2017 Speaking Faculty

Rosalie Bakken, MPA, PhD; serves as the Director of Healthcare Analytics and Research at Mayo Clinic Global Business Solutions. In this capacity, she leads a team of Managers, Healthcare and Data Management Analysts, and Report Application Designers in providing business intelligence, analytics, program/outcomes evaluation, product development, and data management.

Dr. Bakken has over 25 years of experience in health care and research. She joined Mayo Clinic and Global Business Solutions’ leadership team in 2010, initially focusing on population health management programs. In 2012, her role was expanded to include oversight of health plan management analytics for Mayo Clinic Health Solutions.

Prior to joining Mayo Clinic, Dr. Bakken spent seven years with Eli Lilly and Company focusing her leadership skills on the areas of health outcomes research and clinical trial initiatives. She also worked as a medical communications consultant for a private consulting firm in New York, and as a professor in adolescent health and development at the University of Nebraska. Her clinical experience includes direct patient care in a nonprofit adolescent health clinic. She has published and presented many studies and training programs in a variety of venues.

In addition to her doctorate degree, Dr. Bakken holds a Master’s degree in Business and Public Administration with a Healthcare Administration emphasis, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Community Health.

With over 16 years in the areas of healthcare innovation and operations, Anu has provided outstanding leadership in project development and implementation, facilitated informed decisions in management reporting and optimized patient care outcomes. He has innovated Predictive Healthcare Analytics by strengthening data and information capabilities and centralized data flow, with a focus on solving potential problems in healthcare.

As the Chief Quality and Innovation Officer, Anu is responsible for identifying and implementing a variety of initiatives focused on improving the overall quality of patient care. He provides professional mentoring with the vision and strategy to motivate quality performance.

He is a recipient of multiple national awards in the healthcare field, which were earned through his extensive achievements in healthcare. These achievements manifest themselves in research which was facilitated through the presence on major health field panels, and contributions which have earned global health field recognition. He has shown outstanding skills in designing infrastructure for innovative technology and implementing new workflows to holistically improve healthcare. He possesses an expertise in medium and large scale healthcare organizations.

His employment with reputable and influential healthcare companies reveals his dedication to the healthcare field and persistence to enact change and improve the infrastructure in healthcare. With his drive towards research, he continues to publish, review, and present his reviews and findings in top journals and article sources.

Ms. Wendy Cofran has been Chief Information Officer for Century Health Systems, Inc., the parent company of Natick Visiting Nurse Association (Natick VNA) and Distinguished Care Options (DCO) for over two decades. In this executive management role, Cofran has developed, and managed with unparalleled success cutting edge technology that is focused on enhancing quality, improving safety, reducing costs and increasing efficiency across the healthcare system.

As the national conversation turns to using technology to solve the challenges of improving health care outcomes, providing a 360 degree patient experience and driving down escalating costs Ms. Cofran's innovative, collaborative and “out-of-the-box” approach has set Century Health Systems and its affiliates apart from the crowd. In 2012 she developed and launched a Referral Management application wholly built on the Salesforce platform. This application allows Century's Care Transition Coordinators to update critical referral information, track patients as they are cared for by the healthcare team, and work closely with family members on coordinating care for their loved ones.

Following her passion of identifying, developing and executing solutions that improve both patient and clinician experience, Ms. Cofran partnered with Natick VNA's EMR vendor, Brightree, LLC to launch the homecare industry's first disconnected iPad EMR application that allows clinicians to document care in the home regardless of the presence of an internet connection. This application increases clinical staff efficiency, provides more timely clinical documentation, and leads to improved patient outcomes and experience with the homecare agency. As the federal government moves to Value Based Payment for all health care providers, these positive results are also helping decrease the overall cost of providing care. These technology innovations, coupled with a strong Telehealth solution are major factors in Natick VNA continually achieving the homecare industry's coveted, double 5-star rating by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Natick VNA is one of only 30 Agencies in the country to receive the 5 Star rating for both Clinical Outcomes and Patient Satisfaction!

A frequent and engaging presenter at industry related conferences, Ms. Cofran's recent presentations include:

• CIOHEALTH Boston-A moderated health panel where select CIOs take a tell-all position on a panel that explores the direction of health IT, the successes, failures, and celebrations that defined their paths as ultimate IT leaders.
• Congressional Home Health Caucus-Innovations in Home Health Care
• SINC Health IT Leaders Forum-Technology Advancements for Improved Patient Outcomes
• Boston Premier CIO Forum-Disruptive Technologies: An Innovator's Dilemma
• Salesforce-HealthForce Boston -"Innovation in Post-Acute healthcare"
• Featured in the Remington Report

In addition to her day to day responsibilities Ms. Cofran serves in leadership roles in the following organizations:

• Visiting Nurse Association of New England (VNANE)-Technology consultant
• Brightree, LLC Executive Advisory Committee-Home care product consultant
• Providence College-A member of the Boston President's Council

Ms. Cofran is a graduate of Providence College holding a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Science.

Nick’s primary area of expertise is in supporting provider organizations with targeting the goals laid out in the “Triple Aim”: better care for individuals, better health for populations, and lower per capita costs. Specific emphasis in this area includes providing analytic and financial support for population health program design and management, assessing and projecting population risk, benchmarking cost and utilization, and developing viable strategies for providers shifting to value based payments. His work has included strategy surrounding alternative payment models (APMs) and riskbased contracting.

He has significant expertise in the development, assessment, and implementation of predictive models. His experience has focused on risk adjustment as well as disease management analytics, early warning claims prediction, rising risk modeling, consumer data based modeling, and operations optimization. His risk adjustment knowledge includes detailed technical understanding, risk adjustment operational capabilities, financial accounting practices, and strategic implications to succeed in a risk adjusted market.

Nick has extensive ACA pricing experience including small group and individual rate development in over 40 states. His experience includes the development of market risk estimates, credibility and pooling adjustments, induced utilization factors, and area factors. He is also well versed in small group self-funded pricing, risk rating, financial reporting, and strategy.

April Gill, Vice President of Analytic Solutions, is an accomplished leader in growth strategy with 20 years of experience in consultative sales and business development, account management and product strategy successfully defining high value solutions for the payer and employer markets. She is responsible for growth and product strategy, and is a key subject matter expert in leveraging advanced analytics capabilities and solutions to solve critical business problems and drive financial performance for various healthcare stakeholders.

Prior to joining Welltok, April was Vice President of Client Relations at Predilytics, which was acquired by Welltok in 2015. She was also a sales leader at EyeMed Vision Care where she was responsible for successful market growth, strategy development and execution including delivery against all client specific requirements and corporate strategic growth objectives. April also held senior-level positions at Health Advocate and Best Doctors. Her experience includes broad scope business analysis, IT implementation management, marketing strategy leadership and execution, call center training and management and curriculum development.

April earned her degree in Business Administration from Mary Baldwin College.

Dr. Claus Hamann is vice-president for population health at Beacon Health, a subsidiary of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems. He is responsible for planning, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of medical management, care coordination, and performance improvement for the accountable care populations served by Beacon Health. With the team at Beacon Health, he pursues his passion to help Medicare and commercial contracts succeed by adopting leading, IT-enabled processes to transform quality of and accountability for care. After clinical practice spanning ambulatory, hospital and post-acute care, he now focuses on caring for patients post-hospital discharge.

Dr. Hamann is a board-certified internist, geriatrician and clinical informatician who has had leadership roles in managed care as chief medical officer of Accountable Care Associates, Springfield MA; in management consulting for healthcare information technology with Accenture LLP, based in Boston MA; in clinical geriatrics, education and informatics at Massachusetts General Hospital and Partners HealthCare, Boston MA; and in clinical geriatrics and education at the U.S. Veterans' Affairs Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center / Harvard Medical School Division on Aging, West Roxbury MA, and at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, CT. He obtained his medical degree from McGill University in Montreal and his master's in clinical epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. He trained in Internal Medicine at Baltimore City Hospitals, now Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, and in Geriatric Medicine at the University of California and Sepulveda Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center, Los Angeles. He has authored publications and presented nationally in geriatrics, clinical informatics and population health. He has served on a town school committee; enjoys gardening, sailing, cross-country skiing and hiking.

Dr. Sadiqa Mahmood is the Lead for Clinical Operations and Business Analytics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In this role, Dr. Mahmood is responsible for leading clinical analytics innovation and bringing together data science, machine learning engineers and the business closer together across the institute to embed analytics in patient care and foster a data centric culture.

Prior to joining DFCI, she served as the Director of the Clinical Collaboration Program at the Partners HealthCare System. Dr. Mahmood worked with the clinical leadership of Partners hospitals and institutions to improve quality of care through Partners-wide quality improvement projects and predictive analytics. Earlier, she served in clinical quality improvement and data science roles at leading Boston hospitals including Boston Medical Center and Children’s Hospital Boston. Simultaneously, at Northeast Business Group on Health, she worked with health systems and commercial health plans in the New York State to design a business model that presents a framework for designing improved operational processes and achieving reduction in preventable hospital readmission rates. At Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation she worked with the Executive Office of Health and Human Services Massachusetts (EOHHS) and health systems across Massachusetts to design policies for sharing protected health information on Health Information Exchange (MassHIway).

Dr. Mahmood trained as a dental surgeon and completed her MPH degree at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

As the Program Manager for Data Science & Advanced Analytics at Providence St Joseph Health (PSJH), Tristan Markwell is accountable for helping caregivers at all levels of Providence St Joseph to improve patient care and operations by discovering the value of PSJH data assets through advanced techniques and data evangelism.

At PSJH in various analytics roles for the last nine years, Tristan led the development of system-wide reporting standards and the rollout of the enterprise data science effort, and assisted with strategy for the rollout of myHIway App Store; founded the Advanced Analytics User Interest Group and the Operational Prediction and Inference learning opportunity; and has presented on tools and techniques at myriad internal, state, and national venues.

Tristan holds a bachelor’s degree in math & statistics, economics, and political science as well as a master’s degree in economics from the University of Nebraska.

I’m an Adult Internal Medicine physician by background and practice as a Hospitalist at Mercy Hospital St. Louis. I have been with Mercy since 2007.

As the Vice President of Medical Intelligence and Analytics, I lead a team of highly talented individuals who possess skills and knowledge in the key domains of clinical practice, EPIC backend build/ functionality, database architecture/visualization and machine learning/predictive analytics.

We are passionate about gathering nuggets of insight from millions of rows of data that enable providers to make better clinical decisions, executives to strategize, and overall enrich the lives of all those who consume our work.

My team is based in St. Louis, in the Mercy Ministry (Corporate) Office. We build analytical applications in the clinical, operational and financial arenas and serve the entire Mercy Ministry.

My previous roles include being the Medical Director of Medical Informatics, Mercy Hospital St. Louis, Associate Hospitalists Program Director, and as a Physician Informaticist for the Ministry.

About Mercy Health

Mercy is the fifth largest Catholic health care system in the U.S. and serves millions annually. Mercy includes 36 acute care hospitals, four heart hospitals, two children’s hospitals, two rehab hospitals and one orthopedic hospital, more than 300 clinic and outpatient facilities, 40,000 co-workers and more than 2,000 Mercy Clinic physicians in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Mercy also has outreach ministries in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. www.mercy.net.

Robert J. Rosati, PhD is Chair of the Connected Health Institute & Vice President of Data, Research and Quality at the Visiting Nurse Association Health Group (VNAHG) in Red Bank, New Jersey. Dr. Rosati is responsible for implementing and evaluating new technology initiatives at VNAHG. He is also responsible for quality improvement, analysis, reporting of clinical outcomes and conducting research related to home and community based care. Dr. Rosati’s healthcare experience has been in varied research, quality management, education and administrative roles. He has published over 45 healthcare related articles and made numerous presentations at professional meetings. He is also Associate Editor of the Journal for Healthcare Quality. Dr. Rosati has extensive experience in long term care policy, health information technology, building data warehouses, measurement, analytics and reporting.

Ksenia’s primary focus has been on emplying predictive modeling to answer actuarial questions. These range from development and implementation of risk adjustment models, to consulting to healthcare plans on the use of traditional and alternative data sources for customer segmentation through targeted marketing, augmenting underwriting decisions in the group market, and identifying individuals for care management.

Over the last eight years, Ksenia has been managing the technical development of the Milliman Advanced Risk Adjuster (MARA), which was released in 2010. MARA utilizes Milliman’s existing actuarial and clinical expertise and is developed for advanced applications of risk adjustment in health care budgeting, pricing, payment, stratifying risks and analytic reporting.

Ksenia’s work in commercial health insurance includes ACA pricing, reserving, product development, expeirence benchmarking, product filing and compliance testing, for individual, small group and large group product offerings.

Dr. Huiling Zhang is vice president of strategic analytics and solutions at Tenet Healthcare Corporation. In this role, she is responsible for improving the clinical and operational analytics, bringing data insight and advancing analytics capabilities across inpatient and ambulatory care environments to support Tenet’s goal of driving quality, safety, service and operational efficiencies across the continuum of care.

Before her current role, Dr. Zhang served as the chief clinical officer of Value-Based Care at Conifer Health Solutions, where she provided leadership on product development and workflow innovations in clinical integration networks, accountable care organizations, and population health management.

Dr. Zhang was named to the Dallas Business Journal Forty Under Forty list in 2010, and named a Dallas Business Journal Healthcare Hero in 2009. She has received numerous awards during her tenure with Tenet, including being honored as a Tenet Hero in 2009 and receiving the Tenet Teamwork Hall of Fame award in 2003.

Dr. Zhang received her master of public health degree in Biostatistics from the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, and her MBA from Texas Woman’s University. She earned her medical degree from Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China.

Dr. Zhang lives in Dallas Texas with her husband and two children.