Morgan Taylor

Acting Director, Customer Focused Research Group, Office of Burden Reduction & Health Informatics
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Morgan is an experienced human-centered design leader with 8 years at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Morgan is currently the Acting Director of the Customer Focused Research Group (CFRG) within the Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics (OBRHI). CFRG coordinates multiple human-centered design engagements, leading cross-agency qualitative research efforts supporting the Administration’s priorities and cross cutting initiatives. Morgan ensures the CFRG team leverages human-centered design methodologies to elevate the voices of all CMS stakeholders. Prior to joining CFRG, Morgan spent 2.5 years in the Office of the Administrator directly supporting the Principal Deputy Administrator for Operations and Policy.

David Graham, MD

Chief Medical Information Officer
LifeBridge Health

David B. Graham, M.D., is the chief medical information officer (CMIO) at LifeBridge Health. In this role, Dr. Graham leads a team of physician informaticists to interface between the IT department and all of the affiliated physicians across four hospitals and in community practices on matters of the EMR (electronic medical record), CPOE (computerized physician order entry) and other health IT systems.

Dr. Graham, who is board-certified in family medicine and clinical informatics, is an experienced clinician and informaticist with more than 25 years of experience in health IT and medical education.

Previously, Dr. Graham was in Colorado where he was working during COVID as a consultant to various health systems, provider organizations and healthcare information technology companies to assist with improving digital solutions and care delivery models. He previously served as senior vice president, chief quality and innovation officer for Memorial Health System in Springfield, Illinois. Over the course of his 12-year tenure there, Dr. Graham was also chief information officer and chief medical information officer.

Dr. Graham graduated from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and did his family medicine residency at the Oregon Health and Sciences University, with a faculty development fellowship at the University of Washington. Dr. Graham practiced in rural Eastern Oregon for five years before joining the faculty at the University of Colorado.

Khaliah Fisher-Grace, PhD, RN

System Director of Policy
University Hospitals Health System

Khaliah Fisher-Grace is a Registered Nurse and serves as the System Director of Policy for University Hospitals Health System.  She has blended her clinical experiences with systematic approaches to attaining high quality patient outcomes.  Khaliah has led transdisciplinary teams to develop processes that will improve safety and quality for patients at the individual hospital and health system level. She has extensive experience collaborating with teams to ensure sustained compliance with regulatory and organizational requirements. Khaliah obtained both her BSN and MSN in Healthcare Management from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. She earned her PhD in Nursing from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. 

Jennifer Gonzalez, MSN, APRN, AGCNS-BC

Clinical Nurse Specialist
University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center

Jennifer Gonzalez, MSN, APRN, AGCNS-BC is a board-certified Clinical Nurse Specialist at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. With a combined 20 years of healthcare clinical and leadership experience, she has created and implemented programs designed to improve clinician and patient experiences. She has held responsibility for the ANCC’s Magnet Recognition program and Nursing Professional Governance Councils. She recently assumed management responsibilities over nurse innovation and will have focused efforts on improving the work environment for clinicians and patient safety. She received her master’s degree from Kent State University and Entrepreneurship Certificate from the Wadhwhani Foundation. 

Donté Smith (they/them)

Technical Assistance Consultant
NASTAD

Donté (they/them) Smith is a fierce patient advocate, national lecturer, health educator, and cultural curator who has focused their work around the intersections of health equity, HIV, & the liberation of sexual and gender minorities of color through direct service, technical assistance and fostering creative partnerships. Diagnosed as living with HIV in their early 20s, Donté spent the last decade leading patient navigation teams and syringe access spaces at large federally qualified health systems across the Midwest and Southern US. Currently situated on Kansas land, Donté works as a “Leading with Lived Experience” Technical Assistance consultant for NASTAD — supporting local health departments in increasing hepatitis engagement for key populations through a drug user human rights lens and as Tenant Based Rental Assistance Supervisor for Kansas City’s oldest housing organization for people living with HIV, Save Inc. Donte is an alumnus of Georgetown University, previous Human Right Campaign ELEVATE Fellow (2020), current SERO Project Justice Institute fellow, frequent Technical Expert Panelist for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Quality Measures teams and was recently named one of Boston Congress of Public Health “40 Under 40” Public Health Catalyst awardees. Donte’s work and life has been recently highlighted in the NY Times, Chicago Reader, Chicago Sun Times, Poz Magazine & Houston Press.

Michelle Hereford, MSHA, RN, FACHE

Senior Vice President, Chief Nursing Executive
University Hospitals

Michelle D. Hereford, MSHA, RN, FACHE joined UH in April 2021 as the system’s chief nursing executive. She also holds the Ethel Morikis Endowed Chair in Nursing Leadership. In this role, Hereford is responsible for the overall delivery and management of nursing operations, professional practice, education, professional development, research, administration, and clinical services. Additionally, she is charged with staff accountability for enhancing a clinical practice environment that is patient centered, with unsurpassed patient experience, clinical quality and patient safety while also providing significant contributions to education and research. Hereford also serves on the UH Senior Executive Leadership Team.

Hereford’s broad nursing and administrative leadership experience spans nearly three decades to include small and large community hospitals, major academic medical centers, proprietary organizations, health systems, and the post-acute industry. In her most recent previous position, she served as senior vice president, system chief nursing officer and post-acute care officer for AMITA Health, Illinois’ largest health care system comprised of 19 hospitals in the Chicago area. Hereford also served as chief of the community hospitals & post-acute division at the University of
Virginia Health System, an academic health care center associated with the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Additionally, she served as chief of their Transitional Care Hospital, leading operations, fiscal and human resource management, effective resource utilization, and short- and long-range strategic planning.

Hereford is a registered nurse who holds a diploma in Nursing from the bachelor’s degree from the Riverside School of professional Nursing, and a bachelor’s degree from the Medical College of Virginia and a master’s degree in healthcare administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. She holds FACHE status in the American College of Healthcare Executives. She is a member of several professional organizations to include the
American College of Healthcare Executives, American Nurses Association, National Association of Health Service Executives, and the National Black Nurses Association. Hereford continues to serve on industry- and community-related boards, including the Adventist Healthcare Fort Washington Medical Center, Cuyahoga Community College Foundation Board and the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission.

She is committed to service as a member of The Cleveland Chapter of the Links, Inc., and the Chicago Women’s Golf Club. Michelle and her spouse reside in Cleveland, Ohio. She has two children and one grandson. In her free time she enjoys reading, writing, attending sporting events, and playing golf

Kathryn Spates

Executive Vice President, Public Policy and Government Relations
The Joint Commission

Kathryn Spates is the Executive Vice President for Public Policy and Government Relations at The Joint Commission. In this role, she leads the Joint Commission’s Washington, D.C. office, which is the Joint Commission’s interface with the federal government and with public policy issues. It is also
the office concerned with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and its relationship to private sector accreditation; relationships with U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services (HHS) agencies; other offices such as U.S. Government Accountability Office and HHS Office of
the Inspector General; and with policymaking institutions. Ms. Spates works with federal agencies, Congress, national professional organizations, patient-focused associations, and other relevant stakeholders. She also analyzes the effects of legislation and regulations on Joint Commission and
health care entities.

Ms. Spates has more than 20 years of health care industry experience, spanning legal, government relations, and clinical work. She previously worked at the Food and Drug Administration and as an attorney at a law firm in Washington, D.C. Before she began her government relations and legal career, she spent many years in clinical care as a nurse and an acute care nurse practitioner. She has worked at academic medical centers, in clinical research and at the U.S. Peace Corps headquarters.

Ms. Spates also served as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy Nurse Corps. She is a member of the American Bar Association, Health Law Section and American Health Law Association. Ms. Spates received a Juris Doctor from the Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America; her master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University; and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Boston College. She is admitted to the District of Columbia and Maryland bars.

Jeff Salvon-Harman, MD, CPE, CPPS

Vice President, Safety
Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Jeff Salvon-Harman, MD, CPE, CPPS, Vice President, Safety, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), is a Certified Physician Executive, Certified Professional in Patient Safety and IHI Fellow who is resolute about creating Safety and Belonging for patients and the healthcare workforce. He provides strategic leadership in Safety with deep operational expertise implementing change initiatives and applying quality improvement methods. He is a recognized subject matter expert in high reliability, patient and workforce safety, Human Factors application to Root Cause Analysis, and system level management of quality and safety. Previously, Dr. Salvon-Harman was the Chief Patient Safety Officer/VP, Quality Institute and Medical Director of Infection Prevention and Control for Presbyterian Healthcare Services in New Mexico.  He is retired from the US Public Health Service where he dedicated 20 years to the Indian Health Service and the US Coast Guard in roles ranging from clinical service delivery to management and leadership. Dr. Salvon-Harman completed his residency in Family Medicine at Carilion Health System in Roanoke, VA after graduating from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, MA.

Sarah Rossetti, RN, PhD

Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Nursing
Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Sarah Rossetti, RN, PhD is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Nursing at Columbia University. Her research has been funded by NIH and AHRQ and is focused on identifying and intervening on patient risk for harm by applying computational tools to mine and extract value from EHR data and leveraging user-centered design for patient-centered technologies. She is chair of AMIA’s 25×5 Task Force to Reduce Documentation Burden. Dr. Rossetti is an experienced critical care nurse, received her PhD from Columbia University School of Nursing, and completed a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at Columbia University’s Department of Biomedical Informatics. She was selected as a 2019 recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

Pamela Gentry

Deputy Director of the Office of Minority Health
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Pamela J. Gentry is the Deputy Director of the Office of Minority Health (OMH) for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, at the Department of Health and Human Services.  Gentry’s works to advance the agency’s commitment to and investment in health equity for underserved populations, including policy and program innovation to advance health equity.

Gentry led the agency’s team to plan and execute the first Annual CMS Health Equity Conference and is the champion of the long standing OMH Minority Research Grant Program. The grant program is designed to make strategic investments in health care research aimed at advancing CMS’s goal of mitigating barriers to health equity.

As senior advisor to OMH, she focused on outreach and education for minority communities and the development and execution of national education and outreach campaigns for Medicare, Medicaid, Healthcare Marketplace and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Gentry returned to federal service in 2010 after eight years as senior manager in broadcast and online media for BET Networks.  She created BET’s first online political blog in 2005, “Pamela on Politics.” In 2009 she became the networks senior political analyst responsible for the daily coverage of the White House and legislative activity on Capitol Hill.  Prior to BET she worked for C-SPAN, W*USA-TV Channel 9 in Washington, D.C., and provided political commentary for various national and international news networks and was a guest political blogger on The Huffington Post.

Alexandra Mugge

Chief Health Informatics Officer & Director & Health Informatics and Interoperability Group, Office of Burden Reduction & Health Informatics
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Alexandra Mugge is the Director of the Health Informatics and Interoperability Group (HIIG) within the Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics (OBRHI) and serves as the Chief Health Informatics Officer for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), where she and her team have led the Agency’s interoperability and health IT efforts since 2018. HIIG’s mission is to “promote the secure exchange, access, and use of electronic health information to support better informed decision making and a more efficient healthcare system.” 

Before leading CMS’ interoperability efforts in her current role, Alex served as the Deputy Director of the Division of Health IT in the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ), where she and her team lead the overhaul of the Meaningful Use Programs to create the Promoting Interoperability initiatives.  

Alex earned her Masters of Public Health from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University where she specialized in Public Health Policy. She has over 15 years of experience working in health care policy and federal regulations. 

Stella “Stace” Mandl, CPHN

Acting Director, Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Stella “Stace” Mandl is a certified public health nurse with 38 years of combined social work, nursing, policy development, and leadership experience and has dedicated her professional career to improving of patient care quality, safety, and patient outcomes. Stace serves as the Acting Director (previously Deputy Director) for the Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics (OBRHI) where she is responsible for supporting OBRHI, its five groups and its mission to identify and create efficiencies across the healthcare enterprise by integrating technology, policy, regulation, and stakeholder engagement to improve healthcare quality and population health. Prior to joining OBRHI, Stace served in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation as the Staff Director for Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee and Designated Federal Officer. Stace served for over 10 years as a technical lead and then Director for the Division of Chronic and Post-Acute Care, located within the Quality Measurement & Value-Based Incentives Group of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality where she provided leadership, strategic oversight and advisory support for the post-acute quality reporting programs; as well as technical guidance and oversight for the implementation of the statutory requirements related to patient/resident assessment data standardization and quality measures in satisfaction of the Improving Post-Acute Care Medicare Transformation Act of 2014. Stace has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from San Francisco State University and a Bachelor of Science in Social Work from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and served in the US Army Nurse Corps. Her clinical background includes emergency, peri-operative, psychiatric and medical-surgical services, research, and nursing leadership.

Christine Sinsky, MD, MACP

Vice President – Professional Satisfaction
American Medical Association​

Dr. Sinsky is Vice President of Professional Satisfaction at the American Medical Association. A general internist, she practiced at Medical Associates Clinic in Dubuque, Iowa for 32 years. Dr. Sinsky is a former Director for the American Board of Internal Medicine and a former Chair of the ABIM Foundation Board of Trustees. She currently serves on the National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being.  

Dr. Sinsky leads initiatives at the American Medical Association to improve opportunities for joy, purpose and meaning in work for physicians and their teams. Publications on “The Quadruple Aim”, “Joy in Practice”, “Texting while Doctoring” and “Creating a Manageable Cockpit for Clinicians” have contributed to the national conversation. She has also contributed to research regarding the prevalence, drivers and solutions to burnout among physicians and to resources for individual physicians and for health systems to improve practice efficiency and organizational culture.

Ron Kline, MD, FAAP

Chief Medical Officer, Quality Measurement and Value-based Incentives Group, Center for Clinical Standards and Quality
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services​

Ron Kline is a board-certified pediatric hematologist/oncologist and the Chief Medical Officer of the Quality Measurement and Value-based Incentives Group (QMVIG) in the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ) at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). QMVIG is responsible for the development, evaluation, implementation, and support for quality measurement programs across the entire federally-funded health care continuum. This includes Medicare’s Quality Payment Program and the Inpatient and Outpatient Quality Reporting Programs. These innovative programs work to improve healthcare quality for all Americans.

Prior to his work at CMS, he served as the Chief Medical Officer for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for more than three years. In that role, he served as the resident medical expert with program responsibilities encompassing the health insurance industry, health policy, population health, benefit design, standards of care, quality improvement, and regulatory initiatives. This role included oversight of health insurance plans providing coverage to 8.2 million federal employees, retirees and their families through the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program and the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP).

Before assuming his role at OPM, he was a medical officer in the Patient Care Models Group at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) for almost five years. During this time, he was the clinical lead for the Oncology Care Model, the Medicare Care Choices Model, and the Radiation Oncology Model, as well as team lead during the preliminary development of the Enhancing Oncology Model. He was a CMS representative to Vice President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative. As a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health Policy Fellow in 2013-14, he focused on health policy in the office of Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden and at CMMI.

He has been a clinical pediatric hematologist–oncologist for more than 30 years, serving as the medical director of the Pediatric Division of Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada, the largest multispecialty oncology group in Nevada, immediately prior to accepting his RWJF fellowship. He has remained clinically active while at CMS and OPM, previously working (as part of his CMS/OPM duties) in pediatric hematology/oncology at Walter Reed Military Medical Center and currently working at Johns Hopkins. He also works on weekends as a pediatric emergency department physician at Ascension St Agnes Hospital in Baltimore.

Douglas Jacobs, MD, MPH

Chief Transformation Officer
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Dr. Doug Jacobs is the Chief Transformation Officer in the Center for Medicare at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). At CMS he is helping lead Medicare’s efforts to promote value-based care, advance health equity, and encourage delivery system transformation. He most recently served as the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Innovation Officer for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, helping to oversee the state Medicaid and human services programs amidst the pandemic for the 16,000 person state agency. Dr. Jacobs is a practicing board-certified internal medicine physician and is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center. He is also an avid writer, having published pieces in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, New York Times, and Washington Post. He trained in Internal Medicine Primary Care at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and served as Chief Resident at the West Roxbury VA hospital, received his MD at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, his MPH at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and his Bachelor’s in Sciences from Brown University.  

Heidi Kriz, MPH, RD

Director of Medical Policy and Medical Managements
Regence Health Plans

Heidi is Director of Medical Policy and Medical Management at Regence Health Plans, where she leads strategy and execution of medical policy and utilization management and transformation decisions. Heidi completed her Master of Public Health with a focus in epidemiology and healthcare administration and is a Registered Dietitian. Heidi has over 18 years of experience in evidence informed health policy
and management leadership positions across health plans and healthcare entities. Heidi serves as the Chair and business lead for the Prior Authorization Transformation Program, directing several initiatives for electronic and auto authorization workflows, EHR interoperability, automation using artificial intelligence, and selective applications of prior authorization. Heidi is recognized as a national leader in health plan prior authorization transformation and burden reduction. More recently, Heidi was recognized with the HL7 Da Vinci Project Community Champion award and her work has helped Regence earn recognition for several regional and national innovation awards for implementing the first in the nation HL7 FHIR Prior Authorization Support Standard. In her free time, you can find Heidi enjoying the outdoors and playing sports with her family and friends in Bend, Oregon.

Suzanne Martin-Devroye

Acting Deputy Director Office of Burden Reduction & Health Informatics
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)

Suzanne Martin-Devroye has been at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for 13 years and is currently serving as the Acting Deputy Director for the Office of Burden Reduction & Health Informatics (OBRHI). Previously, Suzanne served as the Director for the Customer Focused Research Group (CFRG) within OBRHI where her team cultivated relationships within our community of federal partners and external stakeholders to make a meaningful difference in the daily lives of those we serve through improved interactions with government, prioritizing equitable delivery to those who have traditionally been underserved by gathering and synthesizing customer input to identify issues and root causes that impact health equity, healthcare delivery, access to services, inefficiencies and burden experienced by providers and beneficiaries to ensure the customer perspective is in CMS’ policy writing and operational activities. Suzanne also served as a technical advisor and human-centered design lead to the Office of the Administrator leading and supporting CMS's Patients over Paperwork Initiative and as a Certified Enterprise Architect in the Office of Information Technology. Prior to her federal career, Suzanne worked at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as an Assistant Director of Compliance, at Duke University as a Senior Compliance Analyst, and Ernst & Young as a Senior Healthcare Consultant. Suzanne has 20 years of healthcare compliance experience focusing on helping clinicians design tools to make documenting their services easier to meet federal guidelines. Suzanne is married 23 years; she and her husband reside in Maryland. They have three children (all in college) and three dogs. In her spare time, Suzanne loves to travel. 

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure

Administrator
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)

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

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

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

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

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

Kirk Anderson

Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Cambia Health Solutions

Kirk Anderson is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Cambia Health Solutions, where he leads technology strategy and execution. Prior to becoming Cambia’s CTO, Kirk served as its Chief Information Security Officer and previously led information security for WebMD Health Solutions.  

In his current role, Kirk has led Cambia’s digital transformation, cloud strategy, and health care interoperability initiatives. Kirk is a founding member and current Board Chairman of the HL7 Da Vinci Project – a national effort to accelerate the use of FHIR APIs between payers and providers. Kirk is also a board member of the CARIN Alliance, focusing on consumer-driven access to health care data. 

Shari Ling, MD

Deputy Chief Medical Officer
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Dr. Shari M. Ling is the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and Medical Officer in the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ). She assists the CMS Chief Medical Officer in the Agency’s pursuit of better health care, healthier populations, and smarter spending. Dr. Ling represents CMS on several Health and Human Services (HHS) efforts. She leads the Clinical Services federal workgroup for the National Alzheimer’s Project Plan, and represents CMS on the workgroups to eliminate and prevent Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) and the National Strategy to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance. Dr. Ling is a board certified Geriatrician, Rheumatologist and Internist who received her medical training at Georgetown University School of Medicine and received her clinical training in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology at Georgetown University Medical Center, and Geriatric Medicine training at Johns Hopkins University.

Samantha Richardson

Director, Governance and Impact Analysis Group, Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Samantha Richardson is the Director of the Governance and Impact Analysis Group in the Office of Burden Reduction & Health Informatics (OBRHI). Ms. Richardson and her team is focused on unifying CMS’s efforts to reduce regulatory and administrative burden for beneficiaries and the medical community, therefore enabling the health system to focus on providing higher quality care at lower cost and to fostering innovation in health care delivery.

She is responsible for leading enterprise-wide efforts and supports cross-agency projects to eliminate overly burdensome and unnecessary regulations. Ms. Richardson oversees initiatives to: measure the impact of CMS regulations; innovate tools to reduce redundancy in CMS regulations using AI; create strategic communications opportunities while engaging external stakeholders; additionally, her team develops databases and data analytic protocols to assist internal components as they develop policy.

Ms. Richardson has served in various leadership positions during her time at CMS. She recently served on the Departmental award winning COVID waiver team during the onset of the pandemic. Prior to that role she served as a senior advisor in the CMS Office of the Administrator leading and supporting CMS’s burden reduction initiatives under the Patients over Paperwork Initiative. She has also served as a Director within the CMS Center for Program Integrity (CPI), where she led CPI’s program risk assessment and strategy development functions. She also served in leadership and management positions in the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ) on National Coverage Determination (NCDs) and the Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) programs.

Before joining CMS, Ms. Richardson was a consultant focused on IT and health policy contracts with CMS and the Food and Drug Administration.

Michael Cimmino

Director, National Standards Group
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Michael Cimmino is the Director of CMS’ National Standards Group within the Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics. Prior to serving in this role, Michael served as the Deputy Director for the Division of Quality and Compliance within the Provider Enrollment and Oversight Group (PEOG) in the Center for Program Integrity (CPI) at CMS. Michael’s past work has included developing enrollment policies and procedures directed at identifying and addressing vulnerabilities across the Medicare and Medicaid programs. He also worked to provide outreach and education to the State Medicaid and provider community on federal requirements such as NPI enumeration, claims payment, and managed care enrollment.  Prior to the Division of Quality and Compliance, Michael served as the Deputy Director for the Division of Enrollment Operations, also in PEOG and CPI. In this role, Michael’s work included establishing stronger partnerships between State Medicaid Agencies and CMS, as well as working closely with pharmacy and managed care stakeholders and across CMS to develop and implement stronger program integrity provisions in Medicare Parts C and D. Michael has spent the past 10 years working on a variety of initiatives in Medicare and Medicaid both at the federal and state level. His work at the state level included implementation of Affordable Care Act mandated provider screening and enrollment requirements as well as a number of compliance activities such as provider audits.

Richard Shannon, MD

Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, DUHS and Chief Quality Officer
Duke Health​

Richard P. Shannon, MD serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Quality and Medical Officer for Duke Health. He is responsible for the overall direction, leadership and operational management of the quality and safety programs of Duke Health and provides leadership in strengthening a quality culture where everyone is engaged and respected.  

Prior to joining Duke Health, he served as executive vice president for health affairs at the University of Virginia, where he worked with faculty and staff to transform the UVA Health System into the premier health care provider in Virginia. Dr. Shannon has also served as the Frank Wister Thomas Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and as Chair of the Department of Medicine at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. He has received numerous teaching awards from Harvard Medical School, Drexel University College of Medicine, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.  

Dr. Shannon received his BA from Princeton University and his MD from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He completed his training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, his cardiovascular training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was the Francis Weld Peabody Fellow and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School before becoming the Claude R. Joyner Professor of Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine. 

Dr. Shannon’s pioneering work in patient safety is chronicled in the chapter “First, Do No Harm” in Charles Kenney’s The Best Practice – How the New Quality Movement is Transforming Medicine. His innovative work also has been featured in the The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, on CNN and CNBC news segments and on ABC’s “20/20”, and was a centerpiece for the PBS report entitled “Remaking American Medicine.” 

Dr. Shannon is an elected member of honorary organizations, including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and served as a senior fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently is a teaching fellow for the Institute of Healthcare Improvement and serves as a member of the Boards of Directors of the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., where he chairs the Quality Health Improvement Committee.

Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, FCCM

Chief Quality and Clinical Transformation Officer
University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center​s

Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, is a world-renowned patient safety champion, physician executive, critical care physician, prolific researcher with more than 1000 peer-reviewed publications, an innovator who has founded several technology companies, and a thought leader informing U.S. and global health policy.  

Dr. Pronovost’s transformative work leveraging checklists to reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections has saved thousands of lives and earned him national acclaim. This life-saving intervention has been implemented across the U.S., and as a result, central line-associated infections that used to kill as many people as breast or prostate cancer have been reduced by 80 percent. In recognition of this innovation, his highest-profile accolades include being named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine and receiving a coveted MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.”    

While serving as Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at University Hospitals Health System in Cleveland and as a Professor in the Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Management at Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Pronovost developed a checklist to make visible defects in value and deployed a management and accountability system to eliminate those defects. This system reduced the annual cost of care for Medicare patients by 30% over three years while improving quality. In 2022, Dr. Pronovost lead the efforts that culminated in University Hospitals winning the American Hospital Association’s Quest for Quality award, the industry’s most prestigious honor recognizing its member organizations for their commitment to quality. He was named the Veale Distinguished Chair in Leadership and Clinical Transformation in 2023.  

Along with the deputy secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Dr. Pronovost co-chaired the Healthcare Quality Summit, an initiative created in response to President Donald Trump’s White House Executive Order to modernize and improve quality measures for HHS, Veterans Affairs, and Department of Defense.  

Dr. Pronovost previously served as Johns Hopkins Medicine Senior Vice President for Patient Safety and Quality and was the founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. He also served as the Senior Vice President for Clinical Strategy and Chief Medical Officer for UnitedHealthcare. Dr. Pronovost also serves as a member of the Presidents Council for Science and Technology Patient Safety Working Group that is producing recommendations for improving safety to President Joseph Biden. 

Dr. Pronovost was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2011, to the American Academy of Nursing, and has received multiple honorary degrees. He is an advisor to the World Health Organization’s World Alliance for Patient Safety and regularly addresses the U.S. Congress on patient safety issues. He is a founder of VisICU, a tele ICU company purchased by Philips, and Doctella, a health information platform for remote patient monitoring purchased by Masimo.  He is a strategic advisor for several health care technology and venture capital companies. Today, he is known as one of the most influential executives and physician leaders in health care and one of the Top 25 innovators in health care. 

Viet Nguyen, MD

Technical Director, HL7 Da Vinci Project, Chief Standards Implementation Officer 
HL7 International

Dr. Viet Nguyen is the Chief Standards Implementation Officer for HL7 and serves as Technical Director of the HL7 Da Vinci Project. He is an internist, pediatrician, clinical informaticist, and consultant to government and commercial organizations in developing interoperable workflows and technologies. He has two decades of experience in Health IT focused on interoperability standards and product development. Formerly the CMIO for Lockheed-Martin and Leidos Corporation, Dr. Nguyen is a nationally recognized FHIR educator and health IT evangelist. 

Jonathan (Jon) Blum, MPP

Principal Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Currently serves as the Principal Deputy Administrator and Chief Operating Officer at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). In this dual role, Jon oversees CMS’s program policy planning and implementation and day-to-day operations of the entire agency. CMS’s programs provide health coverage to more than 150 million individuals, spending nearly $1.5 trillion in annual benefits with an annual operating budget of $7 billion. 

This is Jon’s second time serving in a senior leadership position at CMS. He previously served as the Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center of Medicare from 2009 – 2014, leading the agency’s Medicare payment and delivery reform strategies and the policy and program management of the Medicare program. 

Jon has more than 25 years of public- and private-sector experience working in health care policy and administration. In addition to his positions at CMS, he has worked as a strategy and management consultant, an Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, professional staff at the Senate Finance Committee, and a program analyst at the Office of Budget and Management. 

Prior to joining CMS, Jon served on several nonprofit boards with missions to improve access and equity to health care and health coverage, including Mary’s Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center; the Primary Care Coalition of Montgomery County; and the Medicare Rights Center. 

Jon earned a Master of Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania. 

Beth Connor, MS, RN

Health Insurance Specialist
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Beth Connor is a nurse informaticist at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), in the Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics (OBRHI). She serves as a subject matter expert on the electronic use and exchange of patient administrative and clinical data to support Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) programs, as well as long-term care and post-acute care (LTC/PAC) interoperability initiatives at CMS. Previously, she led LTC/PAC interoperability efforts for the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act (IMPACT Act), including development of the CMS Data Element Library, and the Post-Acute Care Interoperability project (PACIO).  In her current role, she leads the Medicare FFS Requirements Modernization pilot to enable easy access to Medicare FFS prior authorization and claims requirements. Beth obtained a Master’s Degree in Nurse Informatics from the University of Maryland School of Nursing and has been a registered nurse for many years. She’s passionate about using policy and technology to support improved patient care and health outcomes to advance the health of our nation. 

Ariele Faber

Chief Experience Officer
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Ariele Faber currently serves as the first Chief Experience Officer for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). She leads the design of consistent, connected, and sustainable care experiences delivered across the country with dignity. Ariele oversees the full scope of the CMS Experience portfolio, translating what the public and the agency’s workforce need, feel, and value into opportunities to co-create best-in-class products, services, programs, and policies.  

Prior to this role, Ariele was a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the General Services Administration (GSA) across two Administrations where she led federal-wide initiatives focused on Human-Centered IT Modernization, Digital Health, and Building a Future of Work through a Culture of Care. Earlier on, Ariele worked across startups, small businesses, non-profits, and corporations specializing in experience design for healthcare and life sciences.  

Ariele holds a Bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College, where she studied Neuroscience and Architecture; a Master of Science in Healthcare & Design from Imperial College London; and a certificate in Climate Change and Health from Yale School of Public Health. 

Aditi Mallick, MD

Acting Director, Office of Minority Health
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Aditi Mallick, M.D. is the Acting Director of the CMS Office of Minority Health (OMH), whose mission is to lead the advancement and integration of health equity in the development, evaluation, and implementation of CMS’s policies, programs, and partnerships. Prior to joining OMH, Dr. Mallick served as Chief Medical Officer for the CMS Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, where she led the Center’s clinical strategy and cross-center work on health equity, social determinants of health, and innovation in whole-person care among other areas. 

Before joining CMCS, Dr. Mallick led the COVID-19 Response Command Center for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) where she oversaw strategic and operational efforts around vaccination, testing, case investigation, and contact tracing statewide. A core focus of her COVID-19 work was ensuring equitable access and improving outcomes for historically marginalized populations. 

Her previous experience includes working closely with a range of healthcare stakeholders across the public and private sectors – including state Medicaid agencies, provider organizations, managed care organizations, and other payors – focusing on strategy, innovation, and data-driven change implementation. Her prior federal experience also includes serving as a Senior Medical Advisor in the Office of the Administrator at CMS, where she focused on MACRA implementation, value-based payment in Medicare fee-for-service, clinician engagement, and clinician burden reduction. Dr. Mallick continues to care for patients and brings that experience to her work at CMS. She earned her A.B. with honors from Harvard College, her M.D. from Stanford University School of Medicine, and completed internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Sean Michael, MD, MBA

Regional Chief Medical Officer
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Dr. Sean Michael is a board-certified and actively practicing emergency physician with dual-board certification in clinical informatics. He serves as Regional Chief Medical Officer for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Denver office, focusing on the implementation of CMS programs and policy, including Medicare, Medicaid, Marketplace plans, and the agency’s health access and equity initiatives across the Mountain West. As a senior medical advisor for CMS programs in the region, he provides clinical expertise around payment, policy, quality improvement, survey/enforcement operations, contracted health plans, and data analytics, and he serves as the principal liaison with the clinical community. He also helps lead CMS agency-wide work on EMTALA, emergency department boarding and crowding, acute behavioral health care, and acute care of older adults. 

Dr. Michael was previously the Emergency Department Clinical and Medical Director at the University of Colorado Hospital, the highest-volume ED in the region, and he practices clinically and serves on faculty as an Associate Professor the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He also previously served as the data science lead to help co-found a large medical education technology company and remains active in teaching both medical trainees and healthcare leaders. He grew up in Denver and had a public safety background prior to attending medical school at the University of Colorado. He completed residency training at Detroit Receiving Hospital and fellowship training in healthcare administration, operations, and quality at the University of Massachusetts, where he also earned an MBA. His academic research has focused on hospital flow and crowding, opioid safety and opioid use disorder treatment, clinical decision support, and workflow design. He has authored more than 25 publications and 40 scientific abstracts and has been invited as a speaker or quality improvement expert for many healthcare organizations across the country. 

Jean Moody-Williams, RN, MPP

Deputy Director, Center for Clinical Standards and Quality
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Jean D. Moody-Williams, RN, MPP, is the current Deputy Center Director for the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ) at the Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (CMS). She has served under multiple administrations in the Senior Executive Service (SES) Corp.  She currently is a part of a leadership team responsible for one of CMS’ Centers that has nearly 800 employees and a $3 billion annual budget. She is responsible for leading quality improvement, value based purchasing, delivery system reform, and kidney health activities.  She is also responsible for the execution of inspections for thousands of the nation’s healthcare providers to ensure compliance with health and safety requirements for over 90 million people.  She works to ensure better healthcare, healthier populations and smarter spending of healthcare dollars. More recently, she serves on the CCSQ Coronavirus Integrated Project Team, in response to the pandemic, to prevent and mitigate the transmission of COVID-19 for more than 18 different healthcare settings.   

Prior to joining CMS, Ms. Moody-Williams served as an executive at a number of state and private entities working to improve care for patients and families including, the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC), the National Resource Center for Health Policy and Strategies, Quality Improvement Organizations and a health care system in Dallas. She is a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing working to prepare the next generation of leaders in healthcare transformation. 

Jean has devoted her entire professional career to improving the care provided to patients and supporting families, leading many of the patient and family engagement efforts at CMS in order to bring the voice of the patient to the forefront of policy and program decisions. She is the author of a textbook for healthcare providers entitled, A Journey towards Patient-Centered Healthcare Quality Patients, Families and Caregivers, Voices of Transformation. She is also the author of the book entitled, Transitions, Trust and Triumph: A Daily Devotion for Caregivers, which provides inspiration, encouragement and resources for those caring for a loved one or that recently lost a loved one. 

She is a recipient of the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal awarded by the Partnership for Public Service and was recognized as the Federal Employee of the Year. Ms. Moody-Williams is also the recipient of the 2016 President of the United States Meritorious Rank Award and the 2018 President of the United States Distinguished Service Rank Award. The Presidential awards are one of the highest given to Senior Executives that have demonstrated unparalleled leadership skills and a strong dedication to achieving tangible results. She is also the recipient of the 2020 CMS Executive of the Year awarded by the CMS Administrator for leadership. She received her Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Hampton University and a Masters of Public Policy and Management from the University of Maryland, College Park. 

Ashby Wolfe, MD, MPP, MPH

Regional Chief Medical Officer
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS Seattle & CMS San Francisco)

Dr. Ashby Wolfe is a board-certified family physician and serves as Regional Chief Medical Officer for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) offices in Seattle and San Francisco. Dr. Wolfe has served as a CMS Regional Chief Medical Officer since 2015, focusing on the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid policy across the Western United States and the Pacific Territories (AK, ID, OR, WA, AZ, CA, HI, NV, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). As a senior medical advisor for CMS programs in the West, she provides clinical expertise to the divisions of Medicare and Medicaid payment policy, quality improvement, survey operations, contracted health plans and serves as a principal liaison with the clinical community. Dr. Wolfe also serves as co-lead of the CMS Acute Hospital Care at Home Initiative, as extended by Congress, following the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. 

Dr. Wolfe completed her medical degree at Stony Brook School of Medicine in New York, and her residency training at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, California. She also holds a Master of Public Policy and a Master of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Wolfe has practiced broad-scope family medicine in academic, integrated and community clinical settings over the course of her career. She holds medical licenses in both the State of California and the State of Washington, and currently serves as a member of her local HHS medical reserve corps. She has a particular interest in improving the quality and equity of care for underserved and low-income populations. She has published on the CMS Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver experience as well as multiple articles on Medicare and Medicaid policy and is a contributing author of the public health text Prevention is Primary (Jossey-Bass). In her free time, she enjoys hiking, swimming, and traveling with her husband and two children. 

Lotte Dyrbye, MD, MHPE

Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Chief Well-being Officer

University of Colorado School of Medicine

Dr. Dyrbye is Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Chief Well-being Officer at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and is a thought leader in physician burnout and engagement. She has conducted numerous national and multi-institutional studies, conducted randomized clinical trials of possible solutions, and been an innovator. Dr. Dyrbye is frequently invited to give presentations both nationally and internationally and has authored >130 journal articles, abstracts and other written publications related to physician well-being.  She has received 11 competitive research grants to support her work and co-developed the Well-Being Index and an interactive web-tool that provides a validated instrument for self-assessment, access to tailored resources, and organization level reports with comparisons to national norm. Dr. Dyrbye is a member of National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience and co-authored the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus study report, Taking Action Against Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being, was released in the fall of 2019.  The report calls upon leaders in health care organizations to prioritize major improvements in clinical work environments to prevent and mitigate clinician burnout and foster professional well-being.