Keynote Speaker:
“High-Impact Regional Healthcare Innovation through Challenging Collaboration”
Bryan J. Bucklew
President & CEO, The Hospital Council of Northern and Central California
In August 2018, Bryan J. Bucklew was named as the new President and CEO of the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California which represents 185 hospitals and healthcare systems in 50 of California's 58 counties.
He previously served as President and CEO of the Greater Dayton Hospital Association in Dayton, Ohio. Under his leadership, the organization became the leading voice in Ohio on a variety of health care issues, including Medicaid reimbursement, mental and behavioral health, prescription drug coordination and substance abuse care.
During his tenure at GDAHA he researched, developed and implemented Ascend Innovations, a partnership between three major competing hospital networks (Dayton Children’s, Kettering Health Network & Premier Health) and Kaleidoscope, a nationally recognized design-innovation firm to multiple Fortune 500 and 100 organizations.
Ascend Innovations has established partnerships with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), 711th Human Performance Wing, regional community stakeholders and economic/innovation organizations throughout Ohio and other states. The company currently has innovation verticals in intensive data analytics, medical device development, clinical trials and hospital observational/research studies. Bucklew also served as the CEO of Ascend Clinical Research – an entity that conducts clinical research and trials among all 29 hospitals.
Under Bucklew's leadership, GDAHA received the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Workplace Flexibility and was recognized as both the Non-Profit Organization of the Year and the Overall Business of the Year by the Dayton Business Journal. The paper has also identified Bryan as one of Dayton’s Most Influential Business Leaders.
Bryan began his career in 1992 serving as district director for United States Congressman Tony P. Hall, where he directed all office operations and managed public policy in the areas of military, tax, education and transportation. In 1997 the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce asked him to serve as Vice President of Public Policy and Economic Development. At the Chamber, he created, developed, and implemented the organization's public policy for its 3,000 members including a successful strategic plan to revitalize the region’s transportation infrastructure that saw over $1.6 billion in direct investment from the State of Ohio and federal government in under 4 years. During that time Bryan was recognized as a “Forty Under 40” award winner by the Dayton Business Journal. His areas of expertise also include analysis of local, state and federal public policy, data analytics, strategic development, and marketing and communications.
He is a native of the Dayton area, and attended Wright State University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Dayton. He has served as Board Chair for the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority, a member of the Special Wish Advisory Board, and was Chair of multiple Culture Works arts campaigns.
Bucklew lives in with his wife (Karen) and their four children (Jenna, Meghan, Sam & Zoey).
Bea Grause, RN, JD
President, Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS)
Bea Grause began her tenure as President of HANYS on July 1, 2016 after serving as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems for 14 years. In that position, she successfully led Vermont hospitals through a variety of reform initiatives, including the state’s single-payer debate, continuously and intentionally building the hospitals’ brand as trusted, competent leaders.
Bea recently completed a three-year term (2012 to 2015) as an at-large member of the American Hospital Association (AHA) Board of Trustees, including a 2015 term on the AHA Executive and AHA CEO Search Committees. As part of her AHA Board responsibilities, she also served as chairperson of the AHA Allied Advisory Committee on Medicaid.
Panel Discussion: Rochester Innovations
Al Kinel
President, Strategic Interests, LLC
Al Kinel is the founder and President of Strategic Interests, LLC (SI), a consulting firm dedicated to transforming healthcare through the innovative use of technology. Al spent the formative years of his career with top-tier professional services firms, then spent 16 years as an executive in strategy and technology management with Xerox and Carestream Health. Al is a consultant, entrepreneur, thought-leader, community activist, and catalyst who has developed strong capabilities in Strategy, Population Health, Health Information Exchange, Medical Imaging, Patient Engagement, and other digital health solutions.
Al received a BS in MIS from the SUNY at Albany, and an MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Al is active on several boards in Rochester, where he lives with his wife and 2 kids, and is active with several state and federal associations helping to improve healthcare through technology, including co-chair of the Technology and Analytics Workgroup of eHi.
Rami Katz
COO, Excell Partners, Inc.
Rami Katz is the Chief Operating Officer for Excell Partners, Inc., managing Excell’s due-diligence and investment processes. Prior to joining Excell, Rami served as the Director of Technology Commercialization at High Tech Rochester where he worked closely with entrepreneurs, researchers and startups to evaluate the commercial potential of new technologies. Rami managed the creation of over 50 business plans that led to raising over $40M in funding from VCs, angels and grants.
Rami is an attorney that led a litigation, banking and corporate law practice in Israel, managing a legal team that directed the restructure of over $14M in corporate and asset backed debt annually, while growing the group’s revenues by over 300%.
After launching his own legal and management consulting practice in Israel, Rami was one the founding members of a seed stage investment group, investing and assuming leadership roles in seed stage, technology ventures to provide financial and business development management. The group launched 12 high-tech startups focused on advanced materials, internet technologies, consumer electronics and medical devices.
Rami earned his MBA from the University of Rochester and his law degree from the Tel-Aviv University in Israel.
Trends in Telemedicine
Neil Herendeen, MD
Professor, Pediatrics, & Medical Director of the Golisano Children’s Hospital Pediatric Practice, URMC
Dr Neil Herendeen is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center and medical director of the Golisano Children’s Hospital Pediatric Practice since 1994. As a Rochester native, he stayed at the University of Rochester for undergraduate studies, medical school, pediatric residency and Masters of Medical Management at the U of R’s Simon School. He is actively involved in a number of community projects for improving the health and wellbeing of vulnerable children including the Health-e-Access pediatric telemedicine project, 292 BABY parent education program, Reach Out and Read program and patient centered medical home transformation.
Dr Herendeen believes the key to true patient centered care and health care reform is the intelligent use of information technology and more specifically telemedicine, to bring health care to children where and when they need it by people they know and trust. With over 17 years of experience in conducting telemedicine visits in schools and child care centers, he has presented at numerous national meetings describing how integrating telemedicine into primary care medical homes can benefit parents, patients, providers and payers. He served as chair of the American Telemedicine Association Pediatric Special Interest Group from 2011-2013 and was elected to the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Telehealth Care executive committee in 2015. He continues to work to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration and communication in order to overcome barriers and bring office equivalent telemedicine into everyday practice.
Improving Patient Care through EMRs and Health Informatics
Matt Phillips, MBA
VP of Health Informatics, Rochester Regional Health
With 10 years of experience in the areas of healthcare innovation, analytics, and operations; Matthew Phillips leads a team of clinicians and administrative leaders who champion electronic medical record optimization to support usability and safety, drive compliant utilization review, and ensure a healthy return on investment. He has innovated process analytics through six sigma techniques and leveraged statistical relevance to illustrate significant and sustained changes. These analytics were used as case examples for Rochester Regional’s HIMMS7 certification. As the Vice President of Health Informatics, Matthew is responsible for identifying and implementing a variety of strategic initiatives focused on improving the overall quality of patient care at Rochester Regional Health. He provides professional mentoring with the vision and strategy to empower his teams in being change agents. He is a frequent speaker at the National Association of Physician Advisors and Epic’s User Group Meetings. He is an Adjunct Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology in the Saunder’s College of Business for the Data analytics and Business Intelligence along with the Systems support of Operations courses. He recently contributed content for the University’s newly started Masters in Health Informatics degree by way of the college’s partnership with Rochester Regional Health. He has shown outstanding skills in leveraging proper investment in innovative technology, process redesign and implementing new workflows to holistically improve healthcare.
Balazs Zsenits, MD
Chief Medical Information Officer, Rochester Regional Health
Balazs Zsenits, MD, FACP, SFHM is an Internist who is also Board Certified and active in the fields of Palliative Medicine and Clinical Informatics. He serves as Chief Medical Information Officer at Rochester Regional Health, where he oversees clinical development and implementation of Care Connect, an Epic EMR that is being deployed system-wide. His focus is to implement information technology for usability and safety (IT4US) by establishing and expanding the Medical Informatics team. The team is comprised of several clinical and business leaders and dozens of practicing providers who became trained and active in optimizing the EMR: triaging requests, overseeing training and support, and directly participating in configuring the EMR. He also pilots innovative patient-centered health IT solutions and leads the Physician Advisor and Quality Reporting teams that are aimed at optimizing the collaboration between physicians and hospitals to achieve the best quality metrics, compliance and reimbursement from proper coding, billing and regulatory measures. Prior to his present position, Dr. Zsenits served as the inaugural Medical Director of Rochester General Hospitalist Group for a decade, overseeing operations of more than a 100,000 hospitalizations during his tenure; seeing through a 15-fold expansion of the hospitalist team while also leading quality initiatives that, amongst other benefits, led to mortality reduction to less than 20% of expected.
Adam Tatro, DNP, RN
Director of Care Management Workflow Design and Reporting
After working at the bedside in critical care for 10 years, Dr. Tatro moved into the informatics realm working in a variety of areas including Electronic Health Record implementation, clinical research informatics at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute and population health informatics as part of URMed’s implementation of New York State’s Deliver System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) Program. Dr. Adam Tatro most recently as been appointed as the Director of Care Management Workflow Design and Reporting at URMed and Accountable Health Partners. As part of the new Care Management Organization, Dr. Tatro will be responsible for identifying, resourcing, implementing and evaluating the technical and analytic infrastructure needed to support care management at both URMed and AHP. Working closely with faculty, administration, leadership, clinicians, and community partners, Dr. Tatro provides oversight, guidance, research experience and expertise, clinical expertise, team and consensus building in the specification, development, and deployment of optimization, reporting and analytics functionality within Epic’s Electronic Health Record and other data/information system. Utilizing a variety of different strategies, Dr. Tatro is responsible for aligning the clinical and operational parties involved with programs impacted by care management and other population health management related programs.
Enhancing Clinical Practice and Treatment Through Existing Technology
Jamie Adams, MD
Assistant Professor, Center for Health and Technology & Department of Neurology, URMC
Jamie Adams, MD is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology, with a dual appointment in the Center for Health + Technology, at the University of Rochester Medical Center. She graduated from Princeton University in 2006 and received her MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 2011. She remained at the University of Rochester for her internship in medicine before going to the University of Pennsylvania, where she completed a residency in neurology in 2015. She returned to the University of Rochester for a movement disorders fellowship from 2015-2016. She joined the faculty at the University of Rochester in 2016 and specializes in the care of patients with movement disorders, including Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, essential tremor, and dystonia. Her research to date has focused on evaluating the use of technology, such as wearable sensors, smartphone applications, and telemedicine, in individuals with neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson disease and Huntington disease.
Looking Ahead: New Innovations in Healthcare Technology
Tarun Bhalla, MD, PhD
Director of Stroke & Cerebrovascular Services
Tarun Bhalla, MD, PhD is a faculty member in the Departments of Neurosurgery, Neurology and Imaging Sciences and the Director of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Services at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Dr. Bhalla’s clinical interests are in cerebrovascular disease, primarily focusing on hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke, cerebral aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, carotid disease, occlusive intracranial atherosclerotic disease and trigeminal neuralgia. He maintains a busy practice offering patients either open microsurgery or endovascular, minimally invasive treatment options.
Dr. Bhalla completed his residency training in Neurosurgery at the Cleveland Clinic and completed fellowship training in interventional neuroradiology/endovascular neurosurgery and microsurgical treatment of cerebrovascular disease also at the Cleveland Clinic. He was previously at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, PA where he served as the Director of Cerebrovascular and Endovascular Neurosurgery.
David Webster, RPh, MSBA
Associate Director of Inpatient Operations and PGY1 Pharmacy and Pediatrics Residency Director, URMC
Dave Webster has been a member of the Pharmacy Leadership team and in the role of Associate Director of Pharmacy Operations for over 22 years at the University of Rochester, overseeing innovative development of staffing models and technology implementation with a focus on continual improvement of patient safety and efficient medication distribution systems. In addition, Webster have been Director of the Pharmacy PGY1 Residency program for 12 years and Assistant Professor of Clinical Community and Preventative Medicine for over 15 years. Educational background includes a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry from St. Bonaventure University, Bachelor’s Degree in Pharmacy from the University at Buffalo, and a Master’s of Science Degree in Business Administration from the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester.
Lisa Nelson, PharmD, BCPS
Senior Director of Core Clinical Systems, URMC
In her role, Lisa is a member of the Senior Leadership Team in the Information Systems Division and directs a team of over 180 people involved in implementing and supporting the clinical functions of the EMR for URMC. Specifically her team plans, develops, and directs institution-wide activities associated with the implementation of clinical applications in a healthcare setting and supporting, enhancing, and expanding the Epic clinical EMR.
Previously Lisa was the Associate Director, Pharmacy Informatics at University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY. In this role Lisa was a member of the URMC Pharmacy leadership team, Project Director in the URMC Information Systems Division and was responsible for developing and overseeing the pharmacy IT platform used throughout the health system, EMR development, medication management tools and data analytics.
She also served as the Associate Director, Clinical Services at URMC and was responsible for overseeing all the clinical pharmacy services, the day to day activities of the clinical pharmacy specialists, pharmacy and therapeutics committee, and all education including pharmacy students, pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and other allied health care professionals.
Prior to URMC Lisa worked at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston for over 10 years serving as Manager, Pharmacy QA and Process Improvement, Director, Clinical Pharmacy Services, Manager of Operations, and Clinical Supervisor - Infectious Disease. Lisa has published several papers and is a frequent speaker on matters of Pharmacy Informatics, Technology and Clinical Pharmacy Initiatives and Patient Safety.
Dr. Nelson received her undergraduate degree at the University at Buffalo, Residency at Rhode Island Hospital, and her Doctor of Pharmacy from the Albany College of Pharmacy. Lisa makes her home in Rochester, New York with her husband and four children.
Ahmed Ghazi, MD, FEBU, MSc
Assistant Professor in the Department of Urology at URMC - Simulated Inanimate Model for a Physical Learning Experience
Dr. Ghazi, MD, FEBU, MSc, received his degree from Cairo University, Egypt in 2000, where he also completed his surgery training and Urology residency 2001-2005. Following his training he completed a series of worldwide fellowships in state of the art minimal invasive Urological surgery, in Paris and Austria (2008-2010), where he received his accreditation from the European Board of Urology. He completed his training at the University of Rochester, New York completing a fellowship in the robotic treatment of various urologic cancers (2010-2012).
He was appointed Assistant professor of Urology at the University of Rochester (2012). Dr. Ghazi specializes in the diagnosis and minimal invasive treatment of urological cancers as well as complex stone disease. In addition to his clinical duties Dr. Ghazi perused research grants in education, simulation research and surgical training. He was awarded the George Corner Deans Teaching fellowship (2013-2015). To further enhance his educational background Dr. Ghazi completed the Harvard Macy Institute program for Educators in Health Professions and a Masters in Health Professions Education program at the Warner School of Education, University of Rochester.
In 2015, Dr. Ghazi was appointed as the Director of Simulation Training for the Department of Urology and obtained funds for development of Sim-CAST (Simulation Center for Advanced Surgical Training), a ~250 square-foot simulation training center that houses a variety of state of the art surgical simulators. Unsatisfied with the generic representation of commercial surgical simulators, he teamed up with biomedical engineers to enhance the efficiency, safety and comprehensiveness of surgical training and developed a Simulation Innovation Laboratory (SIL) for the development of high fidelity procedural models.
Dr. Ghazi was awarded several awards at international scientific conferences as well as grants including a Clinical and Translational Science Award (2017), to evaluate the impact of patient specific surgical rehearsals using personalized patient models in improving surgical performance and patient outcomes. Dr. Ghazi believes in a reciprocal relationship between research, teaching & surgery, where each informs & strengthens the others. He strives to produce academically rigorous research that is theoretically sound but translates directly into a safer surgical environment with reduced surgical errors and improved patient outcomes.
Ian Wilson, MD
Founder/Medical Director, Rochester Endovascular, PLLC
He is also the cofounder of the Synthesis Collaborative, a nonprofit organization that supports two initiatives: WALL\THERAPY, a local street-art festival, and IMPACT! (Improving Access to Care by Teleradiology), a medical-philanthropy organization.
Confronting Clinician Burnout
Christopher Bell, MS, MBA
Executive Director, Monroe County Medical Society
Christopher Bell is the Executive Director of the Monroe County Medical Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics NY 1 Chapter, and the Genesee Valley Medical Foundation. He has an MBA from the Simon School of Business and an MS in Marriage and Family Therapy form the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He comes to MCMS with knowledge of the key challenges facing physicians and other healthcare providers. Chris previously worked with the Finger Lakes Performing Provider System and UR Medicine, supporting state and federal programs that are transforming health care, including the Delivery Service Reform Incentive Payment Program, Patient Centered Medical Home, Meaningful Use, and Physician Quality Reporting System. Additionally Chris has supported the implementation of Electronic Medical Record systems in New York, Louisiana, and Illinois which has helped him understand the challenges physicians face in using these systems. Since joining MCMS, Chris has joined the Board of Directors of the Greater Rochester Health Information Organization (GRRIO), Common Ground Health, and the Monroe Community Hospital (MCH). For the last several years, Chris has also volunteered his time with the Advisory Board of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Chris lives in Fairport with his wife and two year old daughter.
Michael R. Privitera, MD, MS
Professor of Psychiatry, University of Rochester Medical Center
Dr. Privitera is Professor of Psychiatry at University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), a consultation/liaison psychiatrist and directs the outpatient division of the Psychiatric Consultation/Liaison Service. This is a two visit consultative model to be a support to primary care clinicians, and second opinions on treatment resistant mood disorders to other psychiatrists.
He is a member of the UR Medicine Workplace Safety Committee, Staff Support Committee, Patient and Family Centered Care Council addressing disruptive behavior, patient satisfaction and Burnout in physicians. He Co-Chaired Workplace Violence Committee in Psychiatry for 6 years with Catherine Cerulli PhD JD and assembled national and international experts in the workplace violence field which culminated in editing and writing for the book: Workplace Violence in Mental and General Healthcare Settings (Jones and Bartlett Publishers 2011). This book won the 2012 Manford Guttmacher Award, given by the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL), a forensic psychiatry division of The American Psychiatric Association.
In recent years, Dr. Privitera has been focusing on the issue of physician burnout. He is one of the main architects of URMC’s hospital-wide multimodal approach to addressing clinician burnout by supporting individuals and making institutional/ organizational changes in his hospital role as Medical Director of the Medical Faculty and Clinician Wellness Program. He is a member of a national collaborative group of academic medical centers referred to as “CHARM” (Collaborative for Healing and Renewal in Medicine) centered at MGH/Harvard. He is a member of the Federation of State Medical Boards Task Force on Physician Burnout and is Chair of the Medical Society of the State of New York Committee on Physician Wellbeing and Resilience.
He has written in publications of The Joint Commission, American Hospital Association, National Patient Safety Foundation, Medscape and Journal of Hospital Administration on physician burnout.
Arthur S. Hengerer, MD
University of Rochester Medical Center
Dr. Hengerer, who has been practicing in Rochester since 1974, has practiced the full scope of general otolaryngology services, with a particular interest in pediatric otolaryngology. He served as chairman of the University of Rochester Medical Center's Division of Otolaryngology from 1981 to 2007.
Other areas of professional emphasis include diagnosis and management of pediatric airway disorders, subglottic and tracheal stenosis, otitis media, choanal atresia repair, adult and pediatric endoscopic sinus surgery, laser surgery for snoring and apnea, pharyngeal flap and palate surgery, and voice and laryngeal disorders.
Dr. Hengerer is a graduate of Westminster College and the Albany Medical College, and completed his residency training in otolaryngology at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. He completed his fellowship training in pediatric otolaryngology at Boston Children's Hospital and Beth Israel Hospital, also in Boston.