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Kerry R. Hicks, MS
President & CEO, HealthGrades
Mr. Hicks is a founder and the current President and Chief Executive Officer of HealthGrades, Inc. Prior to filling his current roles at HealthGrades, Mr. Hicks was President and Chief Executive Officer of HealthGrades’ predecessor company, Specialty Care Network, Inc. From 1985 to 1995, he served as Senior Vice President of LBA Healthcare Management.
Under Mr. Hicks’ stewardship, HealthGrades has gained national recognition as the leader in providing healthcare information to consumers via the Internet. Millions of consumers and hundreds of the nation's largest employers, health plans and hospitals rely on HealthGrades' independent ratings and decision-support resources to make healthcare decisions based on the quality of care. Not only has HealthGrades received numerous awards for excellence, but Mr. Hicks has also received numerous awards during his time at HealthGrades, including recognition as the 2000 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year in the e-business category for the Rocky Mountain Region.
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Michael Apkon, MD, PhD, MBA
Vice President - Performance Management, Yale New Haven Health System
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine
Dr. Apkon has extensive experience in healthcare management and is an expert in the fields of clinical quality improvement and the use of informatics technology in healthcare. He continues to practice in the Pediatric Critical Care Unit at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital and his current administrative position entails oversight of Clinical and Operational Improvements across the entire Yale New Haven Health System. Dr. Apkon has been honored with a number of nationally-recognized clinical and administrative awards, and his research continues to be published in a variety of major industry journals.
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Paul D. Cleary, MS, PhD
Professor of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health
Dr. Cleary has published over 200 research articles related to understanding relationships between clinical and organizational characteristics and the quality of medical care, and the development of better methods for using patient reports about their care and health status. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and chair of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research. Dr. Cleary has won numerous awards, and is Principal Investigator of one of the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Studies (CAHPS) funded by the AHRQ.
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Richard N. Foster, MS, PhD
Managing Partner, Foster Health Partners
Prior to forming Foster Health Partners, Dr. Foster was a Senior Partner and Director of McKinsey & Company. Dr. Foster co-founded McKinsey’s high technology practice in the late ‘70s, the chemicals practice in the early ‘80s, the healthcare practice in the late ‘80s, and the private equity practice in the ‘90s. Dr. Foster has written two best selling business books: “Innovation: The Attacker’s Advantage” (1986) and “Creative Destruction” (2001), and serves on the Boards of Directors of a number of health and science-based organizations.
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Leslie V. Norwalk, Esq.
Deputy Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Ms. Norwalk directs the implementation of the hundreds of changes to be made under the Medicare Modernization Act. Ms. Norwalk also continues to direct the day-to-day operations of Medicare, Medicaid, Child Health Insurance Programs, Survey and Certification of health care facilities and other federal health care initiatives, such as physician referral regulations, HIPAA and EMTALA. Prior to serving the Bush Administration, she practiced law in the Washington, D.C. office of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. and also served in the first Bush administration in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. Ms. Norwalk earned her JD from the George Mason University School of Law and her bachelor’s degree in economics and international relations from Wellesley College.
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James Sherblom, MBA
Managing General Partner, Seaflower Ventures
Mr. Sherblom has 20 years experience in senior executive roles in the biopharmaceutical industry and in investing in early-stage life science companies. He founded Seaflower Ventures in 1993 to invest his own personal capital and to provide hands-on advice to biotech start-ups. Mr. Sherblom is a founder and past President of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MBC). From 1984-1989, Mr. Sherblom served at Genzyme as Senior Vice President Finance and Administration, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, after which he joined Transgenic Sciences, Inc. as its Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer.
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| Ethical Baggage – New Technologies and End-of-Life Care |
Innumerable ethical questions have emerged as technological advancements have been made in the field of end-of-life care. Most recently, in the Schiavo case, was the question of who has ultimate decision making power in undirected cases - the legislature, the courts, the guardian, or the desiring caretaker? A second set of emergent questions pertains to the best use of medical technology/funds during end-of-life care. Should these efforts be allocated to cases likely having better results? In this session, we seek to determine the best process to answer these questions. Realistically, how should we ethically and socially approach them? Case-by-case basis? Always ignore non-vital constraints?
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| Equity, Excellence, and Ethics – The Challenges of Medical Innovation |
New technologies, ranging from enhanced administrative systems to emerging pharmaceuticals, have dramatically improved many lives. However, technological developments have a variety of social, economic and ethical implications that must not go unrecognized. Emerging medical technology often fails to reach the vast numbers, has been viewed as a prime factor in increasing the cost of healthcare, is often overused and misused, and is no guarantee of good health. Are we really getting the “bang for our buck”? Can medical innovation improve healthcare quality while at the same time decrease disparities? Can political will or changes in areas such as physician reimbursement, technology assessment, or education assist selective technology usage?
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| Healthcare Education and Structure: Are We Training with Industrial-Age Tools? |
Updates and innovations in disease treatments, health policy and healthcare coverage can take us only so far. Healthcare providers – doctors, nurses, medical assistants, et al – complete the circle of care. But do these providers gain the necessary tools through their formal education to tackle the industry-wide issues that we face today and will face in the future? Are the structure and curricula of our schools trapped in the Industrial Age? Do continuing education courses keep up with the rapid changes in technology? Finally, are we teaching future healthcare providers innovative “problem-solving” techniques to equip them to tackle new, unforeseen healthcare challenges of the future?
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| Legislative and Media Scrutiny of the Healthcare Enterprise: Does Either Add Value? |
While the United States legislature and American media outlets are a cornerstone of society due to their ability to inform the public, it is unarguable that at times they bring undue stress to organizations or situations. Implicit in their role is the idea of molding public perception, and herein we ask - how much value does each add to the healthcare enterprise? Does such scrutiny benefit American society through remedying unjust causes or does the scrutiny damange healthcare organizations to an undeserving extent? Is martyrdom a good thing, or does it simply increase the stresses of and bureaucracy in related organizations?
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| Patient Privacy and Care Quality: How Mutually Exclusive Are They? |
Quality of care is definitively impacted by the depth and accuracy of patient information available to providers and medical-decision makers (e.g. legal guardians or proxy decision makers). This results in tension between a clinician’s or clinical decision maker’s “need to know” and a patient’s right to privacy. In this session, we ask the question – could care quality be enhanced if information were more freely available, ignoring the constraints that emerge with privacy demands? In this era of expanded privacy and security concerns, how much does the social environment hinder the care process? To what extent should clinicians or decision makers be informed about patient information that they see as essential but the patient has not given access to? What role does the regulatory environment play in this debate? Example cases will be utilized during the session to spur discussion on topical matters.
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| Pay-for-Performance: Possibility or Pipe Dream? |
Pay-for-Performance (P4P) programs return financial incentives to those physicians that attain preset goals and those organizations that go above and beyond elementary clinical systems. Such a program, however, raises many questions. Do physicians have a disincentive to take-on high risk patients? Are major physician practices and urban medical centers rewarded for simply meeting their obligations? This session will be an opportunity to explore the feasibility of P4P and necessary conditions for its success. Ultimately: can P4P work in the long-term or will a new method emerge?
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| Prioritizing Health Solutions: Individual Care vs. Social Good |
A plethora of research has been completed in recent years that seeks to optimize healthcare practices. Whether it be the usage of hurdle rates in admitting patients to the Intensive Care Unit or the use of medical technology and funds during end-of-life care, the studies seek to maximize quality of life, lives saved, or a variety of similar variables. However, the conclusions from this research do not always parallel the ideals of the American value system. What should rule in these cases? Is it right to deny one individual care in order to assist many potential others?
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| The Prospects of An American Nationalized Health System |
The American healthcare system currently operates as a complex pluralistic, private, multi-payer system with varying reimbursement procedures and criteria. Recently, however, many have questioned whether the United States can devise a nationalized healthcare system, such as in Great Britain, financed through general taxes and with reimbursements made by a single payer. Would America then suffer from the same problems that plague such nationalized systems - inadequate supply of services and considerable inefficiencies? Would these drawbacks be overcome by the access increases it likely offers? If the benefits do outweigh the costs, why have attempts to nationalize American healthcare failed to date? Is it a complex but desirable system, or one that only works in theory?
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| Scanning the Future of Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology |
The future success of Big Pharma’s blockbuster drug business model is increasingly uncertain. Meanwhile, the promise of biotechological therapies has arrived. What does this changing landscape mean for the healthcare industry? This session seeks to investigate the impact of several shifts in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. For instance, will the current sales and marketing structure remain intact in an era of targeted therapies? Are drug development costs sustainable if the markets for targeted therapies are smaller, but prices are constrained? Who will be the leading companies in the next decade?
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| The Uninsured: How Big Is the Problem, and Is There a Practical Solution? |
We have all heard the statistics: Nearly 45 million Americans are uninsured; eight in ten of these uninsured Americans come from working families; nearly 12 of the 45 million are children; uninsured adults are at least 4 times as likely as the insured to report delaying or foregoing needed health services. Nevertheless, how much of a negative role does all of this really play in the economy and in our societal health? While public and private insurers are all developing models to deal with the question of how best to provide access and funding of care to the uninsured, is a feasible solution even possible? If so, in what direction is it? If not, what should the end goal be?
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