Speakers
Introductory Speaker
David Durenberger, J.D. served as Senior United States Senator for Minnesota from 1978 to 1995. He serves now as Chairman of the National Institute of Health Policy (NIHP), a program of the University of St. Thomas. Senator Durenberger gained national health policy leadership as a 16-year member of the Senate Finance Committee plus six years as Health Subcommittee Chair. He served eight years on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and 12 years on the Environment Committee.
Today, he influences the future of the nation's two major public health programs as a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) and of the Kaiser Foundation Commission on the Future of Medicaid and the Uninsured. Senator Durenberger was recently named by Governor Tim Pawlenty to lead the Minnesota Citizens Forum on Health Care Costs, an inside-out approach to health care reform in Minnesota. He is Chair of Citizens for Long Term Care, whose goal is financing policy reform, and President of the Medical Technology Leadership Forum. With former Senate colleague Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Durenberger co-chairs America's Health Together. He also is a board member at the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA). He is author of Prescription for Change and Neither Madman Nor Messiahs and teaches and speaks nationally on the future of health care delivery and policy.
Morning Keynote Speaker
George C. Halvorson was named chairman and chief executive officer of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc, and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, headquartered in Oakland, Calif., in 2002. Kaiser Permanente is the nation’s largest nonprofit health plan and hospital system, serving more than 8.6 million members and generating $40 billion in annual revenue.
Mr. Halvorson has won several awards for his commitment to health technology and for his leadership and achievements in advancing health care quality. He is the author of five comprehensive books on the U.S. health care system, including the newly released Health Care Will Not Reform Itself: A User's Guide to Refocusing and Reforming American Health Care.
Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente, Mr. Halvorson was president and chief executive officer of HealthPartners, headquartered in Minneapolis. His current focus is on setting meaningful goals for health care improvement and putting the tools in place to help caregivers achieve those goals.
Invited Afternoon Keynote Speaker
Representative Thomas Huntley is in his ninth term representing House District 7A (Duluth) in the Minnesota House of Representatives. He is the Chair of the Health Care and Human Services Finance Division; Co-Chair of the Legislative Commission on Health Care Access; Co-Chair of the Governor's Health Care Transformation Task Force; and a member of the Healthy Minnesota Steering Committee.
On a national level, Representative Huntley is involved in the Midwestern Legislative Conference of the Council of State Governments Committee on Midwest-Canada Relations; Health and Human Services Committee; National Conference of State Legislatures Committee on Health; and in June 2009 was invited to serve on President Barack Obama’s health reform advisory committee.
Lunchtime Speaker
Jim Catalino, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Lawson Healthcare
Lawson is the No. 1 provider of enterprise software to the U.S. healthcare industry. While many these days are debating what's wrong with healthcare, Catalino will note examples of what's right and look at certain organizations that can serve as the model for addressing the overall issue of rising healthcare costs. But Catalino won't sugercoat the future -- there's plenty of opportunity for healthcare organizations to improve and he will talk about where and how.
Catalino is a 20-year software industry executive and general manager of Lawson Healthcare, Lawson Software's largest business. He joined Lawson in 1996 and previously held leadership roles with US Surgical Corporation, Philips Medical Systems and Polaroid Corporation. Catalino has an MBA from Villanova University, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame.
Panelists
Garrison Bliss, M.D. is a practicing primary care internist with 30 years of clinical experience. He is president of Qliance Medical Group of Washington state, and chief medical officer of Qliance Medical Management. Dr. Bliss has been rated by his peers as one of the top physicians in Washington on numerous occasions. He is widely regarded as a pioneer in changing the way quality primary health care services are provided and financed.
Dr. Bliss helped reinvent Seattle Medical Associates in 1997 to offer high quality, patient-centered primary care services for an affordable fixed monthly fee. He cofounded Qliance Medical Group as the vehicle that will achieve his vision for delivering the highest possible quality primary and preventive care. Dr. Bliss has been active nationally in the Society for Innovative Medical Practice Design, both as president and more recently chairman of the board. He was named as one of the top 25 entrepreneurs and innovators by Seattle Business Monthly in 2006.
Louis Cornacchia, M.D. is president and chief executive officer of Doctations Inc. Dr. Cornacchia is a graduate of Columbia College and New York University School of Medicine. He is a board certified neurosurgeon with a practice in Nassau County, New York. The concepts underlying Doctations were developed by Dr. Cornacchia over a nine-year period of research and development. He is dedicated to improving health care by providing Doctations services for doctors and a portal called iMedicalHome for patients. He believes that technology can overcome many of the problems facing healthcare today, including soaring costs, physician discontent and the medical malpractice crisis. Doctations is the first step toward that solution.
Diane M. Gross, Esq. is vice president/general counsel of Poudre Valley Health System in Fort Collins, Colo. She has been with the company for five years. Prior to joining Poudre Valley Health System, Ms. Gross worked in both private practice and as in-house counsel for a managed care company in San Jose, Calif. Her legal career has focused on health care in a variety of areas, including medical malpractice defense, managed care matters, privacy and confidentiality, and federal and state regulatory issues. She holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, and earned her law degree from Santa Clara University. Ms. Gross is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association, the Colorado Bar Association, and the American Corporate Counsel Association.
Marcus Osborne serves as senior director of Healthcare Savings Programs and Global Sourcing for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. In that position, he is focused on furthering Wal-Mart’s stated goal of improving the healthcare industry nationally and globally by increasing access, quality and affordability in the system for consumers. Prior to joining Wal-Mart in 2007, Mr. Marcus was a senior management consultant with Alliance Consulting Group in Boston. He also served as the chief financial officer of the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative. Mr. Marcus holds a master’s in business administration from Harvard Business School.
Ken Paulus is the newly appointed president and chief executive officer of Minnesota-based Allina Health System. Prior to his appointment, he served as chief operating officer, responsible for the operations of Allina’s 11 hospitals, specialty operations and clinic groups. He led numerous growth initiatives, including a number of joint ventures, partnerships and acquisitions while in that position.
Before joining Allina in 2006, Mr. Paulus was president and chief executive officer of Massachusetts-based HealthOne Care System, one of the nation’s largest physician organizations and a teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Prior to that, he was chief operating officer of Partners Community HealthCare based in Boston. Partners HealthCare System is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School that includes Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Mr. Paulus is a Wisconsin native and a graduate of the University of Minnesota Masters Program in Healthcare Administration.
Edward K. Shultz, M.D., M.S., is associate professor of Biomedical Informatics, associate professor of Pathology, and director of Technology Integration at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Shultz has primary responsibility for designing a scalable informatics technical architecture that supports the evolving enterprise. He directs application development, data warehousing, and enterprise-wide decision-support systems, ensuring that research data is shared among hospitals, clinics, and affiliated sites.
Dr. Shultz was formerly the director of the Medical Information Science program at Dartmouth Medical School and was the chair of the Veterans Administration’s Inter-Application Communications Committee. He earned his medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine, and completed an internship in clinical pathology at Barnes Hospital, Washington University, St. Louis, and residency training in clinical pathology at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Shultz also completed a post-doctoral National Institutes of Health fellowship in the Division of Health Computer Sciences, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota. He earned a master’s degree in biophysics (mathematical modeling) while he was there.