to 2003.

Todd Prewitt, MD, FAAFP

Director, Chronic Care StrategiesHealth Guidance OrganizationHumana, Inc

As the director of chronic care strategies for Humana, Dr Prewitt leads a team of clinicians in developing transformative population health management solutions for members with chronic conditions. Their goal is to energize patients to achieve optimal health through self-management training and healthsystem support with integrated designs that leverage the full spectrum of Humana resources to create providerdriven member-centric solutions. The team also supports research and health-system innovations by working with pharmacy, device manufacturers, and biotechnology to improve the ability to deliver value-based results. Dr Prewitt recently served on the National Diabetes Education Program and the Practice Transformation Task Force of the National Institutes of Health/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is on the board of the Colon Cancer Prevention Project. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Medicine. Prior to joining Humana, Dr Prewitt directed a division of integrated clinical teams at Carewise Health, which provided population health solutions for Fortune 500 self-funded clients across the continuum from wellness to complex chronic care. Dr Prewitt worked in a private family medicine practice before entering managed care. A graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, he served as president of the Medical Alumni Association as well as on the University

of Kentucky, College of Medicine Dean’s Advisory Counsel.

Dennis Scanlon, PhD

Professor of Health Policy andAdministrationPennsylvania State University

Dr Scanlon is a professor of health policy and administration at The Pennsylvania State University, College of Health and Human Development. He serves as principal investigator for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality evaluation and is a consultant on an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality study entitled “Assessing a

Statewide Multi-Stakeholder Chronic Care Model Implementation.” Dr Scanlon also serves on the editorial board of several journals, including BMC Health Services Research, International Scholarly Research Network Public Health, Health Services Research, The American Journal of Managed Care, and Medical Care Research and Review. In 2002, he received the John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators, which is given annually by the Association of University Programs in Health Administration to an outstanding young investigator in the field of health services research. Scanlon earned a master’s degree in economics from the University of Pittsburgh and a doctorate in health services organization

and policy from the University of Michigan. Dr Scanlon has published widely, with more than 60 journal articles and reports on a variety of topics in the health services field.

Katherine A. Schneider, MD, MPhil, FAAFP

Executive Vice President and ChiefMedical OfficerMedecision

Nationally known for her work in the field of accountable care and patient engagement, Katherine A. Schneider’s mission is to deliver better health, better care, and sustainable cost in the communities in which we work, live, and serve. In her role as executive vice president and chief medical officer, she leads Medecision in its quest to become the gold-standard pioneer in care cycle management technology solutions that help US providers and health plans focus on making cost-effective, customer-centric care a reality. With the know-how to liberate healthcare from siloed organizational models and build new collaborative environments using broad-based population management tools, she brings real value to Medecision and its clients. She enjoys working with customers as a strategic partner in their ongoing journey toward value-based care. Prior to joining Medecision, Dr Schneider served as the senior vice president for health engagement at AtlantiCare, where she led the system’s strategic transformational work toward accountable care and engaging individuals in their own health. In her previous position at Middlesex Health System in Connecticut, Dr Schneider was active in pilot projects embedding chronic disease management in the delivery system, and pilot projects involving value-based payment models, including Medicare’s Physician Group Practice demonstration project. She has led several award-winning initiatives in community health improvement. She is a former member of the National Advisory Council to the AHRQ, the federal agency charged with improving the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of healthcare for all Americans. She is a board-certified family physician and was in the first cohort of US physicians to achieve subspecialty certification in clinical informatics in 2013.

Amy Tenderich

Editor-in-ChiefDiabetesMine.com

Ms Tenderich is a journalist/blogger and patient advocate who started Diabetes-Mine.com after she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes mellitus in 2003. Her site has become a leading online destination for people with diabetes and one of the top health blogs around the country and the world. In 2006, she won the LillyforLife Achievement Award for diabetes journalism from Eli Lilly and Company. She is the co-author, along with Dr Richard Jackson of Joslin Diabetes Center, of Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes—a unique motivational guide to the 5 key medical tests that everyone with diabetes should have regularly and monitor. Ms Tenderich has made it her mission to spur innovation in diabetes care that actually originates with patients. In 2007, she penned an open letter to Steve Jobs that went viral and sparked the development of an international crowdsourcing competition called the DiabetesMine Design Challenge, which was underwritten by the California HealthCare Foundation and supported by IDEO, a leading design firm with close ties to Stanford University. The competition culminated in the Diabetes- Mine Innovation Summit event, which Ms Tenderich now hosts each year at Stanford. Ms Tenderich is also community manager of DiabeticConnect.com, the fastest growing and most successful social networking site for people with diabetes, with 700,000 registered members to date.

She recently joined DiabeticConnect’s parent company, Alliance Health Networks, creators of social networks for people living with chronic conditions, as vice president and chief patient advocate. She is passionate about patient empowerment, and has become a well-known public speaker and advocate for all people with diabetes and all engaged “e-patients” everywhere.

Deneen Vojta, MD

Senior Vice PresidentBusiness Initiatives and Clinical AffairsUnitedHealth Group

Dr Vojta is senior vice president for business initiatives and clinical affairs at UnitedHealth Group and chief clinical officer of the diabetes prevention and control alliance. As a member of the core leadership group, she identifies innovative solutions in the marketplace for addressing the significant healthcare challenges facing the nation. In this role, she spearheaded UnitedHealth’s partnership with the CDC and the Y—USA to launch the National Diabetes Prevention Program, led the design and study of a scalable childhood obesity intervention, and partnered with entrepreneurs to disseminate technology delivering healthcare in the home. Dr Vojta previously served as vice president of research and innovation for UnitedHealthcare. In this role, she forged practical and sustainable solutions focusing on payment reform and chronic care delivery. Before joining UnitedHealth, she served as chief executive officer of MYnetico, a company she founded to focus on the childhood obesity epidemic facing the nation. Dr Vojta has 20 years of executive experience in health system and health plan administration. She is well published and is frequently invited to speak on a number of health issues. Dr Vojta was educated at the University of Pittsburgh and Temple University School of Medicine. She trained in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and in 2003 she was named one of the “Top 40 under 40” by the Philadelphia Business Journal. In 2011, she was named one of the “Top Women to Watch” by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal.

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