2008
IM Symposium Program
Sun. | Mon.
| Tue. | Wed.
| Program Contacts
Did you attend
the 2008 IM Symposium? Download copies of the Presentations
here!
The greatest benefit to the Information Management
participants is the sharing of ideas from other Plans. Please
don't assume that others already know your story or that it has
been heard before. We invite you to consider participating as
a speaker. Or, if you prefer, consider participating on one of
the panels:
Track 1:
- Business Intelligence Competency Center
- Enterprise Content Management/Google Search
Appliance
- ClaimsQuest and MarketQuest
Track 2:
- Provider Transparency
- Data Governance
- Automated Data Quality
Track 3
- Employer Reporting/Consumer Directed
Decision-Making Tools
- Service Oriented Architecture
- Data Integration
Sunday, September 14
| Time |
Program |
Location |
| 1:00 - 5:00 pm |
Exhibitor Setup |
Salon F-I |
| 5:00 - 8:00 pm |
Registration |
Registration Counter |
|
5:30 - 9:00 pm
|
Welcome Reception |
|
Monday, September 15
| 7:15 - 8:00 am |
Registration |
Registration Counter |
| 7:30 - 8:30 am |
Breakfast,
Networking & Exhibits |
Salon F-I |
| 8:30 - 9:00 am |
Welcome & Overview
(General Session #1) |
Salon A-E |
| 9:00 - 10:00 am |
An Outside
Perspective on Current Issues in IM -
Bill Hersh, OHSU Dean
of Informatics |
Salon A-E |
| 10:00 - 10:30 am |
Break, Networking,
Vendor Exhibits |
Salon F-I |
| 10:30 - 11:15 am |
The Blues'
Information Landscape Legislavtive Update - Harry Reynolds VP & Information Compliance Officer,
BCBSNC |
Salon A-E |
| 11:15 - 12:00 pm |
Healthcare
Analytics - Carter Coberly, VP & CIO Consortium Health plans;
Mike Frampton, Consortium Health plans |
Salon A-E |
| 12:00 - 1:00 pm |
Lunch, Networking,
Vendor Exhibits |
Salon F-I |
| 1:00 - 1:45 pm |
Navigating
Change - Helen Thayer |
Salon A-E |
| 1:45 - 2:30 pm |
The Role of
Dashboarding in Transformation - Mohan Nair, VP of
Marketing, Regence |
Salon A-E |
| 2:30 - 3:15 pm |
The Blues'
Information Landscape - Pat Taylor, Executive Director IT
Informatics, BCBSA |
|
| 3:15 - 3:45 pm |
Break, Networking,
Vendor Exhibits |
Salon F-I |
| 3:45 - 4:30 pm |
Health
Technology Information - Catherine Peper, VP, Health
Information Technology, BCBSFL |
Salon A-E |
| 5:00 - 10:00 pm |
Willamette Valley
Vineyards |
Meet in Hotel Lobby |
Tuesday, September 16
| 7:30 - 8:30 am |
Breakfast,
Networking, Vendor Exhibits |
Salon F-I |
| 8:30 - 9:15 am |
Breakout Session #1 |
|
| |
ClaimsQuest and MarketQuest -
Carter Coberly,VP & CIO Consortium
Health Plans
Business Intelligence Competency Center - Carrie Cowden,
Director, Business Intelligence Competency Center, BCBSKC
Enterprise Content Mgmt./Google Search Appliance - Elizabeth
Lambert, HCSC , Li Li Huang, HCSC, and Ramesh Menon,
Regence, Brian Kemler, Google |
Various Rooms |
| 9:15 - 10:45 am |
Birds
of a Feather Sessions |
Various Rooms |
| 10:45 - 11:15 am |
Break, Networking,
Vendor Exhibits |
Salon F-I |
| 11:15 - 12:00 pm |
Breakout Session #2 |
|
|
Data Goverance - Ngan MacDonald, Manager, Enterprise
Information Governance, HCSC
Provider Transparency - Penny Monical
Automated Data Quality - Jennifer Wray, Manager EID/Quality
Assurance, HCSC |
Various Rooms |
| 12:00 - 1:00 pm |
Breakout Session #3 |
|
| |
SOA - Tim
Watson, Enterprise Architect, Regence
Employer Reporting / Consumer Directed Decision Making Tools
- Jeff Keim, Assistant Director, Healthcare Informatics,
Regence, Larissa Ruhl, Sr Analyst, Regence and Torben
Nielsen, Director, Consumer Directed Health Systems, Regence
Data Integration - Karen LaJaunie, Director, Data
Intergration, BCBKC/ Rick Biederrstadt, HCSC/Tony Nicosia,
HCSC/ Darren Taylor, VP, Information Access Division |
Various Rooms |
| 1:00 pm |
Pick up Boxed
Lunches |
Foyer |
| 1:00 - 5:00 pm |
Afternoon networking
activities |
Meet in Hotel Lobby |
| 5:30 - 10:00 pm |
Evening Event at Marriott
- Linda Hornbuckle |
Salon A-E |
Wednesday, September 17
| 7:30 - 8:30 am |
Breakfast,
Networking, Vendor Exhibits |
Salon F-I |
| 8:30 - 9:30 am |
Large Purchaser
Expectations and Vision - MaryAnn Stump |
Salon A-E |
| 9:30 - 10:15 am |
Medical Expense Drivers and Trends - Ralph Prows, MD, Senior
Medical Director, Regence |
Salon A-E |
| 10:15 - 10:45 am |
Break & Networking /
Checkout of hotel |
Foyer |
| 10:45 - 11:30 am |
Business
Intelligence: The Next Generation of Innovation, Featuring Bill Hostmann,
VP Distinguished Analyst, Gartner |
Salon A-E |
| 11:30 - 12:15 pm |
Blue Health
Intelligence Update - Allison McGee, Executive Director, BHI,
BCBSA |
Salon A-E |
| 12:15 - 1:15 pm |
Lunch & Networking |
Salon F-I |
| 1:15 - 1:45 pm |
IM Jeopardee - April Beckett |
Salon A-E |
| 1:45 - 2:30 pm |
Birds of a Feather
Report Out |
Salon A-E |
| 2:30 - 3:00 pm |
Blues Data
Warehouse Survey - James Gaston, BlueCross of Arkansas |
Salon A-E |
| 3:00 - 3:30 pm |
Closing remarks &
2009 Symposium Preview |
Salon A-E |
 William
Hersh, M.D.
William Hersh, M.D. is Professor and Chair
of the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology in
the School of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU)
in Portland, Oregon, USA. Dr. Hersh is a leader and innovator in
biomedical informatics both in education and research.
In education, Dr. Hersh serves as Director
of Informatics Educational Programs at OHSU, where he has led the
development of educational programs at the certificate, master’s,
and doctoral levels. He also initiated OHSU’s efforts into distance
learning for biomedical informatics. Most recently, he teamed up
with the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) to launch
the 10x10 program that aims to train 10,000 clinicians and others in
informatics by the year 2010.
In research, Dr. Hersh’s main focus has
been in the area of information retrieval, where he has authored
over 100 scientific papers as well as the book, Information
Retrieval: A Health & Biomedical Perspective. Dr. Hersh is also
active in clinical and translational research informatics. He serves
as Director of the Biomedical Informatics Program of the Oregon
Clinical & Translational Research Institute (OCTRI, www.octri.org)
and is Chair of the National Informatics Steering Committee of the
Clinical & Translational Science Award (CTSA) program of the
National Institutes of Health.
Harry Reynolds
Harry Reynolds is a Vice President and
Information Compliance officer at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of
North Carolina. Harry has 30 years of experience in the technology
and health care areas. He started his career with IBM, worked at two
large teaching hospitals (Ohio State and UNC) and has been with Blue
Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) for the last 28
years. Harry has managed all aspects of information technology at
BCBSNC, as well as managing a $500 million business unit that served
450,000 customers. Harry currently is responsible for administration
and planning for information systems as well as the coordination of
large enterprise-wide compliance projects. Harry currently serves as
Chair on the National Committee for Vital Health Statistics (NCVHS)
and Chair of the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare (CAQH)
Core Initiative.
Carter Coberley
Carter Coberley is the vice president of
business intelligence and chief information officer of Consortium
Health Plans. He is responsible for all information technology and
business intelligence support for the company. Dr. Coberley joined
the Consortium in 2007.
Prior to the Consortium, Dr. Coberley
served as the vice president of informatics at Healthways Inc., the
world’s leading and largest provider of health and care support
services. In that role, he was responsible for creating the
analytics strategy for the organization, building a team of health
care analytics and business intelligence experts, and creating a
massive health care outcomes data warehouse that his team leveraged
to articulate the value of care support for outcomes improvement and
cost savings. He also served as the primary liaison between
Healthways and other industry partners, customers and consultants on
all matters related to health care analytics for the company.
Under his leadership the department of
informatics was grown and transformed into the Center for Health
Research, one of the largest and leading health care analytics teams
in the care support and wellness industries. His team’s mission
focused on leveraging health care information technology and
advanced analytics to better understand and optimize health care
outcomes and quality of care. This cutting-edge work ultimately
demonstrated the significant value that Healthways delivered to
health plans, employers and health plan members.
Dr. Coberley began his career at Gene
Logic, Inc., leading several teams that conceptualized, developed
and marketed some of the most sophisticated biomedical analytics
systems in the world. These award winning systems are being sold
internationally to the biomedical community and are marketed in more
than 32 countries by corporations such as GE Health Care Systems. He
is first author of numerous peer reviewed publications in the fields
of public health, health care analytics, applied statistics,
bioinformatics and data mining. In addition, he is co-inventor of
several pending U.S. Patents related to novel large scale data
mining and high volume data analytics methodologies.
Dr. Coberley received his Ph.D. in
biomedical sciences with a specialization in bioinformatics from the
College of Medicine at the University of Florida and his bachelor’s
degree in microbiology from Oregon State University.
Michael Frampton
Michael Frampton is Senior Vice President
for Corporate Strategy and Plan Relations.
Mr. Frampton joined the Consortium as
Director of Network Management in 1995.
Prior to the Consortium, Mr. Frampton
served as Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Vice President for
Provider Relations following his success in building a full-service
managed mental health and substance abuse division within Empire
called Empire Mental Health Choice. From 1991-94, Mr. Frampton
managed a team charged with transferring the managed care expertise
of Preferred Health Care, the nation’s leading managed mental health
care company, to Empire under a contract between the two
organizations.
Mr. Frampton served as Preferred Health
Care’s Vice President for Clinical Policy from 1987-1991. In this
capacity, he developed the Preferred Health Care Clinical Policy
Review Manual, recognized as the premier set of criteria for the
review of mental health and substance treatment, on behalf of large
national employers. This followed his work as Manager of Hospital
Development for Four Winds Hospitals, a New York based psychiatric
hospital company. Mr. Frampton was responsible in 1986 for securing
approval (certificate of need) for Four Winds-Chicago, Illinois’
first private psychiatric hospital for the chronically mentally ill.
Mr. Frampton began his career in the
Illinois Bureau of the Budget, responsible for budgeting Illinois’
public assistance programs and for projecting the level of federal
reimbursement. He subsequently served in the Illinois Department of
Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities and the New York State
Office of Mental Health, administering funding for community mental
health, developmental disability and substance abuse treatment
programs.
Mr. Frampton received his bachelor’s
(Human Behavior) and master’s (Social Service Administration)
degrees from the University of Chicago.
Helen Thayer
In 1988 New Zealand born Helen Thayer became the first woman to
walk and ski to any of the world's poles when she trekked solo to
the Magnetic North Pole without dog sled or snowmobile. She was the
first woman and first American to circumnavigate the Magnetic North
Pole. Her best-selling book Polar Dream tells the story of
her historic adventure with her beloved companion Charlie, her
protector from the ever constant threat of polar bear attack. Helen
has gone on to explore far corners of the world.
 Mohan Nair
Author, educator, software
entrepreneur, and now Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing
Executive at The Regence Group, Mohan is focused on transforming
the healthcare system. He is now accountable for all front-end
activities for Regence which includes product management,
marketing communication, sales, business development and
corporate performance management. Mohan is Chairman of the Board
of Regence Life and Health, a wholly owned subsidiary of The
Regence Group. Regence, the largest health insurer in the
Northwest/Mountain State Region, operates not-for-profit Blue
Cross/Blue Shield plans in Oregon, Washington, Utah and Idaho.
Mohan has been President of ABC
Technologies, Inc., leader in activity-based cost management
software, sold to SAS Corporation and of Protools Inc., sold to
McAfee, Inc. He led marketing at Mentor Graphics Corporation,
leader in electronic design automation and started his career at
Intel Corporation as a software system engineer.
As adjunct professor of business with
the Kellogg School of Management, Mohan teaches executive
courses in supply-chain management and cost and performance
management. He has authored two books titled "An Executive’s
Guide to Activity-based Management Systems" and "Essentials of
Balanced Scorecard" (Wiley and Sons).
Mohan has served the nation in several
capacities: as a member of the Armed Services Interest Group on
Cost and Performance Management; as a member of the Government’s
Committee on Performance and Accountability for the State of
Oregon and he has been called by the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services to serve on the Chronic Care Workgroup.
His non-profit duties include Chair
Emeritus, American Electronics Association; Chair, Venture
Oregon; Board Member, Oregon Entrepreneurs Forum. Mohan is
currently on the Board of Trustees for the Oregon Independent
College Foundation and is also a board member for the Big
Brother Big Sister Association.
Pat Taylor
Pat Taylor is Executive Director of IT Informatics for the Blue
Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA),
providing IT leadership for Informatics initiatives in
Inter-Plan Programs (IPP), Blue Health Intelligence (BHI) and
the Federal Employee Program (FEP).
Before joining the Association, Mrs. Taylor served Blue Cross
and Blue Shield of Alabama for thirty years. There, she
established Information Management processes and an Enterprise
Data Warehouse that provided information for over six hundred
users. Under Pat’s leadership, BCBS Alabama was awarded a World
Class Solution Data Warehouse Award from Data Management Review
magazine, based on the degree of user acceptance of the
Enterprise Data Warehouse.
Also under Pat’s direction, BCBS Alabama was one of three pilot
plans involved with BHI, the national data warehouse established
by BCBSA
containing data from over 79 million members. Pat has played a
leadership role in BHI’s development. Her knowledge and
expertise are well-respected by the Blue Cross Blue Shield
Association and the BHI participating Plans.
Mrs. Taylor is a past member of the Board of Directors for the
Information Management Symposium and has been a frequent
speaker. She has served on the International DB2 Users Group
(IDUG) North American Conference Planning Committee and has
presented several times at IDUG in North America and Europe. She
is Past President of the Alabama DB2 Users Group, and one of the
founding members of the Health Care Data Warehousing Association
(HDWA).
Pat holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics
from the University of Nebraska and a Master of Business
Administration from the University of Alabama.
Catherine Peper
Catherine Peper has been with BCBSF for over 30 years and is
responsible for developing and executing an integrated strategy for
BCBSF’s health information technology (HIT) capabilities. She also
is Chair of the e-Prescribe Florida Collaborative. Her previous
leadership roles included:
VP, IT Protection and Controls: responsible for improving
BCBSF’s capabilities to protect the confidentiality, integrity
and availability of customer information and corporate assets;
VP, Information Management: responsible for implementing an
enterprise-wide information environment including the enterprise
data warehouse and information strategies;
Director, IT Business Office: accountable for Resource
Management, Asset Management, Vendor Management, Project
Tracking, IT Finance and Planning;
Director, Electronic Commerce: responsible for development,
implementation and management of Internet, Intranet and
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) capabilities for BCBSF;
Director, Health Care Information Management, Utilization
Management, Provider Services and Education, Provider
Registration and Increasing adoption of electronic data
interchange between physicians, providers and BCBSF.
Catherine has a BA in Psychology from the University of North
Florida. She is a Certified Information Systems Security
Professional (CISSP), a Certified Information Security Manager
(CISM).
Carrie Cowden
Carrie Cowdin Director, Business
Intelligence Competency Center, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas
City has worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City for 15
years. She has been in the Information Access Division since 2004
and is currently accountable for the Administration of Business
Intelligence Tools, User Help Desk, Enterprise User Requests for
Reporting and Analysis, Provider Reimbursement, HEDIS and Pay for
Excellence Program.
Prior to joining the Information Access
Division, she worked in the Marketing and Sales Division as the
Director, Marketing Systems and Administration.
Carrie has a Bachelors Degree in
Accounting and Computer Information Systems from Ottawa University
and a Masters in Business Administration from Webster University.
Elizabeth Lambert
Elizabeth is part of HCSC’s Information
Strategy & Management Division. As business owner of Enterprise
Content Management strategy, she is responsible for execution of an
information roadmap that encompasses search, taxonomy and
unstructured content as well as Internal Informatics and Blue Care
Connection/Wellness Reporting. In former positions Elizabeth has
lead Underwriting, Account Management and Operations teams in the
healthcare industry.
Li-Li Huang
Li-Li Huang is the Director of Enterprise
Content Management and the Informatics Application Development teams
within the Enterprise Information
Management Division at Health Care Service
Corporation (HCSC). Li-Li is responsible for working with our
business colleagues to establish the vision/strategy for and
delivering the full life-cycle enterprise technology solutions for
unstructured data. She is further responsible for the full life
cycle development of data oriented software applications in support
of business operations. Li-Li has a 20-year software application,
data warehousing, content management and data center operations
background and has filled roles ranging from a technical consultant
to Director. Li-Li has been with HCSC since 1995.
 Ramesh
Menon
Ramesh Menon MBA, MIEEE, CSQP is the managing
enterprise architect at Regence BCBS. He has 15+ years of leadership
and management consulting experience .Prior to Regence, He has been
in corporate leadership positions at CIGNA and Kaiser-Permanente
focusing on eHealth solutions, systems architecture and health plan
operations. He has bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a
master’s degree in business administration.
Brian Kemler
Brian Kemler graduated from George
Washington University in Washington, DC with a BA in Economics and
Political Science with a minor in Photography.He has worked
technology since then with stints at Lockheed Martin, the National
Academies of Science and SAS Institute. Most recently he was a
systems architect and consultant for SAS Customer Relationship
Management Practice, in Mexico City, Mexico. He is fluent in Spanish
and conversant in Brazilian Portuguese. Currently, he is a systems
engineer with Google Enterprise in Mountain View, CA, specializing
in search.
Ngan MacDonald
Ngan MacDonald is a Senior Manager in Information
Governance and Stewardship at Health Care Services Corporation
(HCSC). Ngan is responsible for the implementation of the managed
meta data environment (MME). Prior to leading this effort, Ngan was
a consultant at PIOCON Technologies, specializing in Business
Intelligence and Data Warehousing. She has over 10 years of
experience in management, consulting, and data governance. Ngan
holds BA from Northwestern University, and an MA from DePaul
University.
Penny
Monical, Ph.D.
Penny Monical,
Manager of Medical Management Decision Support (MMDS),
has been at Arkansas Blue Cross
Blue Shield for 14 years. MMDS has the
analytic and research role for business informatics across the
enterprise. Her current areas of focus are provider profiling ,
member transparency , risk management solutions, medical management
support and employer account reporting. She was an active
participant in building the BHI warehouse and is a member of the BHI
Steering Committee, BHI Analytic Workgroup and the BHI Health
Services Research Workgroup. She is currently the project manager
for the implementation of the HDMS group account reporting software.
Penny also manages the Special Investigations Unit and is a member
of the NHCAA Membership Forum.
Penny holds a Ph.D. in Pathology and Molecular
Biology from Albany Medical College of Union University, a Masters
in Health Services Administration from the University of Arkansas at
Little Rock and a bachelor's degree in Biology from California State
University, Sacramento.
Jennifer Wray
Jennifer Wray is the
Manager of the Quality Assurance team within the Enterprise
Information Management (EIM) division at HCSC. Jennifer is
responsible for ensuring and monitoring the quality of the data
within the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) and Operation Data Store
(ODS) at HCSC. She began her career as an actuarial analyst then
transitioned into client reporting. Jennifer was one of the key
business customers with the task of validation of BCBSTX’s initial
warehouse. This experience provided her with a platform to
transition into the Data Warehousing area. Jennifer was an
instrumental leader during the construction of HCSC's EDW. She has
gained the respect of business customers and colleagues through
teamwork, dedication, and the combined understanding of health
insurance, data quality and warehousing principles. Jennifer is
currently focused on leading her team to improve the quality of data
and testing environments for EIM. Jennifer has a BA in Mathematics
from Michigan State University.
Timothy Watson
Timothy Watson has been a technology
professional for over 20 years, and specializes in Object Oriented
Application Design / Development (OOAD), Enterprise Application
Integration (EAI), and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Tim has
worked for some of the most respected businesses in America,
including Nike, Starbucks, and AT&T Wireless, and has cultivated
experience in the Healthcare, Manufacturing, Retail, Restaurant, and
Telecom industries supporting eBusiness, Brick and Mortar, and
Business to Business paradigms. Tim joined the Regence team in June
of 2005 as an Enterprise Architect with a focus on Service Oriented
Architecture.
Tim has a Bachelor of Science in Computer
Science from Portland State University and a Masters of Science in
Computer Science from the University of Washington.
 Jeffrey
Keim
Jeffrey Keim, Assistant Director of Healthcare Informatics
Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon. Jeffery has been
with Regence for over 15 years and is responsible for developing and
executing an integrated strategy for leading company-wide Healthcare
analytics activities including program effectiveness analysis,
client reporting and analytic consulting. His previous roles
include:
Manager, Health Economics and Data Analysis: responsible for
network performance measurement and cost containment program
operations reporting;
Data Consultant: responsible for consulting with network
providers on health cost drivers and performance on outcomes
measures;
Jeffrey has a BS in Marketing and an MBA from Auburn University.
Larissa Ruhl
Larissa Ruhl, Senior Healthcare
Information Analyst, Regence Blue Shield has been with Regence for
nine years, working on systems development projects. Her area of
focus has been on the data warehouse and downstream reporting
systems. Currently, Larissa functions as a product manager for
Regence's employer reporting system. In that role, she works with
business customers and technicians to establish a vision for the
system, and prioritize development and implementation of new
features. Larissa has a BA in Economics and English
from Denison University.
Will McKinney
William McKinney is the Vice President of
Consumer Directed Health Systems
He joined Regence in
2004, as the Vice President of Consumer Directed Health Systems. He
was brought in to help develop a new consumer directed philosophy
within Regence that supports members with their navigation of the
healthcare system. One of the first successes of this initiative is
the introduction of myRegence.com, which Will has led in the
development of as part of the Regence Marketing team. For the two
years prior to joining Regence, Will ran his own consulting company,
XL Designworks, where he helped a variety of startups establish
their first offering in the market. This included being employed
with NinaTek, which developed a unique analytic approach for
supporting the manufacturing community. From 1994 to 2001, Will
worked with ABC Technologies in Beaverton, Oregon, where he was the
Vice President of Engineering and CTO. As CTO, he provided the
technical vision for two organizations, ABC Technologies and
BetterManagement.com. Will has a BSEE degree from the University of
Colorado.
Darren Taylor
Darren Taylor, Vice President, Information
Access Division, BCBS Kansas City has over 16 years experience in the
managed care industry, all with Blue Cross and BlueShield of Kansas
City (BCBSKC). He is currently accountable for data warehouse,
business intelligence (BI), and clinical system integration efforts
within the plan. Within recent years, Darren’s team designed,
developed and delivered an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) solution
that enables not only business intelligence solutions, but also
serves as an exclusive data source for many critical business
systems.
Prior to leading the plan’s data
integration and BI efforts, Darren logged over 11 years of
leadership experience within the areas of provider contracting and
reimbursement, managed care system implementation, and healthcare
analytics.
Darren holds a Bachelor’s Degree in
Accounting from Truman State University and a Master’s in Business
Administration from Baker University.
Karen LaJaunie
Karen LaJaunie
Director, Data Integration Group Blue Cross and Blue Shield of
Kansas City has worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City for
22 years. She has been in the Information Access Division since its
inception in January 2004 and is currently accountable for the build
out and maintenance of the Data Warehouse Environment as well as the
supporting Meta Data Areas. Prior to joining the Information Access
Division, she worked in the Information Technology Division as a
Project Manager assigned to projects such as Facets, BlueCard, and
HIPAA. Karen has a Bachelors Degree in Computer Information Systems
from the University of Central Missouri and a Masters Degree in
Business Administration from Baker University.
Rick A. Biederstadt
Rick A. Biederstadt is the Divisional Vice
President of the Enterprise Information Management (EIM) IT division
at HCSC. Rick is responsible for establishing the vision/strategy
for and delivering the full life-cycle for structured and
unstructured enterprise solutions. Rick has a 20-year
application/data warehousing background and has filled roles ranging
from a technical consultant to Vice President.
Anthony Nicosia
Anthony (Tony) Nicosia is Senior Director
of the Enterprise Data Integration Competency Center (EDICC) within
the HCSC EIM team. Tony is the IT lead for the ODS project. He is
responsible for data warehousing solution designs and the data
movement & integration strategies / solutions within EIM. Tony has a
15-year background in technical architectures and data warehousing.
He has filled roles from technical industry consultant to Director.
MaryAnn Stump, RN
MaryAnn Stump, RN, senior vice president and chief
innovation officer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, and
president, Consumer Aware, is a recognized leader in health care
consumerism, inviting all health care stakeholders to work
collaboratively toward providing consumers with the information they
need to make intelligent health care decisions. A former cardiac
critical care nurse, Ms. Stump serves on the Blue Cross Foundation
Board and the Yale College of Nursing Advisory Board. Additionally,
she is past president of Minnesota Healthcare Quality Professionals,
was on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Advisory Board
and is actively involved in statewide and national health care
quality, patient safety and consumer health information initiatives.
Ralph Prows
Dr. Prows is Senior Medical Director of
The Regence Group and Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon serving
3 million members in the northwest and 1 million members in Oregon.
Dr. Prows joined Regence in September 2004. He is responsible for
product development, direction and coordination of health care
services to all lines of business and products offered by Regence.
Dr. Prows brings more than 25 years
experience as a practicing physician and health care executive. He
practiced internal medicine in San Antonio, taught internal medicine
at the University of Massachusetts where he also served as medical
director for a large health plan. He was the chief executive officer
of the Corvallis Clinic, the largest private multi-specialty clinic
in the mid-Willamette Valley. He served as chairman and president of
the Corvallis Area Chamber of Commerce and the Northwest Physicians
Association in Linn and Benton Counties. He presently serves on the
Chair of the Board of Directors for the Oregon Health Care Quality
Corporation and a member of the Quality Institute Committee for the
Oregon Health Fund Board.
Dr. Prows earned his medical degree from
Tulane University School of Medicine and completed his residency in
internal medicine at Oschner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans. He
is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and
has current state medical licenses in Massachusetts and Oregon.
Bill Hostmann
Bill Hostmann, Featured Presenter, is a
Research Vice President and distinguished analyst in Gartner
Research, where he focuses on business intelligence. Mr. Hostmann
has worked for more than 15 years in the enterprise software market.
He has held the position of Product Line General Manager for
Informix Database and Internet Server product lines. Before that, he
was Director of Marketing at GemStone Systems, an early Java
application server company, where he was involved in the writing of
the original Java EJB 1.0 specification. And, most recently, he was
at Informatica Corporation
Allison McGee
Allison McGee is the Executive Director of
BHI Program Management Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Association. Ms. McGee joins the PMO from Deloitte Consulting, where
she was a consultant with responsibility for leading deployment of
account reporting capabilities for a multi-state BCBS Plan.
Previously, Ms. McGee held the position of
Business Intelligence Practice Director for a regional consulting
firm. In that role, she implemented a data warehouse and custom
business intelligence application for the State of Louisiana
employees’ group plan. In addition, she developed an executive
information management strategy to continue building value upon that
foundation.
Ms. McGee also spent over six years with
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, where she was specifically
involved with business process re-engineering, decision support,
large scale project implementations including ERP and claims
adjudication system deployments, and as project director for a data
warehouse project. This wide spectrum of experiences provided a
broad and deep knowledge of health plan processes and data.
She earned her bachelor’s degree at
Louisiana State University. In addition, she has completed an
advance curriculum and holds certification in Total Quality
Management.
April Beckett
April Beckett is a Manager of Application Development at
Highmark, in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. April is currently responsible
for supporting the ITS/BlueCard program and has been with Highmark
for 9 years. In previous positions, April has been responsible for
programming and development on various platforms including DB2, IMS,
and Teradata. Specifically, April supported the ITS and Claims Data
Repositories along with data accesses and reporting. April now
serves as the ITS Coordinator and is a member of the Inter-Plan Plan
Advisory Group (IP PAG) representing Highmark.
April has a BA in Elementary Education from Simpson College in
Indianola, Iowa. She has also received the Health Insurance
Associate (HIA) designation from the America’s Health Insurance
Plans (AHIP).
James E. Gaston
Mr. James E. Gaston has 18 years of
experience in Healthcare Information Technology. His career started
at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the nation’s sixth largest
pediatric facility, where he managed their Y2K initiative, was
involved in Intranet Web site design/development and automated
electronic requisition system development and implementation, and
more than 150 other information systems and administrative projects.
Mr. Gaston is a former vice president of technical development for
Medical Office Management Systems, where he supported and serviced
computer systems for more than 400 physicians’ offices throughout
the South. For 4 years Mr. Gaston served as the Enterprise EDI
Architect for Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield implementing Blue
Exchange and HIPAA transactions. Currently M. Gaston serves as the
Manager of Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Enterprise Information
Development department which includes supporting applications for
Actuarial, an enterprise Information Center, and the enterprise Data
Warehouse.
Mr. Gaston has an MBA and a Bachelor’s of
Science degree in Computer Science Engineering from the University
of Arkansas. He serves on the Arkansas HIMSS board of directors,
teaches woodworking at the Arkansas Arts Center and lives in Little
Rock, Arkansas with his wife, Rebecca, and three children.
Note: Subject to
Change
Program Contacts
Jeff Keim, Program Committee Chair, at
jckeim@regence.com or
call 503.525.6525
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