Agenda – Day 2

Dr. James Merlino is president and chief medical officer of the strategic consulting division at Press Ganey. Prior to joining Press Ganey, Jim served as chief experience officer and associate chief of staff at the Cleveland Clinic health system, as well as a practicing staff colorectal surgeon at the organization’s Digestive Disease Institute. At Cleveland Clinic, Jim was responsible for leading strategic programs to improve the patient experience across the system. He spearheaded numerous groundbreaking initiatives to ensure the highest standards for patient care, improve patient access and referring physician relations.

He is the founder and current president of the Association for Patient Experience, a nonprofit organization committed to enhancing the clinical, physical and emotional health care environment. Jim is also a founding executive council member of the Institute for Innovation, a nonprofit research collaborative dedicated to advancing the science of improving patient care and performance.

Dr. Karen Drenkard is the SVP/ Chief Clinical Officer and Chief Nurse of the O’Neil Center at GetWellNetwork Inc. She is President of the Friends of the National Institute for Nursing Research, serves as an editorial advisor to the Journal of Nursing Administration and Nursing Administration Quarterly, is a member of the Board of Visitors for the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, Indiana University School of Nursing, GWU School of Nursing Advisory Council, and a Board of Trustee for Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland.

Dr. Drenkard is the past Executive Director at the American Nurses Credentialing Center and the Magnet Recognition Program. Prior to that, she served as the SVP of nursing/chief nurse executive of Inova Health System. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and the National Academies of Practice.

Yevgeniy Feyman is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a senior research assistant in the department of health policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He writes on health care policy, entitlement reform, and the Affordable Care Act. His past research has addressed a variety of issues including the cost of health care and entitlement reform, drug pricing reform, and hospital consolidation. His current work is focusing on the dynamics in the Medicare Advantage market and the role of patients-as-consumers in healthcare.

In 2013, Feyman, with colleagues Avik Roy and Paul Howard, released the Obamacare Impact Map, a state-by- state look at the effects of the Affordable Care Act. The map was cited numerous times on Capitol Hill; Republican strategist Karl Rove called the map an “indispensable tool” in understanding the law’s effects on Americans.

Bill Wyatt is Vice President, Data Science at Healthgrades. His current work as VP, Data Science allows him to direct a team of skilled data scientists, analysts, researchers, and database developers toward data driven solutions. With millions of visits a year and nearly 100 million medical encounters his team analyzes data from consumer behavior to healthcare utilization and treatment outcomes. Previously Bill served as facility in the department of statistics at Indiana University Bloomington teaching courses in Multivariate statistics, General Linear Models, and exploratory data analysis. Prior to that he worked as a statistical consultant and primary statistician for commercial, academic, and government contracts.

Dr. Wyatt’s background comes out of Kinesiology and human learning. In that work he utilized functional analysis, time series models, and rigorous experimental approaches to map the process by which people learning, generalize, and transfer motor skills.

David Hopkins is Senior Advisor at the Pacific Business Group on Health and Research Advisor at the Stanford University Clinical Excellence Research Center. He has served as advisor to PBGH on health care performance measurement and policy issues and as PBGH’s representative on regional measurement collaboratives and national policy-making bodies, including the NQF Consensus Standards Approval Committee.

Prior to joining PBGH, David was Vice President with International Severity Information Systems, Inc. He has held a variety of senior management positions at Stanford University and Stanford University Medical Center, and was also a Director of Fair Isaac Corporation. He is the former Chair of the Integrated Healthcare Association Pay-for-Performance Technical Efficiency Committee and currently serves as a director of CalHospitalCompare. Hopkins chaired the California Cooperative Healthcare Reporting Initiative Executive Committee. During this time, CCHRI initiated the California Physician Performance Initiative, which became officially incorporated as the California Healthcare Performance Information System.

Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, FACP will assume the role of Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS) in January 2018. CMSS and its 43 member societies represent 790,000 U.S. physician members. CMSS member societies collaborate to enhance the quality of care delivered in the U.S. healthcare system and to improve the health of the public.

Dr. Burstin formerly served as Chief Scientific Officer of The National Quality Forum, a not-for-profit membership organization that works to catalyze healthcare improvement through quality measurement and reporting. In her role, she was responsible for advancing the science of quality measurement and improvement. Dr. Burstin was a Baldrige Executive Fellow in 2016 and has been awarded the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Voluntary Attending Award from the George Washington School of Medicine.

Missy Danforth is the Vice President of Health Care Ratings, where she serves as member of Leapfrog’s senior leadership team informing Leapfrog’s strategic direction, engaging experts and stakeholders, and analyzing program results to engage purchasers and consumers and drive safety and quality improvements. Ms. Danforth manages Leapfrog’s various measurement and public reporting activities including the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, and emerging ratings programs.

Helen Haskell is president of the nonprofit patient organizations Mothers Against Medical Error and Consumers Advancing Patient Safety. Since the medical error death of her young son Lewis in 2000, Helen has devoted herself to healthcare safety and quality advocacy in a variety of areas including diagnostic error reduction, medication safety, infection prevention, and adverse event disclosure, among others. She serves on national and international boards and committees including the boards of directors of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, and as co-chair of the World Health Organization’s patient advisory group for patient safety. She is a member of the National Quality Forum’s Measure Applications Partnership Hospital Workgroup and presently also serves on the NQF Diagnostic Accuracy Committee charged with recommending a framework for measurement of diagnostic quality. Her son Lewis’s story has been featured in educational programs and videos including Transparent Health’s Lewis Blackman Story.

Dr. Patrick Romano is Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and senior faculty in the Graduate Groups in Epidemiology, Public Health, Clinical Research, and Nursing Science and Healthcare Leadership at the University of California (UC) Davis. He also serves as co-Editor in Chief of Health Services Research (HSR), an official journal of AcademyHealth.

His research interests include developing, testing, and validating health care quality measures, using outcomes data to improve the quality and effectiveness of health care, and studying the role of physicians and nurses in optimizing quality and safety. He has served on or chaired expert panels for the National Quality Forum, The Joint Commission, the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the World Health Organization, the University Health System Consortium (UHC), and the American Medical Association’s Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement.

Laurel Pickering is President and CEO of Northeast Business Group on Health. Ms. Pickering has built an employer-led coalition of healthcare leaders and other stakeholders with the mission of empowering members to drive excellence and value in healthcare and the patient experience.

NEBGH delivers educational and training programs for benefits executives, user groups designed to help them improve health plan and PBM performance, and guidance on private exchanges via the Private Exchange Evaluation Collaborative (PEEC), of which Ms. Pickering is a founder.

Ms. Pickering is Chair of the Board of Directors of The Leapfrog Group, and serves on the Board of National Quality Forum and National Business Coalition on Health. She is also Chair of the Board of Directors of the NEBGH subsidiary HealthPass, a health insurance exchange for small businesses.

Judy Hearn, Director of Strategic Initiatives for Midwest Business Group on Health, is responsible for overall project management and coordination of MBGH sponsor-funded community projects to improve cost, quality and safety in the local marketplace. Previously, Judy was the Health & Welfare Manager at Reynolds Leveraged Services (Pactiv/Reynolds) and was responsible for strategy, design and communications of all health and welfare benefits for active and retired employees throughout the U.S. Prior to joining Pactiv in October 2004, Judy spent over 20 years in the managed care industry. Her extensive benefits knowledge and experience centers around the development and implementation of benefits plans, programs and policies. She holds both the Group Benefits Associate and Retirement Plans Associate designation as a Certified Employee Benefits Specialist. Judy also served on the MBGH Board of Directors for over 10 years prior to becoming a staff member this year.

Ms. Lenz is an Assistant Vice President, Quality Solutions Group California at the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

Ms. Lenz is the Project Director and Subject Matter Expert for the Quality Rating Systems (QRS) for the Marketplace and the Qualified Entity Certification Program (QECP) – two key subcontracts serving the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Ms. Lenz is also responsible for establishing and maintaining key relationships between NCQA and key California stakeholders, customers and activities. This includes the Integrated Healthcare Association and the associated Pay for Performance Initiative; the Department of Managed Health Care, the Office of the Patient Advocate and other state agencies with an interest in or impact on NCQA. Ms. Lenz provides leadership for many national initiatives which draw on her expertise in performance measurement data aggregation, validation and reporting.

Valerie Monet is a Senior Director in the Insurance Practice at J.D. Power. She serves as the Health Insurance Practice leader and is responsible for all North American syndicated, proprietary and consulting services provided to clients. Her primary focus is on improving product quality, while building client relationships and developing a strategy around associated sales activities.

Ms. Monet has a strong background across the insurance, healthcare and financial services industries. With nearly 20 years of business management and research experience in both the public and private sectors, she has gained an in-depth knowledge of strategic planning, business development, talent management, Voice of the Customer/Customer Experience management and data analysis.

Prior to joining J.D. Power in 2006, Ms. Monet was the director of the environmental justice unit at the Center for Urban Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She has also worked as an evaluator/private consultant at public sector organizations.

Michael Thompson is the President and CEO of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions. Previously a Principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Thompson is a nationally recognized thought leader for business health strategies and health system reform. Known for developing and promoting collaborative cross-sector health industry initiatives, Mike participated on the steering board of the World Economic Forum’s “Working towards Wellness” initiative and co-founded the Private Exchange Evaluation Collaborative (PEEC). Mike also served as an executive with diverse roles with Prudential Healthcare for over 17 years.

Mike is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, serving on the Health Practice Council, and chairs the Medicare Sub-Committee of the American Academy of Actuaries (AAA). He was Past President of the New York City chapter of the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI). Mike has also been an active member of the board of the Northeast Business Group on Health for 11 years.

Dr. James Merlino is president and chief medical officer of the strategic consulting division at Press Ganey. Prior to joining Press Ganey, Jim served as chief experience officer and associate chief of staff at the Cleveland Clinic health system, as well as a practicing staff colorectal surgeon at the organization’s Digestive Disease Institute. At Cleveland Clinic, Jim was responsible for leading strategic programs to improve the patient experience across the system. He spearheaded numerous groundbreaking initiatives to ensure the highest standards for patient care, improve patient access and referring physician relations.

He is the founder and current president of the Association for Patient Experience, a nonprofit organization committed to enhancing the clinical, physical and emotional health care environment. Jim is also a founding executive council member of the Institute for Innovation, a nonprofit research collaborative dedicated to advancing the science of improving patient care and performance.

Dr. Hamby is Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer with Piedmont Healthcare. He is also an Associate Professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University where he teaches quality improvement methodology.

Previously, he served as Chairman of Surgery and Trauma Medical Director in Dothan, Alabama. He is board certified in General Surgery. Dr. Hamby left private practice to complete a post-graduate fellowship in the Department of Veterans Affairs as a VA Quality Scholar. After his fellowship, he served as the Quality Management Officer for the Southeast Region (VISN 7) of the VA Healthcare System in Atlanta. He served as Senior Examiner with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award for 6 years.

Stephen Lawless is a Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer at Nemours Children’s Health System, and is known as an international expert in the field of quality and safety. He is a Board- Certified Pediatric Physician and a professor of Pediatrics at Thomas Jefferson University. His scope of responsibility includes patient, environmental and associate infection control, clinical outcomes, risk management, Accreditation, credentialing, research, academic affairs and the office of human subjects’ protection. He is a corporate officer of Nemours with quality and safety responsibilities for more than 6,000 employees, including 600 physicians with more than 1.5 million patient encounters annually.

Dr. Lawless also serves on multiple journal editorial boards, national safety groups, and state boards.

Isis Zambrana-Diaz is the Associate Vice President of Quality and Patient Safety and Chief Quality Officer for the Jackson Health System. She was recruited to the JHS in 2013 initially as the Corporate Director of Quality and Patient Safety and promoted to the AVP and CQO role in 2015. Isis is responsible for the development and oversight of quality, patient safety, and the infection prevention and control functions cross all of the Jackson Health System consisting of three Acute Care hospitals, Children and Women’s hospital, a Behavioral Health hospital, multiple Ambulatory and Primary Care Clinics as well as two Long Term Care Centers.

Prior to joining the Jackson Health System, Isis held multiple leadership roles throughout Tenet Healthcare’s South Florida Region– Director of Clinical Quality at Northshore Medical Center and Florida Medical Center, Parkway Regional Medical Center (now Jackson North), and Hialeah Hospital.

Pat Mastors is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit Patients’ View Institute (GoPVI.org).

Pat has served in advisory or leadership roles for NQF, AHRQ, the Partnership for Patients, and others invested in advancing patient/family engagement and improving the quality of care. In 2017, Pat was elected as an at-large member of the Executive Board of the National Board of Medical Examiners, the first Public Stakeholder to hold this position in the organization’s 100-year history.

Pat’s efforts to advance patient perspective were prompted in 2006 by a medical event within her family. Prior to that she was an award- winning news and medical reporter at several New England television stations. She worked successfully to pass two Rhode Island patient safety laws in her home state of RI, created a patented bedside empowerment tool for patients, and published a critically acclaimed book on partnering with patients to create optimal outcomes.

Dave deBronkart, known on the internet as e-Patient Dave, is the author of the highly rated Let Patients Help: A Patient Engagement Handbook and one of the world’s leading advocates for patient engagement. After beating stage IV kidney cancer in 2007 he became a blogger, health policy advisor and international keynote speaker. An accomplished speaker in his professional life before cancer, he is today the best-known spokesman for the patient engagement movement, and has testified in Washington for patient access to the medical record under Meaningful Use.

A co-founder and chair emeritus of the Society for Participatory Medicine, e-Patient Dave has appeared in Time, U.S. News, USA Today, Wired, MIT Technology Review, and the HealthLeaders cover story “Patient of the Future.”

In 2012 the National Library of Medicine announced that it’s capturing his blog in its History of Medicine Division, and he was the Mayo Clinic’s 2015 Visiting Professor in Internal Medicine.

Sue Sheridan is currently the Patient and Family Engagement Adviser at the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) where she is helping integrate the Person and Family Engagement Strategy throughout the CMS community. Previous to her joining CMS, Sue served as the Director of Patient Engagement for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) where she lead the Patient Engagement team. Before joining PCORI, Sheridan was the external lead of the Patients for Patient Safety program at the World Health Organization (WHO). Sheridan?had previously spent 10 years in patient advocacy inspired by?adverse family experiences in the healthcare system.?She cofounded and is?past president of Parents of Infants and Children with Kernicterus (brain damage from jaundice), who engaged with the healthcare system to implement a new?standard of care in jaundice management.?She is also?cofounder of Consumers Advancing Patient Safety.

Dr. Patrick Romano is Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and senior faculty in the Graduate Groups in Epidemiology, Public Health, Clinical Research, and Nursing Science and Healthcare Leadership at the University of California (UC) Davis. He also serves as co-Editor in Chief of Health Services Research (HSR), an official journal of AcademyHealth.

His research interests include developing, testing, and validating health care quality measures, using outcomes data to improve the quality and effectiveness of health care, and studying the role of physicians and nurses in optimizing quality and safety. He has served on or chaired expert panels for the National Quality Forum, The Joint Commission, the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the World Health Organization, the University Health System Consortium (UHC), and the American Medical Association’s Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement.

Dr. Acevedo is an Assistant Professor, Community Health at Tufts University. Her research focuses on racial/ethnic inequalities in the access to and quality of health services, particularly those related to alcohol and drug use disorders.

She has been involved in the development and testing of quality indicators for substance use disorders, and using established measures to understand inequities in treatment. Dr. Acevedo is currently working on studies examining how community characteristics may impact inequities in substance abuse treatment quality and outcomes and on providers’ perspectives on adolescent treatment inequities. She is also a co-investigator on a study examining the impact of provider-level interventions to improve treatment quality. She has worked on quality issues in other areas, as well, including collaborating on a study to understand ways of improving nursing home quality reports to meet the needs of minority community members.

Brent Sandmeyer, MPH is a Social Science Analyst for the Center for Delivery, Organization and Markets at the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Sandmeyer oversees a broad portfolio of health services research aimed at improving care quality, increasing transparency, and making care more affordable. Sandmeyer received his Master of Public Health in Management and Policy from Portland State University, and his BA in Psychology from New York University.

Leah Binder is President & CEO of The Leapfrog Group. She is a regular contributor to Forbes.com, the Huffington Post, and the Wall Street Journal expert forum. She was named on Becker’s list of the 50 most powerful people in healthcare in 2014, and consistently cited by Modern Healthcare among the 100 most influential people and top 25 women in healthcare.

She has served on numerous national boards and councils, including the Institute of Medicine Collaboration on Patient Engagement, the Health Care Financial Management Association Leadership Advisory Committee, PCORI Health Systems Advisory Panel, AARP’s Champions for Nursing Strategic Advisory Council, the National Priorities Partnership Board.

Prior to her position at The Leapfrog Group, Ms. Binder spent eight years as vice president at Franklin Community Health Network. She previously worked as a senior policy advisor for the Office of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in New York City and started her career at the National League for Nursing.

Dr. Kate Goodrich serves as Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ) and CMS Chief Medical Officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Previously, Dr. Goodrich served as the Director of the Quality Measurement and Value-based Incentives Group in CCSQ. She co-lead an HHS-wide group to align quality measures across programs and also served as a Medical Officer in the office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) at DHHS where she managed a portfolio of work on comparative effectiveness research and quality measurement and improvement.

Dr. Goodrich was on faculty at the George Washington University Medical Center, served as Division Director for Hospital Medicine and was chair of the Institutional Review Board. She continues to practice clinical medicine as a hospitalist and Associate Professor of Medicine at GWUMC.

Margaret O’Kane is the founder and president of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and has received the Picker Institute Individual Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Patient-Centered Care, as well as the Gail L. Warden Leadership Excellence Award from the National Center for Healthcare Leadership.

Modern Healthcare magazine has named O’Kane one of the “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” 12 times, most recently in 2017, and one of the “Top 25 Women in Healthcare” 3 times.

She is a board member of the Milbank Memorial Fund and is Chairman of the Board of Healthwise, a nonprofit organization that helps people make better health decisions.

O’Kane holds a master’s degree in health administration and planning from Johns Hopkins University, where she received the Distinguished Alumnus Award.

As the former Vice President, Global Benefits, Sally Welborn was responsible for overseeing the global benefits programs for Walmart’s more than 2.2 million associates and their families in twenty-eight countries.

Prior to joining Walmart, she was senior vice president, Corporate Benefits for Wells Fargo & Company and consulted with large employers in all areas of benefits strategy and health care optimization when she was with HCIA, Inc. and William M. Mercer, Inc. She also worked at Aetna as a relationship manager and at Union Bank as the Vice President of Benefits.

Sally currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Leapfrog group. She has served as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the ERISA Industry Committee and on the boards of the National Business Group on Health and the Pacific Business Group on Health as well as the Guiding Committee of the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network.

Dr. Kirsten Firminger is a Senior Researcher at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). With a passion for understanding consumers’ perspectives of health care, she is an expert on presenting and testing information on health care quality, cost, and comparative effectiveness research for use by the public. Most recently, Dr. Firminger has completed work on an AHRQ Building the Science of Public Reporting grant and is currently leading work for PCORI’s groundbreaking Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Translation Center. Dr. Firminger received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in Social Psychology.

Ms. Rybowski, president and co-founder of The Severyn Group, has over 20 years of experience in studying and sharing best practices in health care quality measurement, reporting, and improvement. As a member of a Yale-based research team working on the CAHPS program, Ms. Rybowski participates in ongoing research on reporting issues, including a study of the elicitation and use of patient comments in public reports, a study of the use of summary scores of quality, and composite measure development and testing. As part of her work for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality program and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Chartered Value Exchanges, she provided expert reviews of public performance reports, developed reporting guidance, contributed to research on reporting health care cost and resource use measures to consumers, conducted usability testing of public reports with consumers, and advised communities on reporting the CAHPS patient experience measures.

Dr. Shoshanna Sofaer is a Managing Researcher in Health Care at the American Institutes for Research. Previously, Dr. Sofaer was the Robert P. Luciano Professor of Health Care Policy at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs. She has held academic positions at George Washington University Medical Center and the UCLA School of Public Health.

Dr. Sofaer conducts research and publishes on topics including, but not limited to: the design and dissemination of public reports on comparative health care quality; the development of tools patients and families can use to engage productively in their health and health care; and patient experiences in hospitals in actively engaging in their care. Her professional contributions also include evaluating both individual health care programs and clusters of programs for foundations and government agencies.

Dr. Sofaer is a member of the Board of Directors of AcademyHealth and a Fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration.

Dave deBronkart, known on the internet as e-Patient Dave, is the author of the highly rated Let Patients Help: A Patient Engagement Handbook and one of the world’s leading advocates for patient engagement. After beating stage IV kidney cancer in 2007 he became a blogger, health policy advisor and international keynote speaker. An accomplished speaker in his professional life before cancer, he is today the best-known spokesman for the patient engagement movement, and has testified in Washington for patient access to the medical record under Meaningful Use.

A co-founder and chair emeritus of the Society for Participatory Medicine, e-Patient Dave has appeared in Time, U.S. News, USA Today, Wired, MIT Technology Review, and the HealthLeaders cover story “Patient of the Future.”

In 2012 the National Library of Medicine announced that it’s capturing his blog in its History of Medicine Division, and he was the Mayo Clinic’s 2015 Visiting Professor in Internal Medicine.

John Connolly is President & CEO of Castle Connolly Medical Ltd. He serves as Chairman and CEO of Castle Connolly Private Health Partners LLC, Vice Chairman of Castle Connolly LifestreamMD, and Vice-Chairman of Castle Connolly Graduate Medical Ltd. He also serves as Secretary of Medebound, LLC and is Secretary and director of TopDoctors.es.

He is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, a Director of the Northeast Business Group on Health, a member of the President’s Council of the United Hospital Fund, and a member of the Board of the American Swiss Foundation.

Dr. Connolly served as President of New York Medical College, on a number of voluntary and corporate boards, as a director and Chairman of the Professional Examination Service, and served as the Board of Advisors of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Professor John Huppertz is Associate Professor and Chair of the MBA Program in Healthcare Management at the Clarkson University School of Business. Prior to joining Clarkson University, Dr. Huppertz was managing partner, marketing and research services at Eric Mower and Associates, where he conducted marketing research and served as strategic marketing consultant for a variety of clients in all sectors of the healthcare industry.

In January 2008, Dr. Huppertz was named Interim President of Union Graduate College, and he returned to the faculty in 2009.

Dr. Huppertz’ research papers have appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, Health Services Research, Health Care Management Review, Journal of Healthcare Management, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Health Administration Education, Health Marketing Quarterly, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Journal of Service Marketing, and Marketing Research.

Yunfeng Shi is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Administration at the Pennsylvania State University, as well as a faculty affiliate with the Center for Health Care Policy and Research. Prior to this, he completed his PhD study at Carnegie Mellon University, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on quality measurement and reporting, consumer engagement, and health information technology, and organization of care delivery.

Yunfeng was a co-investigator on the evaluation team of Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q), a nationwide quality improvement initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson foundation. Currently, he is an investigator on the U-19 Center for Excellence project, with a focus on understanding the role of health information technology in the performance of health care delivery systems.

Erica Mobley is the Director of Operations for The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit representing employers and other purchasers of health benefits advancing safety and quality in American hospitals. In this role, Ms. Mobley oversees all operational functions of the organization. She also directs public relations and external communications regarding the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, and other initiatives, securing Leapfrog’s exposure to millions of consumers, purchasers, providers, and payors. She previously served as Director of Communications and Development for Leapfrog.

Prior to Leapfrog, Erica worked in development for National Rehabilitation Hospital and Children’s National Medical Center, both in Washington, DC. She holds a degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.