Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, is the Robert J. Margolis Professor of Business, Medicine, and Policy, and founding Director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University. With offices in Durham, NC and Washington, DC, the Center is a university-wide Duke initiative that is quickly becoming nationally and internationally-recognized research, evaluation, implementation, and educational initiatives to improve health policy and health. It integrates Duke’s expertise in the social, clinical, and analytical sciences alongside engagement with health care leaders and stakeholders, to develop and apply policy solutions that improve health and the value of health care locally, nationally, and worldwide.

Dr. McClellan is a doctor and an economist whose has addressed a wide range of strategies and policy reforms to improve health care, including payment reform to promote better outcomes and lower costs, methods for development and use of real-world evidence, and strategies for more effective biomedical innovation. Before coming to Duke, he served as a Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he was Director of the Health Care Innovation and Value Initiatives and led the Richard Merkin Initiative on Payment Reform and Clinical Leadership. He also has a highly distinguished record in public service and academic research.

Dr. McClellan is a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he developed and implemented major reforms in health policy. These include the Medicare prescription drug benefit, Medicare and Medicaid payment reforms, the FDA’s Critical Path Initiative, and public-private initiatives to develop better information on the quality and cost of care. He has also previously served as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and senior director for health care policy at the White House, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Department of the Treasury.

Dr. McClellan is the founding chair and a current board member of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA, is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. At NAM, he chairs the Leadership Council for Value and Science-Driven Health care, co-chairs the guiding committee of the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network, and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also a Senior Advisor on the faculty of the University of Texas Dell Medical School and is an independent director on the board of Johnson & Johnson and on the board of Alignment Healthcare. He was previously an associate professor of economics and medicine with tenure at Stanford University, and has twice received the Kenneth Arrow Award for Outstanding Research in Health Economics.

Amy Abernethy, M.D., Ph.D., is cofounder of Highlander Health, an organization focused on advancing evidence generation for the new era of medical innovation. As an oncologist, serial entrepreneur, and standard setter, Dr. Abernethy is a champion for speeding the pace at which safe and effective treatments reach patients, and for progressive and responsible use of our healthcare system’s data.

Dr. Abernethy is the former principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. While there, Dr. Abernethy led initiatives in advancing clinical evidence generation and personalized healthcare and also served as the agency’s acting chief information officer.

More recently, Dr. Abernethy served as chief medical officer and president of product development at Verily, Alphabet’s precision health business, leading the company’s development and delivery of solutions that connect clinical research and care. Earlier roles include that of Flatiron Health’s first chief medical officer and chief scientific officer, as well as: professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine; director of the Center for Learning Health Care at the Duke Clinical Research Institute; and, director of the Duke Cancer Care Research Program at the Duke Cancer Institute. An avid learner and teacher, and a hematologist/oncologist and palliative medicine physician, Dr. Abernethy has authored over 500 publications.

Shantanu Agrawal is the Chief Health Officer of Anthem, Inc. Dr. Agrawal oversees Anthem’s enterprise health strategy, to include medical policy and clinical quality, as well as the company’s industry-leading work to address the social drivers of health. He will also lead Anthem’s community health strategy and the Anthem Foundation. 

Dr. Agrawal most recently served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Quality Forum (NQF), a non-profit organization dedicated to working with members of the healthcare community to drive measurable health improvements. He is also the former Deputy Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), where he led an effort to improve the physician experience with Medicare and was also was one of the main architects of CMS’s strategy to address the national opioid epidemic. Dr. Agrawal also served as Director of the Center for Program Integrity (CPI), where he was instrumental in launching new initiatives in data transparency and analytics, utilization management and payment models.

Dr. Agrawal serves on the board of the Grameen Foundation and the Presidential Advisory Council of Brown University’s School of Public Health. He is also Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania and Associate Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine.

Dr. Agrawal completed his undergraduate education at Brown University, medical education at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and clinical training in Emergency Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his master’s degree in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University.

Dr. Balser undertook residency training in anesthesiology and fellowship training in cardiac anesthesiology and in critical care medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. He joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 1995, where he practiced cardiac anesthesiology, ICU medicine, and led an NIH-funded research program aimed at the genetics of cardiac rhythm disorders, such as sudden cardiac death.

He returned to Vanderbilt in 1998 as Associate Dean for Physician Scientist Development, and soon was appointed Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, directing one of the medical center’s largest clinical service programs. He became the Medical Center’s chief research officer in 2004, leading a period of scientific expansion that moved the Medical Center into the nation’s top 10 in NIH funding, launching big-science programs integrating health informatics and genomics that stimulated the Medical Center’s national leadership in personalized medicine.

In 2008 he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and later that year was named the eleventh dean of Vanderbilt’s School of Medicine since its founding in 1875. In 2009, he was also named Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs with executive responsibility for all health-related programs including the hospitals, clinics, research programs, and the medical and nursing schools. He has led the Medical Center through a period of marked service-volume growth with major inpatient expansions of the children’s hospital and the adult critical care areas, bolstered by 4% compound annual growth of outpatient visits (over 2.1 million per year), and by the creation of region’s largest, multi-state provider-led network (over 50 hospitals and 3000 clinicians: the Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network).

In 2013-2014, he led a $230 million (8%) cost reduction across all mission areas, improving the Medical Center’s competitive position in a rapidly evolving price-sensitive marketplace. In coordination with the Vanderbilt Chancellor and Board of Trust, Dr. Balser has led the Medical Center through a restructuring process that concluded April 30, 2016, placing its clinicians, hospitals, clinics, research and graduate medical education programs into a financially distinct not-for-profit corporation, Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). As President and CEO of VUMC, he reports to an independent board of directors, while also serving as dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Eliav Barr, MD, is senior vice president and Chief Medical Officer at Merck. During his more than two decades at Merck, Dr. Barr has held positions of increasing responsibility including leadership roles in oncology and infectious diseases clinical development. Dr. Barr oversaw the company’s Vaccines/Infectious Disease area during a period of high productivity, including the development of novel therapies for chronic hepatitis C and HIV-1 infections. Most recently he led MRL’s Global Medical Affairs organization from 2018 to January 2022, significantly expanding Merck’s scientific engagement and implementation efforts in oncology, vaccines and more. Dr. Barr leads all late-stage clinical development for Merck’s expansive human health portfolio and pipeline. Dr. Barr is a cardiologist by training. He received his undergraduate degree from Penn State University and his medical degree from Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University. He completed his Internal Medicine residency and Cardiology Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, and subsequently pursued post-doctoral training at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Merck in 1995, he held a faculty position at the University of Chicago. In 2019, he was a proud recipient of a Penn State Alumni Fellow Award for his dedication to the development of medicines and vaccines that treat and prevent infectious diseases.

Georges Benjamin, MD, is known as one of the nation’s most influential physician leaders because he speaks passionately and eloquently about the health issues having the most impact on our nation today. From his firsthand experience as a physician, he knows what happens when preventive care is not available and when the healthy choice is not the easy choice. As executive director of APHA since 2002, he is leading the Association’s push to make America the healthiest nation in one generation. He came to APHA from his position as secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Benjamin became secretary of health in Maryland in April 1999, following four years as its deputy secretary for public health services. As secretary, Benjamin oversaw the expansion and improvement of the state’s Medicaid program.

Benjamin, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He is board-certified in internal medicine and a fellow of the American College of Physicians, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a fellow emeritus of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health.

An established administrator, author and orator, Benjamin started his medical career in 1981 in Tacoma, Washington, where he managed a 72,000-patient visit ambulatory care service as chief of the Acute Illness Clinic at the Madigan Army Medical Center and was an attending physician within the Department of Emergency Medicine. A few years later, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he served as chief of emergency medicine at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. After leaving the Army, he chaired the Department of Community Health and Ambulatory Care at the District of Columbia General Hospital. He was promoted to acting commissioner for public health for the District of Columbia and later directed one of the busiest ambulance services in the nation as interim director of the Emergency Ambulance Bureau of the District of Columbia Fire Department.

At APHA, Benjamin also serves as publisher of the nonprofit’s monthly publication, The Nation’s Health, the association’s official newspaper, and the American Journal of Public Health, the profession’s premier scientific publication. He is the author of more than 100 scientific articles and book chapters. His recent book The Quest for Health Reform: A Satirical History is an exposé of the nearly 100-year quest to ensure quality affordable health coverage for all through the use of political cartoons.

Benjamin is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (Formally the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and also serves on the boards for many organizations including Research!America and the Reagan-Udall Foundation. In 2008, 2014 and 2016 he was named one of the top 25 minority executives in health care by Modern Healthcare Magazine, in addition to being voted among the 100 most influential people in health care from 2007-2017.

In April 2016, President Obama appointed Benjamin to the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, a council that advises the president on how best to assure the security of the nation’s critical infrastructure.

Rachele Berria, MD, PhD, leads the US Medical Team at AstraZeneca, ensuring scientific leadership and a patient-centered approach throughout the Organization. She is a member of the US Leadership Team and the Global Biopharmaceuticals Medical Leadership Team.

Dr. Berria brings over ten years of global and US biopharmaceuticals experience and leadership, in addition to her experiences in clinical research and academic medicine. Most recently, she worked at Sanofi as Global VP, Medical Affairs, Primary Care Unit. Prior to that, she held roles as US Vice President, Diabetes Medical Unit, and Global Associate VP, Medical Affairs. Before Sanofi, she held roles at Roche-Genentech as US Medical Director, Cardio-Metabolism, and Associate Clinical Director, Global R&D.

Dr. Berria received her medical degree at the University of Cagliari School of Medicine, Italy and a PhD in Medical Pathophysiology and Pharmacology at the University of Pisa School of Medicine, Italy. 

Joseph Betancourt is the president of the Commonwealth Fund. One of the nation’s preeminent leaders in health care, equity, quality, and community health, Betancourt formerly served as the senior vice president for Equity and Community Health at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), overseeing the organization’s diversity, equity, inclusion, and community health portfolio, including its Center for Diversity and Inclusion, Disparities Solutions Center, Center for Community Health Improvement, and centers focused on gun violence prevention, community health innovation, immigrant health, and global health. Previously, Betancourt led the Mass General Brigham (MGB) system’s COVID Equity and Community Health response and served as Vice President and Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer at MGH, where he helped develop and launch the organization’s Structural Equity Ten-Point Plan and MGB’s United Against Racism Initiative. As director of MGH’s Disparities Solutions Center, which he founded, Betancourt worked to develop the capacity of health care organizations to improve quality, address disparities, and achieve equity. The center’s Disparities Leadership Program worked with more than 350 operating health care systems across the country, providing guidance on how they can improve quality and value in the care of diverse, minority, and vulnerable populations.

Sreekanth Chaguturu, MD is executive vice president and chief medical officer of CVS Health®. He leads the CVS Health medical affairs organization spanning Aetna®, CVS Caremark®, CVS Pharmacy®, MinuteClinic®, women’s health and genomics, data and analytics, patient safety and health equity. Sree is focused on advancing the highest possible clinical quality standards, increasing access to care, improving patient outcomes and reducing overall health care costs across the CVS Health enterprise. Sree previously served as chief medical officer of CVS Caremark, the company pharmacy benefits management (PBM) business, where he provided clinical oversight for the pharmacy benefits design strategy. Additionally, he has served as a trusted advisor to employer and health plan clients, their members and CVS Health colleagues throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Before joining CVS Health, Sree was chief population health officer of Mass General Brigham, the largest health care system in Massachusetts. He led the system’s accountable care organization and numerous clinical care delivery and innovation programs. He is also a practicing internal medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. Sree earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Brown University and his doctorate of medicine from Brown University Medical School. He completed his internal medicine and primary care training at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Nakela L. Cook, MD, MPH, is Executive Director at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). She is a cardiologist and health services researcher with a distinguished career leading key scientific initiatives engaging patients, clinicians, and other healthcare stakeholders at one of the nation’s largest public health research funders.

Cook leads PCORI’s research, dissemination and implementation, and engagement work as the organization enters its second decade of service to the nation. She also provides strategic and day-to-day oversight of ongoing programs as well as new initiatives designed to create a healthcare system that is more efficient, effective, and patient-centered.

Prior to her current role, Cook served as Senior Scientific Officer and Chief of Staff at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the third-largest institute of the National Institutes of Health, with a staff of 1,000 and an annual budget of over $3 billion. There she spearheaded the development and implementation of NHLBI’s strategic plan and initiatives in precision medicine, data science, sickle cell disease, and women’s health with meaningful engagement of stakeholder groups.

Preceding her position as Chief of Staff, Cook was a Clinical Medical Officer in NHLBI’s Division of Cardiovascular Sciences and an attending cardiologist at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. She has a bachelor of science degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Alabama at Birmingham; earned her medical degree and master of public health in health care policy and management from Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, respectively; and completed her clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Cook is also an alumna of the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy.

Throughout her career, Cook has worked to enhance diversity and equity in research and care delivery and been a leader in efforts to reduce disparities in health access and outcomes. She has received numerous awards for her excellence in clinical teaching and mentorship as well as her leadership of complex scientific initiatives and programs.

Wyatt Decker, M.D., MBA, is UnitedHealth Group’s Executive Vice President and Chief Physician, value-based care. In this role, Dr. Decker serves as the company’s lead ambassador for value-based care, working across the enterprise and externally with key stakeholders to further enable and advance accountable models of care.

Dr. Decker previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Optum Health, UnitedHealth Group’s national integrated care delivery platform. During his nearly five-year tenure, he played a vital role in building out and accelerating Optum Health’s value-based care delivery capabilities and helping over 100,000 employed and contracted physicians achieve lower costs and deliver better outcomes for more than 100 million people – including the nearly 4 million people Optum now serves in fully accountable, value-based arrangements. Under his leadership, Optum Health established national platforms for care delivery, home and community care, behavioral care, benefits chronic disease management solutions, and the Center for Advanced Clinical Solutions, applying cutting-edge technologies to solve some of health care’s toughest problems.

Prior to joining Optum, Dr. Decker served as CEO of Mayo Clinic in Arizona. In that role he established Mayo Clinic in Arizona as the safest hospital in the United States, launched a state-of-the-art cancer center, the second campus of Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine and was acknowledged by U.S. News & World Report among the nation’s top 20 hospitals. At Mayo Clinic, Dr. Decker pioneered the use of digital technologies, including telemedicine and artificial intelligence, to deliver health care expertise to affiliated care providers nationwide, as well as led the digital strategy around engaging and empowering patients. Dr. Decker also served as the founding chair and professor of emergency medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine where he established and directed the emergency medicine residency training program.

Dr. Decker holds an M.D. from Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Science from University of California, Santa Cruz. He has published numerous scientific articles and is recognized among the nation’s top 100 health care leaders by Modern Healthcare.

Karen B. DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc is Chief Health Officer at Google Health. She is also adjunct Professor of Medicine and Population Health at University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School and co-convenes the National Alliance to Impact the Social Determinants of Health.  She is a physician executive working at the intersection of medicine, public health, and information technology to improve the health of all people with a focus on catalyzing pragmatic solutions to address all the social determinants of health.  Dr. DeSalvo was National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and Assistant Secretary for Health (Acting) in the Obama Administration.  Prior to joining HHS, she was the New Orleans Health Commissioner.  Dr. DeSalvo was previously Vice Dean for Community Affairs and Health Policy at Tulane School of Medicine, Chief of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics.  She serves on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and is on the Board of Directors for Welltower and previously served on the Board of Humana.  She is the President of the Society of General Internal Medicine and Honorary Vice President, United States, for the American Public Health Association.  She earned her MD and MPH from Tulane University, and a masters in clinical epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Judy Faulkner is CEO and founder of Epic, which she began in 1979 in the basement of an apartment house with $70,000 in start-up money and 2 half-time assistants. Epic has grown by its bootstraps, without venture capital or going public.

Judy received honorary doctorates from the University of Wisconsin and from Mount Sinai in New York, an MS in Computer Science from the UW, and a BS in Mathematics from Dickinson College. After teaching computer science for several years she then worked as a software developer, creating one of the first databases organized around the patient.

Judy currently serves on the UW Computer Science Board of Visitors, is a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Leadership Roundtable and of the Aspen Health Strategy Group. She has pledged that 99% of her assets will go to philanthropy.

Richard Fogel, MD, FACC, FHRS, serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer for Ascension.

Dr. Fogel had served as Chief Clinical Officer for Clinical & Network Services, Ascension, since 2019, with responsibility for clinical performance across the national health ministry. In addition to championing quality and safety improvements and practices, he has overseen the design of flexible physician alignment strategies and service lines, and the development of an Ascension-wide clinical research infrastructure.

Dr. Fogel helped lead Ascension’s clinical response throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, working with clinical and operational leaders across the ministry to guide the development of clinical protocols and processes.

A practicing staff cardiologist and electrophysiologist, Dr. Fogel also has served as Chief Clinical Officer for Ascension Indiana. He has a long history of leadership in Indiana and has also led numerous Ascension committees, including as Chair of the Ascension Clinical Integration Committee and a member of the Ascension Clinical Leadership Committee and the Clinical Informatics and Analytics Committee. From 2010-2016, he was the Chair of the Ascension Electrophysiology Affinity Group. He also is past Chief Executive Officer of St. Vincent Medical Group in Indiana and former Chair of the Office of the Chief Medical Officer at St. Vincent.

Dr. Fogel earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He completed his internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship at Boston University Medical Center. He completed his two-year electrophysiology fellowship at Boston University Medical Center and Ascension St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital. He is a member of the Ascension Leadership Academy and a graduate of the Executive Ministry Leadership formation program.

Dr. Julie Gerberding is Executive Vice President and Chief Patient Officer, Strategic Communications, Global Public Policy, and Population Health at Merck & Co., Inc., where she also has responsibility for the Merck for Mothers program and the Merck Foundation. As Chief Patient Officer, Dr. Gerberding leads efforts to engage with patients and patient organizations to bring their perspectives into Merck and MSD to help inform company decisions and represents Merck globally on patient-related matters. In addition, she is building new initiatives designed to accelerate Merck’s ability to contribute to improved population health, a measure increasingly valued by consumers, health organizations, and communities.

As a world-renowned infectious disease and public health expert, Dr. Gerberding is a leader well-versed in and passionate about acting with purpose and urgency to meet patient needs. She joined Merck in January 2010 as president of Merck Vaccines and, during her leadership of that business, helped make the company’s vaccines increasingly more available and affordable to people in emerging markets and some of the most resource-limited countries in the world. Dr. Gerberding also helped lead the successful launch in India of the MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories, a not-for-profit joint venture for vaccine development. In 1998, she left her tenured academic faculty appointment at the University of California, San Francisco, to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion and then served as the CDC Director from 2002 to 2009.

As director, Dr. Gerberding led the CDC through more than 40 emergency responses to public health crises, including anthrax bioterrorism, SARS, and natural disasters. She also advised governments around the world on urgent issues such as pandemic preparedness, AIDS, antimicrobial resistance, tobacco, and cancer. At the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Dr. Gerberding directed the Prevention Epicenter, a multidisciplinary research, training, and clinical service program that focused on the prevention of infections in patients and their healthcare providers.

Dr. Gerberding received her undergraduate and M.D. degrees from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). She completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology and Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she is currently an Adjunct Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine in Infectious Diseases. Dr. Gerberding received a Masters of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American College of Physicians, and is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Gerberding currently serves on the Boards of Cerner Corporation, CWRU, MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories, and the BIO Executive Committee. Dr. Gerberding has received more than 50 awards and honors, including the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Distinguished Service Award for her leadership in responses to anthrax bioterrorism and the September 11, 2001 attacks. In 2018, she was selected as the Healthcare Businesswomen Association’s Woman of the Year and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from eyeforpharma. Previously, Dr. Gerberding was named to Forbes Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful Women in the World in 2005 through 2008 and to TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2004.

Sandra R. Hernández, MD is president and CEO of the California Health Care Foundation. Prior to joining CHCF, Sandra was CEO of The San Francisco Foundation, which she led for 16 years. She previously served as director of public health for the City and County of San Francisco. She also co-chaired San Francisco’s Universal Healthcare Council, which designed Healthy San Francisco, an innovative health access program for the uninsured.

Sandra is an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. She practiced at San Francisco General Hospital in the AIDS clinic from 1984 to 2016. She was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the Covered California board of directors in February 2018. She currently serves on the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing Advisory Council at UC Davis and the UC Regents Committee on Health Services. Sandra served on the External Advisory Committee at the Stanford Center for Population Health Sciences in 2016. Sandra is a graduate of Yale University, the Tufts School of Medicine, and the certificate program for senior executives in state and local government at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Diane P. Holder is executive vice president and president of the UPMC Insurance Services Division, and president and CEO of UPMC Health Plan. UPMC is one of the nation’s leading integrated delivery systems and through its health plans and affiliates, provides health coverage and benefit management for 3.4 million men, women and children in Pennsylvania. The Insurance Services Division includes the UPMC Health Plan, UPMC for You, Community Care Behavioral Health Organization and Work Partners. These health benefits companies manage benefits for Commercial, Medicaid, Medicare, Behavioral Health, EAP, Health Promotions and Worker’s Compensation programs.

Michelle Hood is the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the American Hospital Association. Previously she served as president and CEO of Northern Light Health, a Brewer, Maine-based, $1.8 B integrated health system providing services across the state of Maine. During 14 years in this role, she oversaw significant organic growth of the system as well as addition of three hospitals, four skilled-nursing facilities, a home-care agency, residential hospice services and numerous ground/air ambulance units. She also focused on healthcare policy and design models at the state and national levels, keenly aware of Northern Light’s need to succeed in a rapidly changing healthcare environment.

Prior to Maine, Hood served as the president and CEO of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health Systems, Montana Region, as well as president and CEO of the Region’s flagship hospital, St. Vincent Healthcare. Before coming to the AHA, she served on the Association’s Board of Trustees and Executive Committee and on the University of Maine System Board of Trustees. 

Dr. Huang is currently Chief Science & Innovation Officer for Onduo by Verily, and Head of Clinical Informatics at Verily (Google’s life sciences subsidiary), and is now adjunct faculty at Duke. Dr. Huang’s research interests span applied machine learning, research provenance and data infrastructure. Projects include building data provenance tools funded by the NIH’s Big Data to Knowledge program, regulatory science funded by the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation. Applied machine learning applications include “Deep Care Management” a highly interdisciplinary project with Duke Connected Care, Duke’s Accountable Care Organization, that integrates claims and EHR data for predicting unplanned admissions and risk stratifying patients for case management; CALYPSO, a collaboration with the Department of Surgery for utilizing machine learning to predict surgical complications. My team is also building the data platform for the Department of Surgery’s “1000 Patients Project” an intensive biospecimen and biomarker study based around patients undergoing the controlled injury of surgery.

As Director of Duke Forge, Dr. Huang is working to build a data science culture and infrastructure across Duke University that focuses on actionable health data science. The Forge emphasizes scientific rigor, awareness that technology does not supersede clinicians’ responsibilities and human relationship with their patients, and the role of data science in society.

Peter Lee is President, Microsoft Research, at Microsoft. He leads Microsoft Research across its nine laboratories around the world. He also oversees several incubation teams for new research-powered lines of business, the largest of which today is Microsoft’s growing healthcare and life sciences effort. Dr. Lee has extensive experience in managing fundamental research to commercial impact in a range of areas, spanning artificial intelligence, to quantum computing, to biotechnology, and more. Before joining Microsoft in 2010, he was at DARPA, where he established a new technology office that created operational capabilities in machine learning, data science, and computational social science. From 1987 to 2005 he was a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and from 2005 to 2008 the Head of the university’s computer science department. Today, in addition to his management responsibilities, Dr. Lee speaks and writes widely on technology trends and policies. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. He serves on the Boards of Directors of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine, and the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. In public service, Dr. Lee was a commissioner on President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity and led several studies for both PCAST and the National Academies on the impact of federal research investments on economic growth. He has testified before both the US House Science and Technology Committee and the US Senate Commerce Committee.

Peter Long is executive vice president, strategy and health solutions, at Blue Shield of California, a 4-million-member nonprofit health plan that serves the state’s commercial, individual, and government markets. Long leads collaborations with health care providers, community leaders, and other stakeholders to design innovative clinical and community programs, and health care delivery and payment systems that provide all Californians access to value-based, high quality, and affordable care.

Previously, Long was President and CEO of Blue Shield of California Foundation for nearly nine years, focusing on building lasting and equitable solutions to make California the healthiest state and end domestic violence. He helped launch the California Accountable Communities for Health Initiative in 15 communities across the state in partnership with California Department of Public Health and other philanthropies. Under his leadership in partnership with the center for Care Innovations, the Foundation supported successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act among the safety-net providers for Californians who has been excluded from health care.

Long served in leadership roles at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and The California Endowment. He has extensive experience working on health policy issues at the state and national levels. He has written numerous papers and chapters on a variety of health policy topics. His research and 20+ publications have been groundbreaking in health care reform and community development.

Long also served as the director of development and programs and then executive director of the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley in San Jose. Previously, he served as a legislative analyst for the National Progressive Primary Health Care Network in Cape Town, South Africa, during the country’s transition to democracy.

Long earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a doctorate from UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Long serves as an adjunct professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He also serves as a co-chair of the Foresight Project, which is envisioning, testing, and creating a transformed future U.S> health system. He has been a board member at Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, Grantmakers in Health, and the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, and serves on a number of other health advisory councils.

James L. Madara, MD, serves as the CEO and executive vice president of the American Medical Association, the nation’s largest physician organization. He holds the academic title of adjunct professor of pathology at Northwestern University.

Since taking the reins of the AMA in 2011, Dr. Madara has helped sculpt the organization’s visionary longterm strategic plan. As an extension of this vision, he now also serves as chairman of Health2047 Inc., an independent, design-driven innovation firm based in San Francisco and whose mission is to help advance the AMA’s goal of improving the health of the nation.

Prior to arriving at the AMA, Dr. Madara spent the first 22 years of his career at Harvard Medical School, receiving both clinical and research training, serving as a tenured professor and as director of the NIH-sponsored Harvard Digestive Diseases Center. Following five years as chair of pathology at Emory, Dr. Madara served as dean of the medical school and CEO of the hospitals at the University of Chicago, bringing together the university’s biomedical research, teaching and clinical activities. While there he oversaw the renewal of the institution’s biomedical campus and engineered significant new affiliations with community hospitals, teaching hospital systems, community clinics and national research organizations.

Dr. Madara also served as senior advisor with Leavitt Partners, an innovative health care consulting and private-equity firm founded by former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mike Leavitt.

Having published more than 200 original papers and chapters, Dr. Madara has received both national and international awards, and served as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Pathology and as president of the American Board of Pathology.

In addition to Modern Healthcare consistently naming him as one of the nation’s 50 most influential physician executives, as well as one of the nation’s 100 most influential people in health care, he is a past recipient of a prestigious MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health. He received the 2011 Davenport Award for lifetime achievement
in gastrointestinal disease from the American Physiological Society and the 2011 Mentoring Award for lifetime achievement from the American Gastroenterological Society.

Dr. Madara is an elected member of both the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He also cochairs the Value Incentives and Systems Innovation Collaborative of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), and is a member of NAM’s Leadership Consortium for Value & Science-Driven Health Care.

Kenneth D. Mandl, MD, MPH is a Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Director at Boston Children’s Hospital Computational Health Informatics Program. Recognized for research and teaching, Mandl received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the Clifford A. Barger Award for top mentors at Harvard Medical School. He was advisor to two Directors of the CDC and chairs the Board of Scientific Counselors of the NIH’s National Library of Medicine. Dr. Mandl has been elected to multiple honor societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Society for Pediatric Research, American College of Medical Informatics and American Pediatric Society. Mandl leads two postdoctoral training programs in clinical and informatics research and directs the Population Health Track of the new Masters Degree in Biomedical Informatics at HMS. Mandl is a faculty member in the HMS Center for Biomedical Informatics and in the Division of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT. Through scholarship intersecting epidemiology and informatics, Mandl pioneered use of IT and big data for population health, discovery, patient engagement and care redesign. Mandl leads the transformative SMART Platforms initiative to design the “app store for health” and is principal investigator of the Scalable Collaborative Infrastructure for a Learning Health System across Boston hospitals and nationally. Recognized for research and teaching, Mandl received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the Clifford A. Barger Award for top mentors at Harvard Medical School. He was advisor to two Directors of the CDC and chairs the Board of Scientific Counselors of the NIH’s National Library of Medicine. His clinical training and experience is in pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine. Dr. Mandl has been elected to multiple honor societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Society for Pediatric Research, American College of Medical Informatics and American Pediatric Society.

Laura Mauri, MD, MSc, is the Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer at Medtronic. Laura received her A.B. from Harvard College and her M.D. from Harvard Medical School, both magna cum laude, and her M.Sc. (Clinical Epidemiology) from Harvard School of Public Health. She completed residency in internal medicine and fellowships in cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  Laura serves on the Board of directors of (MDIC) and is a member of the NIH Advisory Committee. She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of University Cardiologists, a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, a Fellow of the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology, and member of the Society of Cardiac Angiography and Intervention. She has authored approximately 200 original articles, served as a Senior Editor for the journal Circulation, and was awarded the Joseph A. Vita Award for Clinical Research by the American Heart Association in 2017.

Paul Minardi, MD, serves as executive vice president and CEO of the KP Medical Foundation. In this role, he oversees the KP Medical Foundation with accountability for integrating care delivery and driving higher quality through innovation, best practices, and standards in participating markets, which today include Colorado and Washington. 

Dr. Minardi reports directly to Kaiser Permanente’s chair and chief executive officer and is a member of the National Executive Team.

Prior to becoming KP Medical Foundation CEO, Dr. Minardi was president and executive medical director of the Washington Permanente Medical Group, leading and advocating for the nationally recognized 1,300-clinician multispecialty group. Dr. Minardi also served as executive vice president of Finance and Strategy for The Permanente Federation — the national consortium representing the 8 Permanente Medical Groups and their 24,605 physicians — and as medical director of Business Management for the Southern California Permanente Medical Group. He has served on 3 Permanente Medical Group boards: Southern California Permanente Medical Group, The Southeast Permanente Medical Group, and Washington Permanente Medical Group.

Throughout his 38 years in medicine, he’s won many clinical and leadership awards and held numerous leadership positions. While at Kaiser Permanente Riverside Medical Center, he was the physician lead for population care, home care, quality, continuing care, risk, and inpatient utilization management, and he also oversaw its family medicine residency program. He also served as Member Services physician adviser and on the hospital executive committee.

Dr. Minardi played an integral role during the largest SCPMG physician and membership expansion, the introduction and growth of health and wellness programs, and the largest private deployment and optimization of electronic health records in the United States. He also helped introduce employer on-site clinics, the Kaiser Permanente retail clinic strategy with Target and CVS, the Kaiser Permanente traveling member program, as well as mobile health. He also served on the due diligence team for the Group Health Cooperative acquisition by Kaiser Permanente, which became Kaiser Permanente Washington.

A graduate of the Autonomous University of Guadalajara School of Medicine in Jalisco, Mexico, Dr. Minardi completed his Fifth Pathway at the University of California Irvine, School of Medicine, and then completed his residency in family medicine at Kaiser Permanente San Bernardino County Medical Center. He is board certified in family medicine and is both a diplomat and a fellow in the discipline of family medicine.

Suzanne Miyamoto is the CEO of the American Academy of Nursing (Academy). With two decades of policy, advocacy, and non-profit experience, Dr. Miyamoto provides visionary and strategic leadership to help the organization achieve its vision of healthy lives for all people.

Dr. Miyamoto is highly regarded for her expertise in public policy and developing strong partnerships to advance sound policy solutions that are evidence-based, patient-centered, and community-oriented. Throughout her career, she has worked with a wide network of stakeholders across the health care industry from insurers to consumer organizations. She is a successful leader in the development of advocacy-based coalitions reaching Congress and the Administration. Prior to her position at the Academy, Dr. Miyamoto served as the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s (AACN) Chief Policy Officer. In her 12 years of service at AACN, Dr. Miyamoto supported the membership as a policy analyst, advocate, and strategist at the federal level. She simultaneously led the Nursing Community Coalition— the largest national nursing coalition focused on elevating the voice of the profession in health policy discussions.

Dr. Miyamoto is a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Leadership Consortium, the National Quality Forum’s Board of Directors, the Sibley Memorial Hospital Board of Trustees, the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Research and Action Institute External Advisory Committee, and the National Minority Quality Forum’s Advisory Board. Currently, Dr. Miyamoto holds a faculty appointment at Georgetown University, School of Nursing.

Valerie Montgomery Rice, MD, FACOG, provides a valuable combination of experience at the highest levels of patient care and medical research, as well as organizational management and public health policy. Marrying her transformational leadership acumen and strategic thinking to tackle challenging management issues, she has a track record of redesigning complex organizations’ infrastructures to reflect the needs of evolving strategic environments and position the organization for success through sustainability tactics.

The sixth president of Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) and the first woman to lead the free-standing medical institution., Montgomery Rice serves as both the president and dean. A renowned infertility specialist and researcher, she most recently served as dean and executive vice president of MSM, where she has served since 2011.

Prior to joining MSM, Montgomery Rice held faculty positions and leadership roles at various health centers, including academic health centers.  Most notably, she was the founding director of the Center for Women’s Health Research at Meharry Medical College, one of the nation’s first research centers devoted to studying diseases that disproportionately impact women of color.

Dedicated to the creation and advancement of health equity, Montgomery Rice lends her vast experience and talents to programs that enhance pipeline opportunities for academically diverse learners, diversifies the physician and scientific workforce, and fosters equity in health care access and health outcomes. To this end, she holds memberships in various organizations and participates on a number of boards, such as the following: member, National Academy of Medicine, and board of directors for National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, The Metro Atlanta Chamber, Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, The Nemours Foundation, UnitedHealth Group, Westside Future Fund, Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, the Association of American Medical Colleges Council of Deans, and Horatio Alger Association.

Montgomery Rice has received numerous accolades and honors. She was named to the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans and received the 2017 Horatio Alger Award. For three consecutive years (2016-2018) Georgia Trend Magazine selected Montgomery Rice as one of the 100 Most Influential Georgians. Other honors include the following: The Turknett Leadership Character Award (2018), Visions of Excellence Award, Atlanta Business League (2018), Links Incorporated Co-Founders Award (2018), Trumpet Vanguard Award (2015), The Dorothy I. Height Crystal Stair Award (2014), National Coalition of 100 Black Women – Women of Impact (2014), YWCA – Women of Achievement of Atlanta-(2014) and Nashville(2007), American Medical Women’s Association Elizabeth Blackwell Medal (2011) and Working Mother Media Multicultural Women’s Legacy Award (2011).

A Georgia native, Montgomery Rice holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and an honorary degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from Rush University.  All reflect her lifetime commitment to education, service, and the advancement of health equity.  She completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Emory University School of Medicine and her fellowship in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Hutzel Hospital.

Mary D. Naylor, PhD, FAAN, RN, is the Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology and Director of the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. For more than two decades, Dr. Naylor has led a multidisciplinary team of clinical scholars and health services researchers in generating and disseminating research findings designed to enhance the care and outcomes of chronically ill older adults and their family caregivers. She is the architect of the Transitional Care Model, a care management approach proven in multiple NIH clinical trials and foundation sponsored translational efforts to improve older adults’ experience with care and health outcomes, while decreasing use of costly health services. Dr. Naylor is the 2016 recipient of AcademyHealth’s Distinguished Investigator Award, a recognition of significant and lasting contributions to the field of health services research. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) in 2005. For eight years, she served as the national program director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsored Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative. She recently completed six-year terms as a commissioner on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), board member of the National Quality Forum and member of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s National Advisory Council. Currently, Dr. Naylor is a member of the NAMs Leadership Consortium on Value & Science-Driven Health Care and co-chairs NAMs Care Culture and Decision-Making Innovation Collaborative. Dr. Naylor also is a member of the RAND Health Board of Advisors, the Institute for Health Improvement’s Scientific Advisory Group, and the Board of Trustees of the Dorothy Rider Pool Health Care Trust.

Jonathan B. Perlin, MD, PhD, is President, Clinical Services and Chief Medical Officer of Nashville, Tennessee-based HCA Healthcare. He provides leadership for clinical services and improving performance at HCA’s 178 hospitals and approximately 2,000 outpatient surgical, urgent care and other practice units. Current activities include advancing electronic health records for learning healthcare and continuous improvement, driving value through data science and elevating measured clinical performance and patient safety to benchmark levels. His team conducted some of the world’s largest comparative effectiveness trials, including the landmark REDUCE MRSA study, demonstrating a 44 percent improvement on known best practices for reducing bloodstream infections in ICU patients and the ABATE study which reduced line infections one-third in non-ICU settings.

Before joining HCA in 2006, “the Honorable Jonathan B. Perlin” was Under Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, as the senior-most physician in the Federal Government and Chief Executive Officer of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Dr. Perlin led the nation’s largest integrated health system.
At VHA, Dr. Perlin directed care to 5.5 million patients annually by more than 250,000 healthcare professionals at 1,400 sites, including hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, counseling centers and other facilities, with an operating and capital budget of $37.4 billion. A champion for early implementation of electronic health records, Dr. Perlin led VHA quality performance to international recognition as reported in academic literature and lay press and as evaluated by RAND, the Institute of Medicine, and others.

Dr. Perlin is a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) and the Congressional Budget Office Panel of Health Advisors. He also serves as chair of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs’ Special Medical Advisory Group. Dr. Perlin was the 2015 chairman of the American Hospital Association. In 2014, Dr. Perlin took a “sabbatical” from HCA to serve as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to help improve operations, accelerate access and rebuild trust with America’s Veterans. Dr. Perlin has served previously on numerous Boards and Commissions including the Joint Commission and the National Patient Safety Foundation and currently serves on the Board of Meharry Medical College and the National Quality Forum. He was the inaugural chair of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health IT Standards Committee.

A member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), co-chair of NAM’s Action Collaborative on Countering the U.S. Opioid Epidemic, Perlin is recognized perennially as one of the most influential physician executives and health leaders in the United States by Modern Healthcare. He has received numerous awards including Distinguished Alumnus in Medicine and Health Administration from his alma mater, Chairman’s Medal from the National Patient Safety Foundation, the Founders Medal from the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, and is one of the few honorary members of the Special Forces Association and Green Berets.

Broadly published in healthcare quality and transformation, Dr. Perlin is a Master of the American College of Physicians and Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics. He has a Master of Science in Health Administration and received his Ph.D. in pharmacology (molecular neurobiology) with his M.D. as part of the Physician Scientist Training Program at the Medical College of Virginia of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

Dr. Perlin has faculty appointments at Vanderbilt University as Clinical Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics and at VCU as Adjunct Professor of Health Administration. He resides in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Donna, an Emergency Pediatrics Physician.

Richard Platt, MD, MSc is Professor and Chair of the Harvard Medical School Department of Population Medicine at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. He is principal investigator of the FDA’s Sentinel System that studies of the safety and effectiveness of marketed medical products. Dr. Platt is also co-principal investigator of the coordinating center of PCORI’s Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, leads the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory’s Distributed Research Network, and is co-principal of a CDC Prevention Epicenter. He is a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Advisory Panel on Research. He is a former chair of the FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, and co-chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Center for Infectious Diseases.

Dwayne Proctor is the President and CEO of the Missouri Foundation for Health.

During his nearly 20 years in philanthropy, Proctor has always worked to ensure various communities were healthy and thriving. He arrived at RWJF in 2002 as a senior communications and program officer, providing strategic guidance and resources for several child health and risk-prevention initiatives such as Nurse-Family Partnership, Free to Grow, Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol-Free, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, and the National Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy.

In 2005, Proctor was tapped to lead RWJF’s national strategies to reverse the rise in childhood obesity rates. In this role, he worked with his colleagues to promote effective changes to public policies and industry practices; test and demonstrate innovative community and school-based environmental changes; and use both “grassroots” and “treetops” advocacy approaches to educate leaders on their roles in preventing childhood obesity. His work at RWJF has been varied and extensive, preparing him for his new role as a Missouri changemaker.

Before RWJF, Proctor was an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine where he taught courses on health communication and marketing to multicultural populations. During his Fulbright Fellowship in Senegal, West Africa, his research team investigated how HIV/AIDS prevention messages raised awareness of AIDS as a national health problem. Proctor received his doctoral, master’s and bachelor’s degrees in marketing and communication science from the University of Connecticut. He is the former chairman of the board of directors for the Association of Black Foundation Executives and currently is the chairman of the board of trustees for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Foundation.

Jaewon Ryu, MD, JD, is the CEO of Risant Health, after having served as the President and CEO of Geisinger, its inaugural member organization. Risant Health is a nonprofit organization created by Kaiser Permanente to expand and accelerate the adoption and success of value-based care in diverse, multi-payer, multi-provider, health system environments across the country. By doing so, it seeks to improve the health of the communities it serves, achieve better health outcomes, and improve health care affordability.

Dr. Ryu came to Geisinger in 2016 from Humana, where he was responsible for the company’s care delivery assets and capabilities, and previously, he held various leadership roles at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, Kaiser Permanente, and in government at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and as a White House Fellow placed at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He started his career as a practicing corporate healthcare attorney.

Dr. Ryu recently completed a full, two-term stint (2018-2024) on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a body legislatively tasked with advising Congress on policies governing health plans and providers serving Medicare beneficiaries. Currently, he serves on the boards of various organizations including the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Commonwealth Fund.

Dr. Ryu earned his B.A. from Yale University and his M.D. and J.D. from the University of Chicago. He completed his residency training in emergency medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

With an extensive background in health care management, policy, and public health, Bruce Siegel, MD, MPH, has the blend of experience necessary to lead America’s Essential Hospitals and its members through the changing health care landscape and into a sustainable future.

Since joining America’s Essential Hospitals in 2010, Siegel has guided the association toward realizing its strategic vision of advancing the work of hospitals committed to ensuring access to care and optimal health for America’s most vulnerable people. Siegel has helped shape the association’s work in advocacy, member support, and quality. Under his leadership, America’s Essential Hospitals established a federally funded, national network of hospitals that improved patient safety and reduced care disparities by averting more than 4,000 harm events and $40 million in costs.

In 2013, Siegel led the association in a strategic rebranding to better reflect the common purpose of its more than 320 members: to serve all people and communities by providing essential services and the best care possible. The association’s new name preserves the sense of accountability central to its legacy and speaks to the essential services its members provide to communities across the country.

Siegel came to America’s Essential Hospitals with extensive experience as a hospital and health care executive. He previously served as president and CEO of two member systems: New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) and Tampa General Healthcare. Siegel streamlined HHC’s operations, developed the system’s health maintenance organization, and redesigned the system to provide dramatically better care at lower cost for all New Yorkers. At Tampa General, Siegel guided the hospital’s conversion from public to nonprofit governance, reduced its costs by $39 million annually, increased its market share, and led the creation of the region’s first clinical research center. Siegel also served as New Jersey’s commissioner of health, where he led the state’s regionalization of key health services, several major immunization initiatives that significantly increased preschool immunization rates, and the successful negotiation of a Medicare overpayment issue that saved New Jersey hospitals $94 million.

Siegel’s hands-on member experience provided a lens through which to view his research and policy work as director of the Center for Health Care Quality and professor of health policy at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, where he served just before joining America’s Essential Hospitals. Among his many accomplishments, Siegel led groundbreaking work on quality and equity with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and other philanthropies. He is past-chair the National Quality Forum board and the National Advisory Council for Healthcare Research and Quality. Modern Healthcare has recognized him as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” from 2011 to 2019; one of the “50 Most Influential Physician Executives” from 2012 to 2018; and among the “Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare” in 2014 and 2016. He also was named one of the “50 Most Powerful People in Healthcare” by Becker’s Hospital Review in 2013 and 2014.

Siegel earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, a doctor of medicine from Cornell University Medical College, and a master of public health from The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.

David J. Skorton, MD, is president and CEO of the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges), a not-for-profit institution that represents the nation’s medical schools, teaching hospitals, and academic societies.

Dr. Skorton began his leadership of the AAMC in July 2019 after a distinguished career in government, higher education, and medicine.

Most recently, Dr. Skorton served as the 13th secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, where he oversaw 19 museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, numerous research centers, and education programs. Prior to that, he served as president of two universities: Cornell University (2006 to 2015) and the University of Iowa (2003 to 2006), where he also served on the faculty for 26 years and specialized in the treatment of adolescents and adults with congenital heart disease. A pioneer of cardiac imaging and computer processing techniques, he was co-director and co-founder of the University of Iowa Adolescent and Adult Congenital Heart Disease Clinic.

A distinguished professor at Georgetown University, Dr. Skorton is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, as well as a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also served on the AAMC Board of Directors from 2010 to 2013, and was the charter president of the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs, Inc., the first group organized specifically to accredit human research protection programs.

Throughout his career, Dr. Skorton has focused on issues of diversity and inclusion. A nationally recognized supporter of the arts and humanities, as well as an accomplished jazz musician and composer, Dr. Skorton believes that many of society’s thorniest problems can only be solved by combining the sciences, social sciences, and the arts and humanities.

Dr. Skorton earned his BA from Northwestern University and MD from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He completed his medical residency and fellowship in cardiology and was chief medical resident at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is married to Robin Davisson, PhD, an award-winning scientist, who is a professor of molecular physiology at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and Weill Cornell Medicine, as well as a professor of medicine at Georgetown University and an emerging visual artist.

Jennifer Taubert is Executive Vice President, Worldwide Chairman, Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, the world’s premier healthcare company and fourth largest innovative pharmaceutical business. She is a member of the Corporation’s Executive Committee and leads the Pharmaceuticals Group Operating Committee.

Jennifer has been a leader in shaping Janssen’s global strategy of transformational medical innovation, successfully bringing to market critical new medicines that significantly improve the lives of patients living with cancer, immune-related diseases, heart disease and diabetes, infectious diseases including HIV, pulmonary hypertension and serious mental illness. Under her leadership Janssen has become one of the largest and fastest-growing pharmaceutical companies and a significant contributor to Johnson & Johnson growth. Jennifer is also recognized as a champion of diversity and inclusion, which she sees as critical to insight, innovation and business success.

In 2005, Jennifer joined Johnson & Johnson to lead global commercial strategy for Internal Medicine in the Pharmaceuticals Group. Later, as President, Internal Medicine, she built a powerhouse new franchise in cardiovascular and metabolic disease. Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson, Jennifer spent 18 years in positions of increasing scope and responsibility at Merck and Allergan.

Jennifer was named to Fortune magazine’s “Most Powerful Women” list in 2016 and 2017, and received the National Association for Female Executives’ 2017 “Woman of Achievement” award. In addition to her leadership at Johnson & Johnson, Jennifer represents Johnson & Johnson on the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the world’s largest trade association representing biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations. She is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine Leadership Consortium for Value and Science-Driven Healthcare, and at the global level, Jennifer represents Johnson & Johnson on the Executive Committee of the International Section of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

Jennifer received a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Master’s of Business Administration from the Anderson Graduate School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles.

Debra Whitman, PhD, is AARP’s Executive Vice President, Policy and International. Dr. Whitman is an authority on aging issues with extensive experience in national policymaking, domestic and international research and the political process. Dr. Whitman oversees AARP’s Public Policy Institute, Office of Policy Integration, Office of International Affairs and Office of Academic Affairs. She works closely with the Board and National Policy Council on a broad agenda to develop AARP policy priorities and make life better for older Americans. An economist, Dr. Whitman is a strategic thinker whose career has been dedicated to solving problems affecting economic and health security, and other issues related to population aging. As Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, she worked to increase retirement security, preserve a strong system of Social Security, lower the cost of health care, protect vulnerable seniors, safeguard consumers, make the pharmaceutical industry more transparent and improve our nation’s nursing homes. Dr. Whitman has sought bipartisan, fact-based solutions to these and other challenges facing older Americans. Before that, Dr. Whitman worked for the Congressional Research Service as a specialist in the economics of aging. In this capacity, she provided members of Congress and their staff with research and advice and authored analytical reports describing the economic impacts of current policies affecting older Americans, as well as the distributional and intergenerational effects of legislative proposals. From 2001 to 2003, she served as a Brookings LEGIS Fellow to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, working as a health policy adviser to Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Earlier in her career, she conducted research on savings and retirement for the Social Security Administration, helping to establish the Retirement Research Consortium and serving as the founding editor of the Perspectives section of the Social Security Bulletin. Dr. Whitman holds a Masters and Doctorate in Economics from Syracuse University and Bachelors in Economics, Math and Italian from Gonzaga University.

Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, is the 17^th director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She was nominated by President Joe Biden on May 15, 2023, confirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 7, 2023, and took office on November 9, 2023. She is the first surgeon and second woman to hold the position. As the NIH Director, Dr. Bertagnolli oversees the work of the largest funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the world. She previously served as the 16th director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery in surgical oncology at Harvard Medical School, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a member of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Treatment and Sarcoma Centers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Throughout her career, Dr. Bertagnolli has been at the forefront of the field of clinical oncology. Her laboratory focused on advancing our understanding of the genetic drivers of gastrointestinal cancer development and the role of inflammation as a promoter of cancer growth. As a physician–scientist, she led translational science initiatives from 1994 to 2011 within the NCI-funded Cooperative Groups Program (now known as NCI’s National Clinical Trials Network), and from 2011–2022 served as group chair of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, a National Clinical Trials Network member organization. In addition, from 2007–2018, she served as the chief of the division of Surgical Oncology for the Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center.

Dr. Bertagnolli has championed collaborative initiatives to transform the data infrastructure for clinical research and is the founding chair of the minimal Common Oncology Data Elements (mCODE) executive committee. She also is a past president and chair of the board of directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and has served on the board of directors of the American Cancer Society and the Prevent Cancer Foundation. In 2021, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, having previously served on the National Academies National Cancer Policy Forum.

The daughter of first-generation Italian and French Basque immigrants, Dr. Bertagnolli grew up on a ranch in southwestern Wyoming. She graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree and attended medical school at the University of Utah. She trained in surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and was a research fellow in tumor immunology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure is the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where she will oversee programs including Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the HealthCare.gov health insurance marketplace.

A former policy official who played a key role in guiding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) through passage and implementation, Brooks-LaSure has decades of experience in the federal government, on Capitol Hill, and in the private sector.

As deputy director for policy at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and earlier at the Department of Health & Human Services as director of coverage policy, Brooks-LaSure led the agency’s implementation of ACA coverage and insurance reform policy provisions.

Earlier in her career, Brooks-LaSure assisted House leaders in passing several health care laws, including the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 and the ACA, as part of the Democratic staff for the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee.

Brooks-LaSure began her career as a program examiner and lead Medicaid analyst for the Office of Management and Budget, coordinating Medicaid policy development for the health financing branch. Her role included evaluating policy options and briefing White House and federal agency officials on policy recommendations with regard to the uninsured, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Mandy K. Cohen, MD, MPH, is the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. She is one of the nation’s top health leaders with experience leading large and complex organizations, and a proven track record protecting Americans’ health and safety.

Dr. Cohen is an internal medicine physician and led the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, where she was lauded for her outstanding leadership during the COVID crisis, focusing on equity, data accountability, and transparent communication. She also transformed the North Carolina Medicaid program, through the state’s Medicaid expansion and her focus on “whole person health” with the launch of the country’s first statewide coordination platform, NCCARE360.

Prior to joining CDC, Dr. Cohen served as the Executive Vice President at Aledade and CEO of Aledade Care Solution, which helps independent primary care practices, health centers, and clinics deliver better care to their patients and thrive in value-based care.

Dr. Cohen previously served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief of Staff of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and served as Acting Director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.  Dr. Cohen was involved in many aspects of the Affordable Care Act policy development and implementation, including the expansion of coverage, insurance protections, and new provider payment models.

In February 2019, Modern Healthcare named Dr. Cohen one of the Top 25 Women Leaders in Healthcare. In September of 2020, Dr. Cohen was awarded the Leadership in Public Health Practice Award from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health for her outstanding leadership through the COVID pandemic and Dr. Cohen was named Tar Heel of the Year for 2020. She has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine and currently serves as an adjunct professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Cohen received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, her Doctor of Medicine from the Yale School of Medicine, and her Master’s in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. She trained in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Cohen is married and has two daughters.

Robert M. Califf, MD, is Commissioner of Food and Drugs. President Joe Biden nominated Dr. Califf to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Dr. Califf was sworn in on February 17, 2022. Previously, Dr. Califf served as Commissioner of Food and Drugs from February 2016 to January 2017. As the top official of the FDA, Dr. Califf is committed to strengthening programs and policies that enable the agency to carry out its mission to protect and promote the public health. Dr. Califf served as the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Medical Products and Tobacco from February 2015 until his first appointment as Commissioner in February 2016.

Prior to rejoining the FDA, Dr. Califf was head of medical strategy and Senior Advisor at Alphabet Inc., contributing to strategy and policy for its health subsidiaries Verily Life Sciences and Google Health. He joined Alphabet in 2019, after serving as a professor of medicine and vice chancellor for clinical and translational research at Duke University. He also served as director of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute and founding director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute. A nationally and internationally recognized expert in cardiovascular medicine, health outcomes research, health care quality, and clinical research, Dr. Califf has led many landmark clinical trials and is one of the most frequently cited authors in biomedical science, with more than 1,300 publications in the peer-reviewed literature.

Dr. Califf became a Member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly known as the Institute of Medicine (IOM)) in 2016, one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. Dr. Califf has served on numerous IOM committees, and he has served as a member of the FDA Cardiorenal Advisory Panel and the FDA Science Board’s Subcommittee on Science and Technology. Dr. Califf has also served on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Library of Medicine, as well as on advisory committees for the National Cancer Institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Council of the National Institute on Aging.

While at Duke, Dr. Califf led major initiatives aimed at improving methods and infrastructure for clinical research, including the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), a public-private partnership co-founded by the FDA and Duke. He also served as the principal investigator for Duke’s Clinical and Translational Science Award and the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory Coordinating Center.

Dr. Califf is a graduate of Duke University School of Medicine. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and a fellowship in cardiology at Duke.

Shereef Elnahal, MD is Under Secretary for Health at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden and confirmed by the United States Senate on July 21, 2022. As the Under Secretary for Health, Dr. Elnahal directs a health care system with an annual budget of approximately $102.2 billion, overseeing the delivery of care to more than 9 million enrolled Veterans. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, providing care at over 1,300 health care facilities, including 171 VA Medical Centers and 1,120 outpatient sites of care of varying complexity (VHA outpatient clinics). VHA is the nation’s largest provider of graduate medical education and a major contributor to medical and scientific research. More than 73,000 active volunteers, 127,000 health professions trainees, and more than 362,000 health care professionals and support staff are an integral part of the VHA community. Dr. Elnahal is physician leader who previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer of University Hospital in Newark, NJ from 2019 through 2022. Dr. Elnahal led University Hospital through the COVID-19 public health emergency. The hospital has served as a model for urban hospital and regional response efforts. In addition to his leadership during the pandemic, Dr. Elnahal oversaw substantial improvements in care quality and patient safety at University Hospital, leading to improvements against national benchmarks. Prior to his time at University Hospital, Elnahal served as New Jersey’s 21st Health Commissioner, appointed to the Cabinet post by Governor Phil Murphy and confirmed unanimously by the New Jersey Senate. During his nearly two years as Commissioner, he expanded the New Jersey Health Information Network, an interoperability platform that allows for electronic exchange of patient health information among healthcare providers. He worked closely with New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy on her Nurture NJ campaign to help improve infant and maternal health outcomes and reduce health disparities—a mission he continued at University Hospital, with its top tier maternal health services. He also made strides in curbing the opioid epidemic, granting funding to institutions to facilitate data sharing and public health reporting, and marked NJ as the first state in the nation to allow EMS responders to use buprenorphine in the field to prevent withdrawal after naloxone. Dr. Elnahal previously served as VA’s Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Quality, Safety, and Value from 2016 through 2018, overseeing national policies around quality of care for the VHA, and as a White House Fellow in the VA from 2015-16. During that time, he co-founded the VHA Innovation Ecosystem, a program that continues to foster the spread of innovation and best practices that improve Veteran care across the nation. Dr. Elnahal holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and an M.B.A. with Distinction from Harvard Business School.

Johnson joined HRSA from the White House COVID-19 Response Team. She previously served as Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Human Services, leading the state’s largest agency and providing health care and social services to one-in-five New Jerseyans. During her tenure as Commissioner, the Department expanded Medicaid coverage of mental health and substance use disorder services, created new Medicaid benefits to improve maternal health outcomes, and integrated Medicaid into the newly launched state-based Affordable Care Act marketplace. Under Johnson’s leadership, the Department also substantially increased child care rates for the first time in a decade, expanded food assistance benefits, and created an Office of New Americans to support the state’s diverse communities.

Johnson served for more than five years as the Domestic Policy Council public health lead in the Obama White House, working on the Ebola and Zika responses, implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and combatting the opioid epidemic. In addition, she served on Capitol Hill as health staff for the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging and for members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee and U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee.

At the Department of Health and Human Services, Johnson previously managed health care workforce policy issues for HRSA. She also was policy director for the Alliance of Community Health Plans, program officer with the Pew Charitable Trusts health program, and senior government relations manager with the American Heart Association.

She holds a master’s degree in government from the University of Virginia.

Dr. Rachel L. Levine serves as the 17th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), after being nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2021. As Assistant Secretary for Health, Dr. Rachel Levine fights every day to improve the health and well-being of all Americans. She’s working to help our nation overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and build a stronger foundation for a healthier future – one in which every American can attain their full health potential.

After graduating from Harvard College and Tulane University School of Medicine, Dr. Levine completed her training in Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at the Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City. As a physician, she focused on the intersection between mental and physical health, often treating children, adolescents, and young adults. Dr. Levine was a Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine. Her previous posts included: Vice-Chair for Clinical Affairs for the Department of Pediatrics, and Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine and Eating Disorders at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center.

In 2015, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf nominated Dr. Levine to be Pennsylvania’s Physician General and she was subsequently unanimously confirmed by Pennsylvania’s state Senate. In March of 2018, Dr. Levine was named Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health. During her time in state government, Dr. Levine worked to address Pennsylvania’s opioid crisis, focus attention on maternal health and improve immunization rates among children. Her decision to issue a standing order for the anti-overdose drug, Naloxone, saved thousands of lives by allowing law enforcement to carry the drug and Pennsylvanians to purchase it without a prescription from their doctor

Dr. Levine is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, and the Academy for Eating Disorders. She was also the President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. In addition to her recent posts in medicine and government, Dr. Levine is an accomplished speaker and author of numerous publications on the opioid crisis, adolescent medicine, eating disorders, and LGBT medicine.

Lester Martinez Lopez is currently serving as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. In this role, he is the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness for all Department of Defense health and force health protection policies, programs, and activities. Dr. Martinez, a family medicine physician, retired from the Army as a Major General and was the first Latino to head the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, where he directed the Army’s worldwide medical research, acquisition, and logistics program. His experience in military medicine also includes tours as the Commanding General of the Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, where he directed a worldwide public health organization, and command of three military hospitals. After retiring from the Army, he served as the Chief Medical Officer at the Brandon Regional Hospital in Florida and Senior Vice President and Administrator of the Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital in Texas.

Dr. Robert Otto Valdez, Ph.D., M.H.S.A., was appointed Director of AHRQ in February 2022. He was previously the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Professor Emeritus of Family & Community Medicine and Economics at the University of New Mexico (UNM).  He received his Ph.D. from the Pardee RAND Graduate School for Public Policy Studies specializing in studies of healthcare financing and quality of medical care. At the University of Michigan School of Public Health, he was awarded a master’s degree in Health Policy & Administration. At Harvard University, Dr. Valdez studied in the Department of History and Science specializing in Latin American history and Biochemistry.

In 2008, Dr. Valdez was the Founding Executive Director of the RWJF Center for Health Policy at UNM. He previously served as founding Dean at the Drexel University School of Public Health. From 1985 through 1999, he was Professor of Health Services at the UCLA School of Public Health and directed the health services doctoral studies program, the MBA/MPH program in collaboration with the UCLA Anderson School of Business, and served as associate director of the Chicano Studies Research Center.

Dr. Valdez started his career as the lead child health researcher for the historic RAND Health Insurance Experiment. Internationally recognized as an expert in health services research, the U.S. healthcare system, and health policy analysis, he has led numerous global healthcare initiatives with the Pan American Health Organization and the University of California. His health promotion and disease prevention work with Univision Communications Corporation, “Salud es Vida: ¡Enterate!” was recognized with journalism’s prestigious Peabody Award.

From 1993 through 1997, Dr. Valdez served at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health (Public Health Service) and simultaneously as Director of Interagency Health Policy (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).

Prior to joining DHHS in 1993, he served as a Special Senior Advisor to the White House on healthcare reform. In 1998, he served as Special Senior Advisor to the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. His public service includes serving as Chairman of the New Mexico Community Foundation, Chairman of the American Hospital Association Foster G McGaw Prize Committee, and Chairman of the Public Health Institute, one of the nation’s largest non-profit public health agencies serving communities across California and internationally.