Virtual-First Care West

Joe Connolly is the co-founder and CEO of Visana Health, a virtual-first gynecology clinic he founded from his mother’s experience with endometriosis. Joe’s worked in the virtual-first care space for nearly a decade, including in clinical evidence development, economic evidence development, sales, implementations, and product. Joe’s a founding member of IMPACT, the virtual-first medical practice collaboration committed to supporting virtual-first care companies and their commitment to improving patient outcomes.

Previous to founding Visana, he worked in digital health at Boston Scientific, where he created and scaled a virtual-first digital healthcare solution to health systems. Joe’s a thought leader in the virtual care space and publishes a popular blog on virtual-first care. Joe has a BS in Bioengineering from Clemson and an MEng in Biomedical Engineering from Duke.

Zach Hochstetler is the Vice President of Coding and Payment in the American Medical Association’s Health Solutions business unit. Zach’s work is focused on leading the AMA’s CPT and Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment strategy, innovation, and expansion efforts by working with AMA key stakeholders to deliver essential, trusted data. In addition, he provides strategic direction and leadership to ensure the continued evolution and growth of AMA content ensuring AMA is the acknowledged leader in setting standards for and providing information on procedure coding and the evaluation of permanent impairment.

Mary is a corporate strategy consultant for Blue Cross Blue Shield Rhode (BCBSRI) Island with a
passion for digital health, virtual first care, and building opportunities to bring innovative
solutions to consumers at scale. In her current role, she helps guide enterprise strategy, capital
investments, and cross-segment innovation spanning Commercial, Medicaid, and Medicare
markets.
She previously served as Lead Digital Product Strategist for BCBSRI, overseeing Commercial
product innovation, vendor partnerships, and go-to-market management. She was at the
forefront of developing a new suite of virtually-enabled women’s health and fertility offerings.
Before entering the payer space, Mary was a Strategy and Business Development Associate at
Boston Children’s Hospital. She identified and built strategic partnerships between the hospital
and external institutions, driving inorganic growth goals and improving the patient experience.
She is a part-time lecturer at the Boston University School of Public Health, where she has
assisted in teaching over 200 Masters of Public Health candidates in various courses, including
Digital Disruption in Healthcare, Strategic Management of Healthcare Organizations, and
Healthcare Delivery Systems.
Mary earned her MPH from Boston University, specializing in healthcare management and
maternal and child health. She also holds a BA in Public Health from Roger Williams University.

Kara Ellinger is a proactive and results-driven product, innovation and business development leader experienced in working for start-ups and established organizations in the health care and technology industries.

In her role at Elevance Health, Kara is responsible for the development of the commercial business unit’s virtual care ecosystem delivering a full-spectrum of care services from urgent to preventive, specialty and behavioral health care. Her goal is to provide employers and consumers with more affordable and convenient access to health care through simple, intuitive web and mobile platforms that personalize the care experience and deliver on price transparency. To improve care coordination, her team is working to integrate data sharing between virtual and traditional providers. She envisions a future where care is delivered more efficiently and cost effectively through advanced analytics and AI models that support providers in more rapidly assessing a patient’s whole health and care needs. This includes creating a simplified care model where consumers can seamlessly transition between virtual and in-person care just as they do when they purchase other goods and services.

Prior to Elevance Health, Kara spent over 11 years at UnitedHealthcare in roles spanning consumer engagement strategy, innovation and business development in the company’s Commercial and Medicare lines of business.

As a leader, Kara is recognized for mentoring and motivating others to deliver their best by creating a positive and collaborative team culture in which ideas and individuals can grow. Kara holds an MBA from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. She lives in Plymouth, MN with her husband and two boys. When she’s not working, Kara embraces her own health and wellbeing through downhill skiing, yoga, gardening and traveling.

Michael spends his time and energy leading the Digital Health Institute for Transformation (DHIT) a 501(C-3) that supports communities through the process of digital transformation.

Michael is an experienced healthcare executive turned entrepreneur, with a purpose-driven mindset. He is on a path to unite culture, process, people, and technology to create a new healthcare operating system for the 21st century. Michael has held leadership roles as Vice Chair of Administration for the Department of Medicine at the University of Miami Health System, Director of Clinical Operations for UNC Health Care’s specialty ambulatory clinics, as well as several other leadership roles at UCLA Health within various clinical departments. Michael has also served as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the Center for Health Innovation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he designed and developed their Digital Health Program in support of UNC’s Digital Transformation strategy. As an entrepreneur, Michael was COO of Digital Therapy, a cognitive computing platform powered by IBM Watson in the behavioral health space. He is Co-founder of Bluedoor Group, a digital health growth and innovation agency.

Michael earned his BS in Neuroscience from Tulane University and his MBA from Elon University.

Dr. Sarah Schenck is the medical director of Virtualist Medicine for ChristianaCare’s Center for Virtual Health. A primary care physician with a track record of driving successful clinical care transformation, Dr. Schenck is an expert in delivering whole-person, patient- centered care within a team-based setting. Under Dr. Schenck’s leadership, ChristianaCare was the first health system in Delaware to earn certification as a multi-site Patient Centered Medical Home from the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Dr. Schenck also has played a significant role during the COVID-19 pandemic, and currently serves as medical director for health system’s virtual COVID-19 practice, monoclonal antibodies COVID-19 treatment program, and virtual COVID-19 recovery clinic.

Omer Liran, MD is an Assistant Professor at Cedars-Sinai where he co-directs Virtual Medicine and cares for patients on the psychiatry consult and liaison service. ​Academically, Dr. Liran is studying how to leverage the unique properties of virtual and augmented reality (XR) technologies to improve outcomes in patient care. He has also been using XR together with EEG to study neural mechanisms that underly human behaviors and psychiatric pathologies. Dr. Liran has an extensive programming background which enables him to code and quickly iterate XR experiences based on patient feedback.

Sheena D. Franklin is the Founder and CEO of K’ept Health. K’ept Health is a health tech company reimagining how patients receive and manage their care through AI-assisted telehealth. Starting with dermatology, K’ept Health provides care with a root-cause, whole-person approach focusing on data, technology, and real doctor-patient relationships. Before starting K’ept Health, she worked as a senior government relations and strategic communications director within the healthcare industry for some of the nation’s leading trade associations and Fortune 50 companies. She currently, is a member of the Consumer Technology Association’s AI in Healthcare Working Group and the Women’s High Tech Coalition, an advisory committee to the Congressional High Tech Coalition. She has a master’s degree from The George Washington University and is a graduate of Clark-Atlanta University.

Jill FitzGerald, MSW, LICSW, Senior Vice President of Clinical Operations at Confidant Health is a clinical leader and operations expert. She has designed and implemented innovative care-team models across multiple states and care settings to align high-quality behavioral health service delivery with value-based payments. At Confidant Health, Jill is designing the future of virtual care for addiction by leveraging both her clinical expertise and the use of technology to support data-driven care-team model design, implementation, and intervention efficacy. Jill has over 20 years of experience working, innovating, and teaching in the behavioral health space. She received her bachelor’s degree in Social Work from the University of Vermont, and her master’s degree in Clinical Social Work with a Specialization in Law from Fordham University.

Timothy Law, DO is Chief Medical Officer, Vice President Integrative Care Delivery at Highmark. Dr. Law leads efforts on Living Health Solutions Collaborations, the Clinical Quality Governance Committee, the Utilization Management Prior Authorization team, Federal Employee Program and VBR – True Performance. He began as a member of the Medical Policy Team, where he drove completion of HM CED (Coverage with Evidence) policy to allow better access to new technology for our strategic partners and our members. He now leads the Medical Policy Team as part of his direct reporting structure in Clinical Services. He also serves as chairman of the Care Management and Quality Committee.

Dr. Law is telehealth lead on Highmark’s Covid-19 Command Center team, and led the team in the organization of adding over 1000 codes for inclusion in the coverage policy during the pandemic, helping to bring virtual care to patients in the midst of a pandemic. A board certified physician with two decades of clinical experience, Dr. Law serves as the Medical Director and Principal Investigator of the Ohio Musculoskeletal and Neurological Institute (OMNI) at Ohio University with multiple NIH grants funding research in healthy aging and wellness.

Dr. Law is in active clinical practice as a rural Family Doctor in Central Ky. He uses virtual health and house calls to perform full service family medicine to include obstetrics and minor orthopedic and dermatologic surgeries.

In addition, he has an aesthetics practice for over 15 years. Trained by vascular surgeons at the Chandler Medical Center in Lexington, KY. He also took his post graduate aesthetics training at the Pfenninger Procedural Institute nearly 20 years ago. He currently does traveling Botox and Filler parties around the country and is collaborating medical director for his aesthetics practice in Beverly Hills, CA.

Dr. Law earned his medical degree from Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, and an MBA in Health Care Management from Indiana Wesleyan University. He completed family medicine residency at Ireland Army Community Hospital, Fort Knox, KY.

Rory Farrand serves as the Vice President of Palliative and Advanced Care for NHPCO and is a seasoned healthcare executive who brings more than 20 years of proven health care successes in focus areas including palliative care, geriatric primary and acute care, geriatric psychiatry, assisted living management, Alzheimer’s/dementia care, clinical health care management and operations, clinical research, innovative program development, nursing, and training.

Prior to NHPCO, Ms. Farrand supported the palliative care initiatives of VITAS Healthcare, as the National Director of VITAS Palliative Care. In that role, she worked to improve and expand palliative care for VITAS patients, families, and health care providers. Her key objectives included development of VITAS’ community-based palliative care initiatives (including a bespoke digital application to support clinician billing and to determine clinical risk), education and training to raise clinicians’ expertise related to goals-of-care conversations, as well as serving as an industry advocate for legislative and regulatory action toward community-based palliative care delivery models.

Ms. Farrand’s career has included a role as Vice President of Medical Management for Centene Corporation’s PA Health and Wellness, serving Pennsylvania—a position that included national program development for projects on palliative care and social determinants of health. She previously served as Vice President of Clinical Learning & Development and Regional VP of Clinical Operations for PA/WV for Aspire Health, with multistate oversight of dispersed interdisciplinary teams providing high-quality palliative care.

By background and training, Ms. Farrand is a board-certified adult nurse practitioner with an MSN focused on geriatric and adult health. Additionally, she holds an advanced practice certificate in palliative care, a BA in Psychology, an MS in Behavioral Neuroscience, and an MA in Art Therapy. She has worked as both a Nurse Practitioner and an Art Therapist. She is active in multiple professional organizations, including HPNA (Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association) and the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association. Rory enjoys baking, yoga, reading, and spending time with her sons.

Gaurav Shivhare serves as Head of Products, enterprise virtual care at CVS Health, where he leads teams in the strategy, development, & delivery of new and innovative virtual care products and services. Most recently he led the launch of B2B virtual primary care offering at national scale.

Before his current role, Gaurav was the founding team member of HealthHUBs, an intrapreneurial & strategic enterprise initiative, where he led the technology product strategy, development, and investments. Prior to CVS, Gaurav was a leader at PwC consulting where he collaborated with multiple organizations across the healthcare landscape (national & regional payors, providers, retail health, and pharmaceuticals) and led various strategic initiatives at the intersection of Healthcare, business, and technology.

Gaurav is passionate about building new and innovative digital health businesses/ solutions to solve complex healthcare industry issues. He earned his MBA from Wharton business school at University of Pennsylvania and Bachelor of Engineering from BVP, Pune.

Dr. Matthew Lomeli is a family medicine physician. He
previously served as Site Medical Director for the Huntington
Beach and Anaheim Clinics. Dr. Lomeli brings a wealth of
experience and provides much needed support and guidance to the
various clinical functions within the Patient Service Center
including Message Management, our patient portal, Centralized
Inbox Management Team, and the on-demand telehealth service.
Furthermore, he serves on the Peer Review Board and started our
telehealth program, as well as circumcision and dermatology
programs for primary care providers and teaches both areas to providers, residents, and
medical students. He previously served as the Hypertension and Diabetes Champion,
where he helped re-write the organization’s care guidelines. Dr. Lomeli graduated from
Whittier College, earning his BA in Biology, and went on to complete medical school at
The Ohio State University. His professional experience includes serving as a Peace Corps
volunteer in El Salvador and completing his Family Medicine Residency in the Navy at
Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton. Dr. Lomeli served eight years for the U.S. Navy as both a
Flight Surgeon and family physician prior to working for AltaMed.

Erika Seth Davies is the CEO of Rhia Ventures, which aims to transform the U.S. market for sexual, reproductive, and maternal health into a vibrant and equitable one through its impact investing, ecosystem building, corporate engagement, and narrative change work. She is a seasoned leader with more than 20 years of experience in development and fundraising, program design, collaboration and partnership management, and racial equity advocacy. Erika is the Founder of The Racial Equity Asset Lab (The REAL), a venture that centers racial equity in impact investing and works to shift capital to address the persistent racial wealth gap. She previously served as Vice President of External Affairs at ABFE (Association of Black Foundation Executives) where she designed the SMART Investing Initiative, a field-wide effort to encourage foundations to incorporate a racial equity lens in endowment management practices through increased access for racially diverse- and women-owned investment management firms.

Erika was a Social Entrepreneur in Residence with Common Future and a former Fellow, Equitable Access to Capital Markets in the Fair Finance portfolio of the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University. She was a member of the inaugural class of the ABFE Connecting Leaders Fellowship program, a recipient of the NYU Wagner School of Public Service IGNITE Fellowship for Women of Color in the Social Sector, and a member of the class of 2017 for Executive Leadership Institute of CFLeads.

Erika was previously the Associate Director of Philanthropy at McDonogh School and served as the Chief of Staff of the Baltimore Community Foundation. She enjoys volunteering and serves as a member of the board of Impact Hub Baltimore.

Additional positions and activities include serving on the McDonogh School Board, the T. Rowe Price Charitable Board, Glenmede’s Sustainable and Impact Investing Advisory Council, the Investment Committee for the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Impact Investing Committee of the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, and the Repower Investment Advisory Committee.

Her most significant role is that of mother to Ethan and Evelyn.

As VP of TeleAcute and Respiratory Care – Midwest, Cindy is responsible for oversight of the development, implementation and evaluation of telemedicine via the TeleICU, Central Telemetry Center for IL, Virtual Patient Advocate (telesitter) and Virtual Nurse programs for Advocate Health Midwest Region (AHMWR). In this capacity for over 17 years, Ms. Welsh collaborates with AHMWRs 25 hospital, 34 ICU and its outreach sites’ clinical managers and medical directors to improve patient safety and outcomes via various clinical and process improvement initiatives in the ICUs and acute patient care units. Additionally, Cindy has administrative responsibility for Respiratory Care services, for the Midwest region. With a 35+ year nursing career, Cindy has contributed to patient care delivery redesign, nursing management and clinical practice. She holds a BSN and MBA from Lewis University, is a fellow for the American College of Healthcare Executives and a member of multiple professional organizations, including CHIEF.

Tifanie is a registered nurse and biologist with specialty certifications in wound and ostomy care. Over the past 15 years, she has worked in a variety of health care settings, spending the majority of her career educating fellow nursing and ancillary staff on pressure injury prevention, product selection and cost efficiency with wound and ostomy related issues.  ​She has worked in multiple hospitals and wound centers on the east coast and as a travel nurse on both the east and west coast. Currently, Tifanie is working in her favorite setting, home health, spearheading a telehealth wound and ostomy program providing clinician to clinician consults in the patient home bringing remote expert wound care to patients in three states. Tifanie provides lectures to local colleges and universities, and community outreach education on these topics. She has presented her work at multiple national conferences highlighting the value of home health wound experts related to improved patient outcomes. While she has always worked to advocate for best patient care, Tifanie considers herself a Nurse & Caregiver Advocate first and foremost and hopes to assist all caregivers in improving their confidence on skin related issues.

Dr. Erkeda DeRouen stands as a changemaker in healthcare innovation, as a triple-board certified physician executive leader within the evolving realm of digital health. She serves as the Chief Medical Officer of the women’s health startup, Emme. As a healthcare consultant, she’s working to prioritize quality, compliance, risk management, and health equity. With notable collaborations that include unicorn founders and a hand in technologies now surpassing $1 billion in value, Dr. DeRouen’s impact extends beyond business: she’s the voice behind the influential podcast The Prospective Doctor, a two-time best-selling co-author, and the visionary behind the popular TEDx talk seen by >100k called “Did Disney Just Save Healthcare? Imagine This.” Dr. DeRouen is on a mission to redefine healthcare for the digital age, ensuring it’s efficient, safe, and accessible to all.

Randy is currently the Chief Commercial Officer at Oshi Health, a virtual first GI clinic that is transforming care for people living with digestive health issues.   Most recently he was the Chief Commercial Officer at Path Mental Health. Prior to Path he was the Vice President of Government and Labor at Livongo (acquired by Teladoc) and led their commercial efforts focused on expanding Livongo’s presence in the public and labor sector.  He was the first commercial employee at Livongo and held a variety of commercial leadership positions as Livongo grew, went public, and then merged with Teladoc. Randy is also an investor and commercial advisor for several digital health companies including WellTheory, Tuned, Flowy, Hone Health and Posterity Health  He has spent most of his career helping to build digital health companies looking to bend the cost curve in the healthcare system, improve care, while also reshaping the physician, patient/member experience. Randy holds a B.A. in American Studies from Yale University and lives in Glencoe, IL with his wife and two daughters.

Dr. Reena Bhargava, MD, FACP, is a practicing Internist with Board certifications in Internal Medicine, Clinical Informatics, and Lifestyle Medicine. Reena is the Medical Director of Kaiser’s Appointment & Advice Call Center which serves over 4 million patients with their telehealth needs. Reena also serves as
a Councilor on the Santa Clara County Medical Association.
Reena is passionate about building efficient, clinically safe patient care systems for telehealth, supported by innovative digital technologies. She has been a lead physician for developing clinical decision support tools for Kaiser’s telehealth platform. This platform uses data driven, evidence-based
medicine to provide safe, efficient and excellent patient care.
Reena has also developed many innovative digital care-delivery tools, including electronic physician visits (e-Visits). Her work on e-Visits and their efficacy has been published in the prestigious publication,
JAMA.
Reena is a researcher and has published extensively in leading medical journals. Earlier in her career she trained at Stanford University School of Medicine as an NIH Fellow in Endocrinology with a focus on Insulin Resistance and Metabolic Syndrome. From 2006 to 2015, she was a Clinical Assistant Professor (Affiliated) of Medicine at Stanford. Reena has also been a leader in women’s health, developing a Healthy Bones program to screen some
hundreds of thousands of women for osteoporosis. She has presented her research on osteoporosis, gender bias in lipid management, and domestic/intimate partner violence at International and National Medical conferences.

Dr Rutledge is a board certified Internist and Emergency Physician who has practiced and taught medicine for more than 30 years. Geoff founded HealthTap to deliver the highest quality, most effective, most convenient, and least expensive healthcare to everyone on their mobile devices, from anywhere. He earned a PhD in medical computer science from Stanford, was an NIH-funded researcher, and served on faculty at Harvard, Stanford, and UCSD medical schools. After leaving academia, he created the first consumer health website and PHR at WebMD(Healtheon), was SVP of Clinical Transformation at First Consulting Group, CMIO at San Mateo Medical Center, and EVP, Product Development & Chief Medical Officer at Epocrates. Currently, he is responsible for HealthTap’s doctor network and medical groups. 

Geoff is also an avid pilot of hang gliders and experimental aircraft, SCUBA diver, and photographer.