The Patient Empowerment Guidebook

Dr. Kevin Volpp is the Ralph and Beth Johnston Muller Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE) and the Mark V. Pauly President’s Distinguished Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Wharton School. He is also the Scientific Lead of the American Heart Association Health Care by Food Initiative, a major research program building evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of improving health through increased access to nutritious food. His work focuses on applying behavioral economics to drive prevention and behavior change, with research spanning tobacco cessation, obesity, and medication adherence across employers, insurers, and health systems. He has secured over $100 million in competitive funding from NIH, CMS Innovation, CDC, and numerous health plans, and has published over 350 articles in journals including many high impact journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA.

His research has directly informed large-scale, real-world programs rooted in evidence-based prevention, including a financial incentives initiative that tripled smoking cessation rates among GE’s 152,000 U.S. employees, a national CVS smoking cessation program, and programs to improve medication adherence among Humana members. Additionally, he helped develop a new value-based approach to primary care physician payment that was implemented in multiple states. He co-created the Penn Way to Health platform, deployed in over 300 studies across more than 20 universities, and helped establish the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit, the first health system-based nudge unit internationally. Dr. Volpp is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and has received numerous career achievement awards, including the NIH Matilda White Riley Award.

Dawn Alley, Ph.D., is Chief Scale Officer at IMPaCT Care, a public benefit corporation scaling evidence-based community health worker programs to drive health care value. She has a 20-year career of leadership in population health research, health policy, and health care delivery in both the public and private sector. Her prior federal leadership roles include Chief Strategy Officer at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, Senior Advisor to the U.S. Surgeon General, and Executive in Residence at ARPA-H. Her private sector executive experience includes roles as President of Decision Support at CareBridge Health, a Medicaid value-based provider, and Head of Healthcare Innovation at Morgan Health, JPMorgan Chase’s business unit focused on innovation in employer-sponsored insurance. Dr. Alley received her PhD from the University of Southern California and was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and is affiliate faculty at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.

Dr. Nzinga Harrison is Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of Eleanor Health. She is double-board certified with specialties in general adult psychiatry and addiction medicine. Nzinga has spent her career as a physician treating individuals from marginalized communities with substance use and other psychiatric disorders. As a physician executive, she has served in Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer roles, committed to creating and improving systems-based delivery of psychiatric and substance use disorder care. Nzinga is a vocal advocate for stigma reduction and is passionate about the necessity for whole-person care as individuals and communities seek to recover from and prevent substance use disorders. She received her undergraduate degree from Howard University, completed medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, and residency training at Emory University. Nzinga is married to a stock market investor and has two college-aged sons who keep her busy with academic pursuits, swim meets, basketball games, archery tournaments, and pilot academy.

Ali Khan, MD, MPP, FACP is a practicing general internist and the Chief Medical Officer, Medicare at Aetna/CVS Health, where he advances strategies, policies and programs that drive the delivery of clinical excellence, clinical impact and superb member experience for Aetna’s over 11 million Medicare members nationally.

He joins Aetna from his prior role as Chief Medical Officer, Value Based Care Strategy at Oak Street Health, where he led efforts in managed care strategy, medical management, clinical design, workforce development and public policy. Ali joined Oak Street Health in 2019 as Executive Medical Director of the eight-state, 60+-center Heartland Division and continues to practice general internal medicine at Oak Street’s clinics on Chicago’s West Side.

Prior to Oak Street, he served as CareMore Health’s Clinical Design Officer and in leadership roles at Iora Health.

Ali serves on the faculty of the Yale School of Medicine and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, on the Harvard Kennedy School Healthcare Policy Leadership Council and as a Director on the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Internal Medicine Specialty Board, the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, the Better Medicare Alliance and AcademyHealth. Ali was recognized as one of Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Emerging Leaders in 2021, Crain’s Chicago Business’ 40 Under 40 in 2022, Crain’s Chicago Business’ Notable Executives of Color in Health Care in 2022 and the American College of Physicians’ Walter J. McDonald Award winner (as the nation’s top early career internal medicine physician) in 2024. He is a fellow of the California Health Care Foundation and Leadership Greater Chicago.

Ali completed his residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School and VCU’s Medical College of Virginia, earning joint M.D. and M.P.P. degrees as a Harvard Public Service Fellow, and VCU’s B.S./M.D. Guaranteed Admissions Program in Medicine.

Abe Sutton serves as the Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and Deputy Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Before assuming this role in January of 2025, he was a Principal at Rubicon Founders where he co-founded two health service companies; Honest Health, which focuses on enabling primary care physicians, and Evergreen Nephrology, which focuses on enabling nephrologists. Sutton focused on health policy with the federal government from 2017 to 2019, serving at the National Economic Council, Domestic Policy Council and Department of Health and Human Services. In these roles, he coordinated health policy across the federal government, with a focus on the shift to paying-for-value within Medicare, increasing choice and competition in health care markets, and updating the federal government’s approach to kidney care. 

Sutton started his career as a consultant with McKinsey & Company, where he worked with clients in the health sector. He holds a law degree from Harvard Law School and undergraduate degrees in political science, management, and health care management and policy from the Wharton School and the College at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2018, he was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 for Law and Policy. 

Stephanie Carlton, CMS Chief of Staff and Deputy Administrator, is a healthcare leader with unique experience across the dimensions of the U.S. health care economy – business, policy, higher education, and clinical. When a Partner at McKinsey & Company, Stephanie was a leader in McKinsey’s SHaPE Practice with a deep focus on innovation and strategy. She also co-founded a place-based transformation with 20 community leaders in Texas to improve holistic health outcomes. Prior to McKinsey, she led Medicare Advantage and Medicaid issues on the US Senate Finance Committee (Republican staff) and worked as a labor & delivery nurse at Georgetown University Hospital.  Stephanie has guest lectured at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, served as a fall 2022 resident fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, and was on the business school faculty at the University of Texas at Austin. She has served on the boards of the Health Care Cost Institute, Ignite Health Foundation, and the University of Texas McCombs Alumni Association. 

Dr. Oz serves as the 17th Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services under HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., and President Donald Trump. He is a Professor Emeritus at NY Presbyterian-Columbia Medical Center and has won nine Daytime Emmy® Awards.

Dr. Oz received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and obtained a joint MD and MBA from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Wharton Business School.

He is the author of eight New York Times Best Sellers and was a founder of a lifestyle magazine with a focus that extends well beyond health and wellness to relationships, beauty, food and home.

In 2003, Dr. Oz founded a national non-profit which emulates the Peace Corps by putting energetic recent college graduates into high schools around the country to teach diet, fitness and mental resilience. He has raised $100 million to help 3 million teens with this nationwide program.

In addition to belonging to every major professional society for heart surgeons, Dr. Oz has been named Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Forbes’ most influential celebrity, Esquire magazine’s 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century, Harvard’s 100 Most Influential Alumni, AARP 50 Influential People Over 50, and received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and a Hollywood Walk of Fame Star.

Kristie Spencer is Vice President of Provider Partnerships at Elevance Health. She leads enterprise-wide strategy to optimize the company’s value-based contracting portfolio and deepen partnerships with care providers across Medicare, Medicaid, Commercial lines of business, and Carelon. Kristie is responsible for driving a multi-year transformation to simplify and scale value-based care, strengthen provider enablement, and improve Stars and HEDIS performance through aligned incentives and actionable insights. She draws on more than two decades of leadership across payers and providers to operationalize strategy, elevate provider success, and drive measurable results in quality, cost, and experience.

Adam Boehler, Managing Partner at Rubicon Founders, has nearly 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship and innovation in the private sector and in the U.S. Government. As the child of a primary care physician and a speech pathologist, Adam’s parents instilled in him the importance of caring, family, and community, and he saw how magic the time is between providers and their patients and the change that this can make in someone’s life.

Adam founded three healthcare companies including Landmark Health, a company delivering around-the-clock medical care to chronically ill patients. From there, Adam took on major roles in the U.S. Government, including Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), where he worked on value-based care for the United States. Adam was also a founding member of Operation Warp Speed, unanimously confirmed by the Senate as the first CEO of the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and a negotiator in the historic Abraham Accords.

After his government tenure, Adam started Rubicon because he wanted to build healthcare companies to transform how care is delivered in America, as he saw the power of bringing the private and public sector together to solve our nation’s greatest healthcare challenges.

Danielle A. Lloyd is the SVP, private market innovations & quality initiatives for AHIP. She is responsible for policy development and trend analysis in the areas of provider payment models, quality measurement, accreditation, data interoperability, and emerging technologies. She serves as chair of the steering committee for the national Core Quality Measure Collaborative. With 25 years’ experience in healthcare policy, Danielle has also worked on an array of healthcare issues for hospital associations and governmental agencies. She has a BA from the U. of Pennsylvania and an MPH from the U. of California, Berkeley, and a certificate in Technology & Innovation Advancement from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology xPRO program. 

Dr. Conway was named CEO of Optum in 2025. Optum has 300K employee team members who serve over 127 million people with annual revenue exceeding $250 billion. It includes three main business units. Optum Health, with nearly 90,000 doctors and other clinicians, delivers clinical care and services in clinics, homes, ambulatory surgical centers, behavioral health, and other settings across the country and serves payers, large employers and the government. Optum Rx serves over 62 million people providing pharmacy care services and over 1.6 billion prescriptions per year. Optum Insight is a data and technology business that serves payers, health systems, life sciences, and others across the country. Collectively, Optum delivers health care services to help make the health system better for everyone.

Previously, Patrick served as chief executive officer of Optum Rx. In this role, he led an integrated pharmacy care services organization that is making drugs more affordable and creating a better experience for consumers, filling more than 1.6 billion retail, mail and specialty drug prescriptions annually. He joined Optum in February 2020 and previously served as the chief executive officer of Care Solutions, where he led a portfolio of care continuum businesses serving over 70 million people across acute and post-acute care, care in the home in-person and virtually, mental and behavioral care benefits and delivery, broad population and complex disease health management, specialty care and government health services.

Dr. Conway was president and chief executive officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina from 2017-19. From 2011 to 2017, he served as Deputy Administrator for Innovation and Quality at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and as director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and the agency’s Chief Medical Officer. Before joining CMS, he oversaw clinical operations and quality improvement at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

Dr. Conway is a practicing pediatric hospitalist. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2014, received the President’s Senior Executive Distinguished Service Award, and was a White House Fellow from 2007 to 2008. He earned his MD with high honors from Baylor College of Medicine, residency training at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Master of Science in clinical epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania.

With an extensive background in health care leadership and policy, Andy brings a wealth of experience advancing innovation and value-based care to improve Americans’ health. Andy holds key leadership positions in the private and non-profit sectors, including as a commissioner on the National Academy of Medicine’s Commission on Investment Imperatives for a Healthy Nation. He is a founder and Board Chair Emeritus of United States of Care, a national non-profit health advocacy organization, as well as a founding partner of Town Hall Ventures, a healthcare firm that invests in underrepresented communities. He has also co-chaired a national initiative on the future of health care at the Bipartisan Policy Center. 

Andy’s experience includes serving as President Obama’s head of Medicare and Medicaid, were he led many of the nation’s most important health care initiatives and oversaw the turnaround and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He was also a member of President Biden’s President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) working group on public health and the White House Senior Advisor for the COVID-19 response. 

From a young age, Libby became a family caregiver to her mother while she battled breast cancer. Shortly after her death, Libby became a parent to three sons who live with mitochondrial dysfunction and in 2016 Libby was diagnosed with Stage IV salivary gland cancer. These experiences over the course of decades have shaped Libby’s passion for creating a person-centered health system.

In 2010, Libby founded PFCCpartners to create a community of patients, families and health care stakeholders committed to the shared learning of Patient & Family Centered Care practice. PFCCpartners​ also supports the PFANetwork, inclusive of more than ​1000 Patient Family Advisors in active partnership with health systems, measure developers, policy, quality improvement teams and researchers across the country to improve the quality, safety, experience, and design of healthcare.

Libby serves on many national and statewide efforts to promote a safer, more equitable healthcare system, including the HCPLAN Executive Forum and as a former Patient Perspectives Council (PPC) member, National Quality Forum Multi Stakeholder Council, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute Ambassador and California Healthcare Compare Board of Directors. In all of her work, Libby strives to build the infrastructure for high value and sustainable partnerships to improve health outcomes for all.

Maria Ramirez Perez is a Program Manager with NC Medicaid’s Healthy Opportunities Pilots program and leads the program’s efforts with Network Leads and community-based organizations. Prior to her work with NC HOP, she also co-led the implementation of NC DHHS’s COVID-19 Support Services Program which helped connect households with social supports to safely quarantine or isolate.  

Maria previously worked with Legal Aid of North Carolina where she represented clients in public benefits appeals. She also led regional implementation and outreach efforts to help North Carolinians gain access to clinical care and social supports through the Medical-Legal Partnership and Healthcare Navigator programs.  

Maria earned her Master of Public Health from UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. When she is not focused on addressing healthy opportunities, Maria is trying new recipes or exploring the outdoors. She has logged hundreds of miles hiking in the southeast. 

Kate Davidson, LCSW is the director of the learning and diffusion group (LDG) at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).  In this role, Ms. Davidson leads CMMI’s team focused on accelerating healthcare system transformation by leveraging improvement science within and across models, as well as leading the multi-payer alignment strategy for the Center through the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (HCPLAN). Prior to joining CMS, Ms. Davidson led Policy and Practice Improvement efforts at the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, where she managed payment reform, quality improvement, and workforce development initiatives in mental health and addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery organizations, and provided training and technical assistance to human services organizations, counties, and states. Ms. Davidson began her career in healthcare as a social worker researching, testing, and scaling interventions in community-based settings.  Ms. Davidson has an MSW from Fordham University and a BA from Loyola College in Maryland. 

Dr. Peter Walsh joined the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing as the Chief Medical Officer on December 1, 2020. Prior to joining HCPF, Dr. Walsh served as a Hospital Field Representative/Surveyor at the Joint Commission, headquartered in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois.

Dr. Walsh is an Aerospace Medicine Specialist, who provided primary care to aircrew and special operational personnel and their families during much of his 21-year active duty career in the U.S. Air Force.  Upon retirement in 2006 he served as an Urgent Care Physician at the previous Memorial Health System in Colorado Springs between 2006 and 2008 and practiced at the Centura Center for Occupational Medicine in Colorado Springs, CO and Pueblo, CO between 2006 and 2009.

His prior positions include serving as the Chief Medical Officer, South State Operating Group of Centura Health, Corporate Chief Medical Executive for Centura Health in Denver, Colorado, and the VP of Medical Affairs at St. Francis Medical Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Dr. Walsh received his B.A. at the University of Southern California, his M.D. from the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, Ohio, and a M.P.H. from Harvard School of Public Health.  He completed his residency in Aerospace Medicine at the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB, Texas.

Jeff Micklos, J.D., is the executive director of the Health Care Transformation Task Force. An attorney by training, Jeff is the former executive vice president of Management, Compliance & General Counsel for the Federation of American Hospitals, a national trade association representing investor-owned hospitals. He is also a former partner in the Health Law department of the international law firm Foley & Lardner LLP. Jeff began his career as a litigator and regulatory counsel for the Health Care Financing Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Additionally, Jeff served in the Office of General Counsel of the Social Security Administration.
Jeff is a graduate of the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Villanova University. He resides in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Monica, and their four children.

Measurement Track: Data and Infrastructure

 

Capability: Create chronic disease registries with electronic health records (EHR) and claims-based data

Definition:
Participation in clinical registries is a critical component of quality outcomes reporting.

Resources:

• Accelerating and Aligning Population-Based Payment Models: Performance Measurement – Health Care Payment Learning & Action Network

Jeff Micklos, J.D., is the executive director of the Health Care Transformation Task Force. An attorney by training, Jeff is the former executive vice president of Management, Compliance & General Counsel for the Federation of American Hospitals, a national trade association representing investor-owned hospitals. He is also a former partner in the Health Law department of the international law firm Foley & Lardner LLP. Jeff began his career as a litigator and regulatory counsel for the Health Care Financing Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Additionally, Jeff served in the Office of General Counsel of the Social Security Administration. 

Jeff is a graduate of the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Villanova University. He resides in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Monica, and their four children. 

Since 2008, Leah Binder, M.A., M.G.A., has served as president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, an award-winning national nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. Leapfrog represents employers and other purchasers of health care calling for improved safety and quality in hospitals. She is a regular contributor to Forbes.com, Harvard Business Review, and other publications and is consistently cited among the most influential people and top women in health care.  

Through annual surveys, The Leapfrog Group collects data from hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers on the quality of care. Leapfrog also grades hospitals on how safe they are, a bold initiative that experts estimate has saved over 40,000 lives a year since 2017. Before joining Leapfrog, Leah was vice president for a nationally noted rural health system in Farmington, Maine. Prior to that, she served as a senior policy advisor in the New York City Office of the Mayor. She started her career at the National League for Nursing. Leah has a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and two master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband and two sons.  

Purva Rawal, Ph.D., is the chief strategy officer at the CMS Innovation Center at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. As part of the Senior Leadership team, she provides guidance and leadership on the execution of the Innovation Center’s strategy.

Previously, she was a principal at CapView Strategies, where she developed evidence-based public policy and business strategies for providers, health systems, life sciences companies, and coalitions. She also conducted policy research on health system transformation and sustainability issues. She is also an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University. In 2016, she published a book, The Affordable Care Act: Examining the Facts. Previously, Dr. Rawal served as professional staff on the Senate Budget Committee during the passage of the Affordable Care Act and as the health and social policy advisor to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). She was also a director in the Health Insurance and Reform Practice at Avalere Health. She began her health policy career as a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Fellow at the National Academy of Sciences and as a Congressional Fellow for the Society for Research on Child Development and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Rawal received her B.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

Emily DuHamel Brower, M.B.A., is senior vice president of clinical integration and physician services for Trinity Health. Emphasizing clinical integration and payment model transformation, Ms. Brower provides strategic direction related to the evolving accountable healthcare environment with strong results. Her team is currently accountable for $10.4B of medical expense for 1.6M lives in Medicare Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid and Commercial Alternative Payment Models.

Ms. Brower joined Trinity Health from Atrius Health in Massachusetts, where she last served as vice president of Population Health. There, she built and executed the essential capabilities required to achieve strong financial and clinical outcomes within integrated care models under value-based reimbursement, particularly for publicly insured populations.

Prior to her career at Atrius Health, Ms. Brower spent 15 years in leadership roles at Urban Medical Group, a Massachusetts nonprofit healthcare organization specializing in the care of medically complex, chronically ill populations across a community-based, long-term care continuum. During that time, Ms. Brower launched a Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) program and other innovative, capitated contracts for medically complex populations and served as Principal Investigator for a multi-year research project analyzing cost and quality outcomes to support payment reform.

Ms. Brower received her B.A. from Smith College and her M.B.A. from the New York University Stern School of Business.

Victor is the Chief Medical Officer for TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid Agency. At TennCare, Victor leads the medical office to ensure quality and effective delivery of medical, pharmacy, and dental services to its members. He also leads TennCare’s opioid epidemic strategy, social determinants of health, and practice transformation initiatives across the agency. Prior to joining TennCare, Victor worked at Evolent Health supporting value-based population health care delivery. In 2013, Victor served as a White House Fellow to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Victor completed his Internal Medicine Residency at Emory University still practices clinically as an internist in the Veteran’s Affairs Health System.

Tamara Ward is the SVP of Insurance Business Operations at Oscar Health, where she leads the National Network Contracting Strategy and Market Expansion & Readiness. Prior to Oscar she served as VP of Managed Care & Network Operations at TriHealth in Southwest Ohio. With over 15 years of progressive health care experience, she has been instrumental driving collaborative payer provider strategies, improving insurance operations, and building high value networks through her various roles with UHC and other large provider health systems. Her breadth and depth of experience and interest-based approach has allowed her to have success solving some of the most complex issues our industry faces today.  Tam is passionate about driving change for marginalized communities, developing Oscar’s Culturally Competent Care Program- reducing healthcare disparities and improving access for the underserved population. Tamara holds a B.A. from the University of Cincinnati’s and M.B.A from Miami University.

Dr. Peter Walsh joined the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing as the Chief Medical Officer on December 1, 2020. Prior to joining HCPF, Dr. Walsh served as a Hospital Field Representative/Surveyor at the Joint Commission, headquartered in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois.

Dr. Walsh is an Aerospace Medicine Specialist, who provided primary care to aircrew and special operational personnel and their families during much of his 21-year active-duty career in the U.S. Air Force.  Upon retirement in 2006 he served as an Urgent Care Physician at the previous Memorial Health System in Colorado Springs between 2006 and 2008 and practiced at the Centura Center for Occupational Medicine in Colorado Springs, CO and Pueblo, CO between 2006 and 2009.

His prior positions include serving as the Chief Medical Officer, South State Operating Group of Centura Health, Corporate Chief Medical Executive for Centura Health in Denver, Colorado, and the VP of Medical Affairs at St. Francis Medical Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Dr. Walsh received his B.A. at the University of Southern California, his M.D. from the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, Ohio, and a M.P.H. from Harvard School of Public Health.  He completed his residency in Aerospace Medicine at the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB, Texas.

Brian W. Powers, MD, MBA is Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Humana. In this role, he works across the organization to support rapid learning and evaluation of Humana’s integrated care delivery strategy; to lead research in payment and delivery innovation; and to drive physician engagement, alignment, advocacy, and education across the company. Prior to Humana, he led population health strategy and analytics for CareMore and Aspire Health, both care delivery subsidiaries of Anthem. In prior roles, he was responsible for initiatives to improve health care quality and value at Mass General Brigham, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission. An accomplished researcher, Dr. Powers is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine, has published peer-reviewed studies in venues such as JAMA, Science, and the New England Journal of Medicine, and serves as Deputy Editor of Healthcare: The Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation. He holds an MD from Harvard Medical School, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and an AB from Bowdoin College. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine and primary care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is a practicing internist.

Liz Fowler is a nationally recognized expert in federal health policy and Distinguished Scholar on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Carey Business School. Most recently, Liz was Deputy Administrator and Director of the Innovation Center at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). In that role, she was responsible for advancing innovative payment and care delivery models in Medicare and Medicaid to promote value-based care on a national scale. These value-based payment models have provided an important testing ground and scaling opportunity for innovative start-ups and health care disrupters.

Prior to leading the Innovation Center, she was Executive Vice President of programs at The Commonwealth Fund and Vice President for Global Health Policy at Johnson & Johnson. In 2011-2012, she served as special assistant to President Obama on health care and economic policy at the National Economic Council to implement the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As Chief Health Counsel at the Senate Finance Committee, she played a major role in the drafting and passage of the ACA in 2010, and she also played a key role drafting the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act (MMA). Liz has over 25 years of experience in health policy and health services research. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a law degree (JD) from the University of Minnesota. She is admitted to the bar in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Liz is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Aspen Health Innovators Fellowship and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2022.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure is the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where she oversees 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 healthcare 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 regarding the uninsured, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Dr. Palav Babaria was appointed Chief Quality Officer and Deputy Director of Quality and Population Health Management of the California Department of Health Care Services beginning in March 2021. Prior to joining DHCS, she served as Chief Administrative Officer for Ambulatory Services at the Alameda Health System (AHS) where she was responsible for all outpatient clinical operations, quality of care, and strategy for primary care, specialty care, dental services, and integrated and specialty behavioral health, as well as executive sponsor for value-based programs including the Medi-Cal 1115 Waiver. She also previously served as Medical Director of K6 Adult Medicine Clinic, where she managed a large urban hospital-based clinic, overseeing all practitioners, improving quality of care, and patient safety programs. In addition, she served on the Clinical Advisory Committee with the California Association of Public Hospitals/Safety Net Institute. She also has over a decade of global health experience and her work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Academic Medicine, Social Science & Medicine, L.A. Times, and New York Times. Dr. Babaria received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard College, as well as her MD and Master’s in health science from Yale University. She completed her residency training in internal medicine and global health fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.

Elizabeth Kasper is the Special Policy Advisor for Alternative Payment Models at North Carolina Medicaid. In this role, she works with external and internal stakeholders to support the design and implementation of value-based payment models and policies that advance NC Medicaid’s priorities. Liz’s 20-year career in health policy and health services research has also included work on health quality and public health measures, federally qualified health centers, Medicaid clinical policy, and pharmaceutical regulation and reimbursement. Liz holds a Master of Science in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BA from Oberlin College.

Mat Spaan, MPA, has worked with the state of Minnesota since 2008 in implementing and developing health policy and payment reform initiatives, with his most recent work managing care delivery and payment activities within the state’s Medicaid program. Since 2013, one of his primary roles is as lead on Minnesota’s Medicaid ACO demonstration, known as the Integrated Health Partnerships (IHP) program, and the development of value-based purchasing in Medicaid.

Mat’s previous state projects have included the development of the state’s All-Payer Claims Database and planning director overseeing the creation of a hospital and physician clinic cost and quality comparison tool. Prior to joining the state, he’s held several interesting positions in the private and nonprofit sectors, including as a manager with a national health advocacy organization, organizer for a neighborhood arts and economic development nonprofit in New Orleans, and as a boat captain on Lake Michigan. Mat earned his Master of Public Administration degree from the University of New Orleans.

Christina Severin is a leading health care executive with more than 20 years of experience and numerous accomplishments in managed care, delivery systems, health insurance, Accountable Care Organizations, quality, public policy, and public health. She has led Community Care Cooperative (C3) since the organization’s launch in 2016, leveraging the proven best practices of ACOs throughout the country, building the organization on the collective strengths of its health centers, and growing the organization to better serve MassHealth members throughout the commonwealth. Christina’s prior leadership experience includes serving as President and Chief Executive Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization and as President of Network Health, a nonprofit Massachusetts health plan.

Marc Harrison, M.D., President and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, is a pediatric critical care physician with a proven track record as a top operation executive on a global scale. He is a national and international thought leader on transformation and innovation—ranking in Fortune’s Top 50 World’s Greatest Leaders in 2019. He also ranked third on Modern Healthcare’s 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare in 2020. 

Dr. Harrison is leading Intermountain’s 41,000 employees—who are all called caregivers—to embrace bold new approaches to improve health, re-define value-based care, and serve people in new ways. For example, Intermountain launched Civica Rx, a not-for-profit generic drug manufacturer and distributor, to make generic medications more available and affordable in hospitals across the nation. Intermountain is also a founding member of the Utah Alliance for the Determinants of Health, which is a collaboration of community partners designed to proactively address forces that affect people’s health well before they come to a clinic or a hospital. 

Dr. Harrison also served as CEO of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, Chief of International Business Development at Cleveland Clinic, and Chief Medical Operations Officer at Cleveland Clinic. 

He received his undergraduate degree from Haverford College and his medical degree from Dartmouth Medical School, completed a pediatric residency and pediatric care fellowship at Intermountain’s Primary Children’s Hospital, and completed a Master of Medical Management at Carnegie Mellon University. 

Dr. Harrison is an all-American triathlete and represented the U.S. at the 2014 World Championships. He is also a two-time cancer survivor with his sights currently on completing an Ironman. 

Dr. Chris Chen is Chief Executive Officer of ChenMed, a premier physician-led, technology-enabled healthcare organization. A champion for equitable health outcomes, ChenMed is transforming the care of underserved, overlooked seniors.

Dr. Chen is a bold innovator leading a revolution in healthcare through a global full-risk model; custom-designed physician training programs; and a proprietary technology platform, purpose-built for value-based care. He has led ChenMed to remarkable outcomes – equalized health inequities, 30-50% fewer hospitalizations, and high net promoter scores.

Since becoming ChenMed’s CEO in 2009, Dr. Chen has built the decades-old, highly successful ChenMed model into a scalable organization now spanning dozens of cities across many states.

ChenMed’s unique approach, proprietary technological capabilities, and results have led it to be named to Newsweek’s “Most Loved Workplaces” list, Fortune Magazine’s “Change the World” list, as well as earning recognition by the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.K. National Health System. ChenMed has also been featured in publications such as Modern Healthcare, Health Affairs, Forbes, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, The Guardian, and Medical Economics – which named ChenMed, “Best Primary Care System in the U.S.”

Under Dr. Chen’s leadership, ChenMed has also won multiple best places to work awards, including being certified a “Great Place to Work®” by the Great Place to Work Institute in 2021 and honored as the only primary care medical practice on the IDG Insider Pro and Computerworld “Best Place to Work in IT” list.

Brought up in South Florida, Dr. Chen graduated from the University of Miami’s Honors Program in Medicine. He went on to complete his medical training at Beth Israel Deaconess, a Harvard University teaching hospital, after which he completed a fellowship in cardiology at Cornell University Medical College in Manhattan, New York. A board-certified cardiologist, Dr. Chen sees patients at the company’s Miami Gardens, Florida medical center.

Dr. Judy Zerzan-Thul is the Chief Medical Officer at Washington State Health Care Authority, Co-Chair of the LAN Executive Forum, and a general internal medicine physician. She leads the state of Washington’s Medicaid Transformation Project, where she collaborates with stakeholders to advance health equity and the innovative use of data. As Chief Medical Officer of the Washington State Health Care Authority, she administers the state’s Medicaid program. She also works to advance the LAN’s strategic objectives to drive equitable health outcomes and lower the total cost of care.  

Dr. Zerzan-Thul specializes in value-based payment models and healthcare financing. Prior to her role as the Chief Medical Officer for Washington State, Dr. Zerzan-Thul was the Chief Medical Officer at the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. She led the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in Colorado. She has extensive experience designing and implementing health plans and benefits for Medicaid programs. Dr. Zerzan-Thul’s background also includes leadership positions in the Medicaid Medical Director’s Network. She has also served as a committee member and advisor for national organizations, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Quality Forum, the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the National Academy for State Health Policy, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Dr. Zerzan-Thul holds a Doctor of Medicine from Oregon Health and Science University and received a Master of Public Health in Health Policy and Administration from the University of North Carolina. She completed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Washington/VA Puget Sound Health Care System in 2007. From 2008 to 2010, she was a non-residential Health and Aging Policy Fellow for the office of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, where she supported public policy for the Affordable Care Act.

Marc Harrison, M.D., president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, is a pediatric critical care physician and recognized national and international leader in healthcare transformation. His leadership has placed him on Fortune’s Top 50 World’s Greatest Leaders in 2019 and regularly on Modern Healthcare’s Most Influential People in Healthcare.

Dr. Harrison leads Intermountain’s 59,000 employees—called caregivers—to reimagine operations and ways to keep people and communities healthier. Together, their mission-driven approach fuels their vision to build a model health system that delivers the best and most equitable outcomes by providing high-quality, more affordable care that is accessible to everyone.

To support this, Dr. Harrison has embraced unconventional, public-private partnerships to confront some of the most pressing systemic challenges facing the communities and industry. Under his leadership, Intermountain partnered with 1,400 hospitals nationwide to launch Civica Rx, a nonprofit generic drug manufacturer and distributor, to make generic medications—to include insulin in 2024—more accessible and far more affordable. Intermountain is also a founding member of the Utah Alliance for the Determinants of Health, which is a collaboration of community partners proactively addressing forces that affect people’s health often before they get sick. Also, Intermountain is partnering with an international genomics leader and more than 100,000 volunteers to advance medical breakthroughs that will help prevent and treat genetic diseases for people around the globe.

In Dr. Harrison’s first five years leading Intermountain, the company’s primary service area grew from focusing mainly on Utah communities to serving people throughout the Mountain West through a disciplined growth strategy and significant investments in telehealth and rural health. His leadership style has helped make Intermountain a magnet for healthcare innovation. This includes spurring new partnerships leading the national movement toward value-based care, advancing clinical education, and establishing a new Digital Hippocratic Oath to improve hospital data interoperability and secure patient privacy rights.

On his popular podcast, A Healthier Future, Dr. Harrison interviews leaders from an array of industries and backgrounds to explore how we can work together to improve health. He is among the most influential healthcare leaders on LinkedIn (320,000 followers)—regularly engaging in conversations about his team, health innovation, family, and leadership.

Before leading Intermountain, Dr. Harrison served as CEO of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, chief of international business development at Cleveland Clinic, and chief medical operations officer at Cleveland Clinic. He received his undergraduate degree from Haverford College, his medical degree from Dartmouth Medical School, completed a pediatric residency and pediatric critical care fellowship at Intermountain’s Primary Children’s Hospital, and a Master of Medical Management at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Harrison is an all-American triathlete and represented the U.S. at the 2014 World Championships. He is also a two-time cancer survivor, with his sights currently on completing an Ironman. He is also a loving husband and proud father of three adult children.

Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, is Director and Robert J. Margolis, M.D., Professor of Business, Medicine and Policy at the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy. He is a physician-economist who focuses on quality and value in health care, including payment reform, real-world evidence and more effective drug and device innovation. Dr. McClellan is at the center of the nation’s efforts to combat the pandemic, the author of COVID-19 response roadmap, and co-author of a comprehensive set of papers and commentaries that address health policy strategies for COVID vaccines, testing, and treatments, nationally and globally. He is former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where he developed and implemented major reforms in health policy. Dr. McClellan is an independent board member on the boards of Johnson & Johnson, Cigna, Alignment Healthcare, and PrognomIQ; co-chair of the Executive Forum for the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network; and serves as an advisor for Arsenal Capital Group, Blackstone Life Sciences, and MITRE.

Marc Harrison, M.D., president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, is a pediatric critical care physician with a proven track record as a top operations executive on a global scale. He is a national and international thought leader on transformation and innovation—ranking in Fortune’s Top 50 World’s Greatest Leaders in 2019. He also ranked third on Modern Healthcare’s 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare in 2020.

Dr. Harrison is leading Intermountain’s 41,000 employees —who are all called caregivers—to embrace bold new approaches to improve health, re-define value-based care, and serve people in new ways. For example, Intermountain launched Civica Rx, a not-for-profit generic drug manufacturer and distributor, to make generic medications more available and affordable in hospitals across the nation. Intermountain is also a founding member of the Utah Alliance for the Determinants of Health, which is a collaboration of community partners designed to proactively address forces that affect people’s health well before they come to a clinic or a hospital.

Dr. Harrison also served as CEO of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, chief of international business development at Cleveland Clinic, and chief medical operations officer at Cleveland Clinic.

He received his undergraduate degree from Haverford College, his medical degree from Dartmouth Medical School, completed a pediatric residency and pediatric care fellowship at Intermountain’s Primary Children’s Hospital, and a Master of Medical Management at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Harrison is an all-American triathlete and represented the U.S. at the 2014 World Championships. He is also a two-time cancer survivor, with his sights currently on completing an Ironman.

Emily DuHamel Brower, M.B.A., is senior vice president of clinical integration and physician services for Trinity Health. Emphasizing clinical integration and payment model transformation, Ms. Brower provides strategic direction related to the evolving accountable healthcare environment with strong results. Her team is currently accountable for $10.4B of medical expense for 1.6M lives in Medicare Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid and Commercial Alternative Payment Models.

Ms. Brower joined Trinity Health from Atrius Health in Massachusetts, where she last served as vice president of Population Health. There, she built and executed the essential capabilities required to achieve strong financial and clinical outcomes within integrated care models under value-based reimbursement, particularly for publicly insured populations.

Prior to her career at Atrius Health, Ms. Brower spent 15 years in leadership roles at Urban Medical Group, a Massachusetts nonprofit healthcare organization specializing in the care of medically complex, chronically ill populations across a community-based, long-term care continuum. During that time, Ms. Brower launched a Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) program and other innovative, capitated contracts for medically complex populations and served as Principal Investigator for a multi-year research project analyzing cost and quality outcomes to support payment reform.

Ms. Brower received her B.A. from Smith College and her M.B.A. from the New York University Stern School of Business.

Dr. William Shrank is Humana’s Chief Medical Officer. His responsibilities include implementing Humana’s integrated care delivery strategy, with an emphasis on advancing the company’s clinical capabilities and core objective of improving the health outcomes of our members. He leads Humana’s Care Delivery Organization, clinical operations, and the Bold Goal population health strategy. Dr. Shrank most recently held the position of Chief Medical and Corporate Affairs Officer (July 2019-July 2021) during which time he reorganized and advanced our government affairs division. He is a member of the Management Team, which sets the firm’s strategic direction, and reports and to President and Chief Executive Officer, Bruce Broussard. Additionally, Dr. Shrank serves on the Board of National Committee for Quality Assurance and is co-chair of the Clinical Transformation Taskforce for the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network. Dr. Shrank joined Humana in April 2019, having previously been employed by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) where he served as Chief Medical Officer, Insurance Services Division from 2016 to 2019. At UPMC, Dr. Shrank was responsible for clinical operations, policy and quality for approximately 3.5 million members in Medicare, Medicaid, behavioral health, Managed Long Term Services & Supports and commercial lines of business. He also developed and evaluated population health programs to further advance the medical center’s mission as an integrated delivery and financing system. Previously, Dr. Shrank served as Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer, and Chief Medical Officer of Provider Innovation at CVS Health from 2013 to 2016. Prior to joining CVS Health, Dr. Shrank served as Director, Research and Rapid-Cycle Evaluation Group, for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, part of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services from 2011 to 2013, where he led the evaluation of all payment and health system delivery reform programs and developed the rapid-cycle strategy to promote continuous quality improvement. Dr. Shrank began his career as a practicing physician with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and as an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. His research at Harvard focused on improving the quality of prescribing and the use of chronic medications. He has published more than 250 papers on these topics. Dr. Shrank received his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College, and completed his residency in internal medicine at Georgetown University and his fellowship in Health Policy Research at the University of California, Los Angeles. He also earned a Master of Science degree in Health Services from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University.

Andrea Gelzer, MD, MS, FACP has had the roles of senior vice president medical affairs and corporate chief medical officer at AmeriHealth Caritas for more than a decade. At AmeriHealth Caritas, she has been responsible for the development of the company’s integrated care management model, deployed new approaches to alternative/value-based provider payment, developed many innovative population health management strategies for vulnerable populations and built corporate infrastructure to sustain significant growth. She serves as the key clinical spokesperson and policy advocate for the company.

Dr. Gelzer currently serves on several influential industry committees Health and Human Service (HHS) Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (LAN) Care Transformation Forum (CTF), the Core Quality Measures Collaborative (CQMC) Steering Committee, and the executive committee for the Gravity Project. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) and is the immediate past Chairman of the Board of Directors of HealthShare Exchange (HSX), Philadelphia’s regional health information exchange. Dr. Gelzer earned her undergraduate degree from Tufts University, her doctor of medicine from St. George’s University, and a master’s degree in preventive medicine/administrative medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and by the American Board of Preventive Medicine in clinical informatics.

Improving predictability for providers through improved risk adjustment for complex patients, stronger incentive structures for Medicaid beneficiaries, and flexibility on waivers.

Providers who are successful in fee-for-service (FFS) may lack a compelling reason to transition to APMs but may be unable to compete with the person-centered care delivered by providers in APMs. Introducing APMs through multi-payer pilots in these markets (particularly for independent and smaller providers) may increase competition and reduce FFS entrenchment.

Ensuring providers adopt timely data and analytics capabilities, combining multiple data sources (e.g., electronic health record and claims data), to enable successful participation in value-based payment models.

Providing patients and caregivers with cost, quality, and appropriateness of care data in an actionable, easily understood, and accessible manner. Ensuring that electronic data can be easily shared meeting advanced technology standards (e.g., HL7 FHIR) to improve care delivery.

Focusing on appropriateness, care variation, and person-centered care for all patients through dissemination of best practices.