Becker's Hospital Review

Save the date! Becker's Hospital Review 6th Annual Meeting — May 7-9, 2015 — Chicago. Please call 800-417-2035 to register. 24 places Google tested its wearable computer Google Glass was in operating rooms to improve surgeries, and many hospitals are experimenting with ways to incorporate the technology into their functions. Also, in 2014, Google launched its mobile health and fitness tracking platform, Google Fit. Google's next big data project, Baseline Study, aims at discovering indicators of health to help physicians better identify and predict disease. And, finally, Google researchers are working on a cancer-detecting pill. With all these healthcare-focused projects, Mr. Page and Google are poised to influence the industry in a major way. Neal Patterson. Mr. Patterson co-founded a compa- ny in 1979 with two colleagues that has now grown into the largest independent health information technology company in the nation — Cerner. Mr. Patterson is Cerner's chairman and CEO. Under his leadership, Cerner has made major moves recently, including a planned $1.3 billion acquisition of Sie- mens Health Services (expected to close in the first quarter of 2015) and breaking ground on a $4.45 billion, 4.7 million-square-foot campus in Kansas City, Mo. In 2014, Cerner landed on Forbes' annual list of the world's most innovative publicly traded companies at No. 22. In addition to co-founding Cerner, Mr. Patterson also co-founded the First Hand Foundation, a nonprofit organization provid- ing assistance to kids with critical health needs. Chief Justice John Roberts. Chief Justice John Roberts was nominated to be chief justice of the United States by President George W. Bush and took his seat in September 2005. Since that time, he has had a major impact on healthcare in the U.S., as he cast the deciding vote in the 2012 Su- preme Court decision that upheld the PPACA but made Medicaid expansion optional for states. In 2014, the Supreme Court decided it will hear a lawsuit, King v. Burwell, challenging the legal- ity of the PPACA's tax subsidies for health insur- ance. Chief Justice Roberts will cast the swing vote in the case, again placing him in a position of power over the future of healthcare reform — if the subsidies are declared illegal, it would have a widespread effect on insurance markets and the healthcare industry. Chief Justice Roberts earned his law degree from Harvard Law School. Jeffrey Romoff. As an integrated $11 billion health system with more than 62,000 employees, UPMC in Pittsburgh is a healthcare giant both in Pennsyl- vania and in the U.S. overall — and Mr. Romoff is at its helm. He started his career at the University of Pittsburgh in 1973, became president of UPMC in 1992 and added CEO to his title in 2006. Mr. Romoff and his nonprofit system continuously make headlines. In 2014, UPMC and health insur- er Highmark resolved their contract dispute with a five-year transition plan, and the SEIU continued to seek to unionize Pennsylvania's largest employer. Despite the turmoil, UPMC's operating revenue rose to about $11.42 billion in its fiscal year ended June 30, 2014, up 12.1 percent from 2013. Scott Serota. Mr. Serota heads the BlueCross BlueShield Association, a federation of 37 inde- pendent Blue Cross Blue Shield companies, as president and CEO. The Blues system is the na- tion's largest health insurer, covering one in three Americans. More than 96 percent of hospitals in the U.S. contract with Blue companies for health- care delivery. Mr. Serota took on his current role in 2000 after serving as the Blues' COO for two years. Mr. Serota also has experience shaping pub- lic policy, as President George W. Bush appointed him to the Policy Committee of the White House Conference on Aging, and Mr. Serota also served as chairman of the Subcommittee on Health. Wayne Smith. Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, a for-profit hospital operator whose affiliates own, operate or lease 207 hospitals in 29 states, is led by Mr. Smith, who is chairman, presi- dent and CEO. In 2014, Mr. Smith oversaw the com- pletion of CHS' $7.6 billion acquisition of Naples, Fla.-based Health Management Associates. The deal made CHS the largest for-profit hospital operator in the nation. Beyond the HMA acquisition, Mr. Smith has led CHS through several other major projects, including a clinical quality alliance with Cleveland Clinic. Mr. Smith served as president and COO of Humana before joining CHS in 1997. Joseph Swedish. Mr. Swedish is one of the rare healthcare executives to make the jump from a provider organization to a payer organization. He was previously with Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health, but following that organization's merger with Newtown Square, Pa.-based Catholic Health East, he left to become CEO of Indianapolis-based Wellpoint, now called Anthem. Anthem is one of the nation's leading health benefits companies and is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Nearly 69 million people are served by its companies, including more than 37 million enrolled in its family of health plans. Marilyn Tavenner. After serving more than a year as acting administrator of CMS, Ms. Tavenner was confirmed by Congress as the administra- tor of CMS in the spring of 2013. She replaced Donald Berwick, MD, who resigned in December 2011. She was previously the principal deputy administrator of CMS. Now, Ms. Tavenner man- ages the $820 billion federal agency that ensures healthcare coverage for 100 million Americans. Before beginning her work with the government, she spent 25 years with Nashville, Tenn.-based Hospital Corporation of America, where she started as a nurse in one of the system's hospitals. In addition to her bachelor's degree in nursing, Ms. Tavenner also holds a master's degree in hos- pital administration. Anthony Tersigni, EdD. Dr. Tersigni is the first president and CEO of Ascension, a Catholic healthcare organization and parent of St. Louis- based Ascension Health, the largest Catholic and nonprofit health system in the U.S. The system has 131 hospitals and more than 30 senior care facilities in 23 states and Washington, D.C. Other Ascension subsidiaries focus on different service areas like biomedical engineering, treasury man- agement and venture capital investing. Ascension was formed in 2012 from a reorganization of As- cension Health, which was formed in 1999. Prior to becoming the first president and CEO of As- cension, Dr. Tersigni was president and CEO of Ascension Health. He also previously served as the system's executive vice president and COO. Kent Thiry. Mr. Thiry is the co-chairman and CEO of DaVita HealthCare Partners and CEO of Health- Care Partners. DaVita HealthCare Partners was formed when DaVita, a kidney care company, ac- quired HealthCare Partners, an operator of medical groups and physician networks, in 2012. During that merger, Mr. Thiry was DaVita's chairman and CEO, a position he took in October 1999. Now, he over- sees the newly formed organization that has roughly $12 billion in annual revenue. As of September 2014, DaVita Kidney Care providers served about 177,000 dialysis patients at 2,239 outpatient centers, and HealthCare Partners had 836,000 capitated mem- bers under its care as of September. Mr. Thiry holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Bernard Tyson. Mr. Tyson became chairman and CEO of Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente in 2013. His career with Kaiser, one of the na- tion's leading integrated healthcare providers and nonprofit health plans, spans roughly 30 years. As chairman and CEO, Mr. Tyson oversees a system with annual operating revenue of more than $55 billion. Under his leadership, Kaiser Permanente has taken strides in retail health, partnering with Target to open Target Clinics staffed by Kaiser Per- manente clinicians. In addition to leading Kaiser, Mr. Tyson serves on the board of directors of the American Heart Association and recently com- pleted his term as chair of the Executive Leadership Council, an organization of African-American se- nior executives from Fortune 500 companies. Rich Umbdenstock. Mr. Umbdenstock has led the American Hospital Association as president and CEO since 2007. The AHA is the largest hospital lobbying group in the nation, with more than 5,000 hospital and health system members and nearly $15 million spent on lobbying in 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In addition to leading the AHA, Mr. Umbdenstock is vice chair of the National Quality Forum, serves on the board of Enroll America and co-chairs the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare Provider Council, among other appointments. This will be Mr. Umb- denstock's last year leading the AHA, however, as he plans to retire at the end of 2015. James Weinstein, DO. Dr. Weinstein, an interna- tionally renowned spine surgeon, serves as presi- dent and CEO of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health System in Lebanon, N.H. He is a proponent of advancing "informed choice," making sure pa- tients receive evidence-based, appropriate care. In that stead, in 1999 he established the first-in- the-nation Center for Shared Decision Making at Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Before becoming CEO of the system, Dr. Weinstein was the president of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic and director of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, where he built links between The Dartmouth Institute's health services re- search and the clinic's clinical care. In 2014, he co-authored a piece in Health Affairs with Jona- than Skinner and Elliott Fisher, MD, titled "The 125 Percent Solution: Fixing Variations in Health Care Prices." In it, the authors advocate the idea of capping payments at 125 percent of Medicare rates everywhere in the country. n

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