Dr. Clifton Gaus, Sc.D. has a diverse background as a public servant, entrepreneur, and health executive.  He served in senior healthcare positions under Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Clinton and was advisor to CMS in the Obama Administration. In the early 1970’s and 80’s, he served as Associate Administrator for Policy, Research and Demonstrations of HCFA (now CMS), directing the development of a broad range of innovations in health care financing and delivery, including the DRG hospital payment system, RBRVS physician payment system, Medicare Hospice Programs and Medicare payment of Physician Assistants. From 1994 to 1997 he was the Administrator of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (now AHRQ). Major accomplishments were developing the CAHPS Patient Survey now used throughout the healthcare system, Patient-Centered Clinical Practice Guidelines, and Evidence-Based Practice Centers.

Clif was co-founder and President/CEO of the National Association of ACOs from 2012-2024. NAACOS is the only national organization owned and managed by ACOs. He currently serves a Board Chair of the Power2Patients, Inc.

Richard J. Gilfillan, M.D.a family physician, is an independent consultant and volunteer working with non-profit organizations seeking to create accountable high value healthcare.  From 2013 to 2019 he was the CEO of Trinity Health, a $19 billion Catholic health system that serves communities in 22 states. From 2010 to 2013 he was a Deputy Administrator at CMS and the first Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). Prior positions included President and CEO of Geisinger Health Plan and Executive Vice President of insurance operations for Geisinger Health System; Senior Vice President for national network management at Coventry Health Care and Chief Medical Office at Independence Blue Cross. He began his career as a family physician practicing  in Massachusetts and New Jersey.

Scott Armstrong spent 32 years at Group Health Cooperative, a $3 billion, regional, integrated insurer and care delivery system based in Seattle, WA.  He was named President/CEO for his final 12 years.  During this tenure, Scott was appointed to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) in 2010.  And in 2017, Scott directed the sale of Group Health to Kaiser Permanente, integrating Washington into the KP national system and creating the Group Health Community Foundation, endowed with $1.8 billion from the sale proceeds to support community health initiatives.

Today he continues to advise healthcare organizations. He is incoming Chair of the Board for Delta Dental of WA, the dominant dental insurance company serving the Pacific Northwest.  He also sits on the Investment Review Board of SpringRock Ventures, an early-stage investment fund focused on healthcare companies.

Beyond healthcare, Scott has also served the energy industry as it faces the very consequential conversion to clean energy.  He served on the Board of Puget Sound Energy, the Pacific Northwest’s largest gas and electric utility, for more than 11 years, the last 5 years as Chair of the Board.

He has authored more than 100 published articles and has co-authored two books – one of managed care and the other on Medicare payment policy.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Catalyst for Payment Reform. He is an adjunct professor at the George Washington School of Public Health. He received an M.D. from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and practiced nearly 15 years as a board-certified, general internist in Washington DC and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.

Maureen Bisognano, President Emerita and Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), previously served as IHI’s President and CEO for five years, after serving as Executive Vice President and COO for 15 years. She is a prominent authority on improving health care systems, whose expertise has been recognized by her elected membership to the National Academy of Medicine (IOM), among other distinctions. Ms. Bisognano advises health care leaders around the world, is a frequent speaker at major health care conferences on quality improvement and is a tireless advocate for change.  She chaired the Advisory Board of the Well Being Trust, co-chaired the Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care with Dr. Atul Gawande, and serves on the boards of Indiana University Health and Nursing Now. She founded the global “What Matters to You?” movement and leads with others the international movement “Kindness in Healthcare”. Prior to joining IHI, she served as CEO of the Massachusetts Respiratory Hospital and Senior Vice President of The Juran Institute.

Josephine (Jerri) Kaple Boswell is a PhD medical economist from Washington University (St. Louis) who has professionally participated in the academic, government and corporate sectors of the healthcare industry. She began her career by creating the first medical economic classes at two major universities. Her career moved on to the Office of Research at HCFA (now CMS) where she was instrumental in the design of the Medicare DRG prospective payment system for hospitals. Following the enactment of the system: by Congress she recognized the need by private health insurers to have an episode-based database to 1: effectively allow their corporate clients to understand the illnesses that were driving their costs and inferior medical outcomes, and 2: select providers for their managed care networks. Her company Corporate Cost Management’s clients were Blues plans and commercial health Insurers. Following the sale of her company she continued to provide consulting services to the industry and research activities as Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona.

Dr. Jeffrey J. Cain MD, FAAFP is an Adjoint Professor at the University of Colorado Department of Family Medicine a past president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He served as Chief of Family Medicine at the Children’s Hospital Colorado and sits on multiple national boards. Dr. Cain founded Tar Wars, a national children’s tobacco-free education project that has impacted more than 10 million children in 50 states and 16 countries. He is a past chair of the board of directors of the Amputee Coalition and founder of the Amputee Coalition’s Advocacy Committee whose efforts have resulted in the passage of prosthetic insurance access laws in 26 states as well as the introduction of bipartisan federal prosthetic insurance legislation. Dr. Cain holds the first gold medal in adaptive slalom snowboarding from the U.S. National Snowboarding Championships.

As I graduated from college I knew I wanted to make a difference, but I had no idea how to do so. I decided to work as an EMT in a struggling community barely a mile from the affluent neighborhood where I grew up.  Struck by the poverty of our patients and the disrespectful and unsafe ways they were often treated in emergency rooms, I decided to become a doctor and try to do something about it.  After training, I came to work at Dartmouth where I practiced primary care medicine for many years and led a research program on the causes and consequences of the high and rising costs of health care.  My early research found that US regions with higher spending did not achieve better quality or outcomes, revealing the magnitude of the waste and avoidable care delivered in the United States.  I then worked with colleagues to develop the concept of Accountable Care Organizations and led the research that resulted in their inclusion in the Affordable Care Act.  I am still a Professor of Health Policy, Medicine and Community and Family Medicine at Dartmouth, where my current research and activism focus on how to strengthen primary care, improve population health and make health care affordable for all. I have published over 200 articles and am a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

With all that, I am now most proud of the three daughters that my wife and I have helped launch into this world.  I am excited to join the work of PowertoPatients for many reasons.  High on that list is what we as a family have learned from our middle daughter’s 20-year experience with serious mental illness: the persistent stigma she still faces, the unfortunate truth that good care is usually the result of heroic work by caring people in a broken system, and the power of patients’ voices (hers and others) as agents of change. As I graduated from college I knew I wanted to make a difference, but I had no idea how to do so. I decided to work as an EMT in a struggling community barely a mile from the affluent neighborhood where I grew up.  Struck by the poverty of our patients and the disrespectful and unsafe ways they were often treated in emergency rooms, I decided to become a doctor and try to do something about it.  After training, I came to work at Dartmouth where I practiced primary care medicine for many years and led a research program on the causes and consequences of the high and rising costs of health care.  My early research found that US regions with higher spending did not achieve better quality or outcomes, revealing the magnitude of the waste and avoidable care delivered in the United States.  I then worked with colleagues to develop the concept of Accountable Care Organizations and led the research that resulted in their inclusion in the Affordable Care Act.  I am still a Professor of Health Policy, Medicine and Community and Family Medicine at Dartmouth, where my current research and activism focus on how to strengthen primary care, improve population health and make health care affordable for all. I have published over 200 articles and am a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

With all that, I am now most proud of the three daughters that my wife and I have helped launch into this world.  I am excited to join the work of PowertoPatients for many reasons.  High on that list is what we as a family have learned from our middle daughter’s 20-year experience with serious mental illness: the persistent stigma she still faces, the unfortunate truth that good care is usually the result of heroic work by caring people in a broken system, and the power of patients’ voices (hers and others) as agents of change.

Bruce Merlin Fried is a partner with Dentons US LLP in their Health Care group where he has served in a number of national and global leadership positions. He has been recognized as one of the leading health care lawyers in the US. Mr. Fried counsels and represents consumer organizations, health plans, physician organizations, hospital groups, and information technology companies on federal health care programs and policies. He is often called on to offer strategic business advice to organization executives.

He served at CMS as Director of the Center for Health Plans and Providers where he was responsible for policy and operations for the Medicare program. Prior to that, Bruce was director of the Office of Managed Care.

He has served on the boards of many health care organizations, including:

Board of Visitors, Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, 2018 to present
Chairman, World Cerebral Palsy Initiative, 2010-2017 a global collaboration of cerebral palsy groups
Chairman, board of trustees, United Cerebral Palsy, 2007–2012
Board of directors, HealthSpring, Inc., 2006–2012
Board of directors, SureScripts, Inc., 2005–2008
Board of directors, CareScience, Inc., 1999–2003
Board of directors, MedicaLogic/Medscape, 1998–2003

He served as chief coordinator of the 1992 Clinton/Gore campaign’s Health Care Advisory Group and was a member of President-elect Clinton’s transition team.

He began his legal career with Legal Services of Greater Miami and Florida Legal Services where he represented low-income people before the courts and legislature. Subsequently, he was with the National Senior Citizens Law Center where he represented older people in the federal courts and Congress on complex legal and policy matters.

Paul Harkaway is a retired pulmonary and critical care physician with extensive physician leadership experience, including managed care, physician-led CINs and ACOs. Prior long-time President of one of Michigan’s largest IPAs, and past  Senior VP for Population Health at Trinity Health Corp. Currently doing Population Health consulting.

Blair L Sadler is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and a member of the faculty at the UCSD Rady School of Management. As a Senior Fellow, he has served as faculty at various IHI Forums in the US and Europe. Topics include the business case for evidence-based architectural design and the arts, the impact of climate change on quality improvement, the connection of sports to quality improvement, and leading in a crisis.

At UCSD, he teaches about the power of transparent leadership in crises and developing high impact personal leadership. He served as President and CEO of the Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego from July 1980 until July 2006. During his tenure, Rady Children’s was the nation’s first children’s hospital to receive the Ernest Codman Award from the Joint Commission for Quality Improvement.

With his physician twin brother, he served as a medical-legal specialist at the National Institutes of Health, on the faculty at the Yale University School of Medicine and Co-Director of the Yale Trauma program, and as a senior officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He served as Hospital Director at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation. He is a graduate of Amherst College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He clerked for two judges on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Board of The Hastings Center for Bioethics, and Access Youth Academy.

He is the co-author of leading articles relating to organ and tissue donation, physician assistants, evidence-based architectural design, and health care quality improvement, as well as three books: “Transforming the Health Experience through the Arts,” “The Physician’s Assistant Today and Tomorrow,” and “Emergency Medical Care: The Neglected Public Service.” He is co-author of (P)LUCK: Lessons We Learned for Improving Healthcare and the World that includes 15 lessons for catalyzing change.

Dr. Pamela Cipriano, an international nursing leader, is immediate past President of the International Council of Nurses and also served two terms as President of the American Nurses Association.  She has extensive experience as an academic medical center executive and previously served as Dean of the University of Virginia School of Nursing where she is now Professor Emerita.

In her 50 year career, she has consistently increased nursing’s impact and influence on policy to improve national and global health care. She Co-Chairs the UHC2030 Steering Committee, a multistakeholder platform for advancing actions to achieve universal health coverage and strengthen health systems worldwide.

Dr. Cipriano co-chairs the Steering Committee for the National Academy of Medicine’s Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-being and Resilience and has led efforts to prevent burnout and improve the well-being of the workforce. She has been instrumental in studying the safety of technologies to improve workflow and efficiency of care as well as advocating for nurse-led design and testing of technologies that support nursing care.

Among her many honors and awards for exceptional leadership and contributions to the profession, she was a Distinguished Nurse Scholar-in-Residence at the Institute of Medicine, is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, earning its Healthcare Leader Award, and was named as a Living Legend in 2023. She has also been recognized with Lifetime Achievement awards from the Daisy Foundation and Sigma Theta Tau International.

Dr. Clancy is a nationally recognized leader in health care quality, safety and policy. Over a distinguished career in federal service (VA and HHS) and academic medicine, she has advanced efforts to improve patient-centered care, strengthen the health workforce, and ensure that evidence informs practice and policy. Her leadership has shaped national initiatives in quality measurement, health services research and care delivery. Her leadership has shaped national initiatives in quality measurement, including diagnostic excellence, health services research and care delivery transformation. A consistent advocate for patients and clinicians alike, she has worked to bridge policy and practice to improv outcomes across diverse populations. As she transitions from full-time leadership, Dr. Clancy remains committed to mentoring emerging leaders, advancing high-value care and contributing to pragmatic dialogue about the future of US health care. A general internist and health services researcher, Dr. Clancy is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. An elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, Dr. Clancy received the 2014 Quality Champion Award, National Committee for Quality Assurance and in 2015 was chosen by Disabled American Veterans as Outstanding Federal Executive of the Year. In 2019, Dr. Clancy was selected for the second year in a row as one of Modern Healthcare’s Top 50 Physician Executives. She has contributed to eight academic text books and authored, co-authored and provided invited commentary in more than 225 scholarly journal articles. Dr. Clancy holds an academic appointment at The George Washington University School of Medicine and is also Senior Associate Editor, Health Services Research.

Kayoko “Ky” Corbet, RN, BCPA, MS, MA has been at the forefront of patient advocacy since becoming a nurse in 2006. After five years in major hospital systems, she gained experience in home health case management, healthcare technology, and patient rights activism — and became convinced that the only path to a better healthcare system runs through educated, empowered patients. She founded Patient Advocacy & Beyond, LLC in 2016 and has since built a thriving practice. She is also leading an effort within the independent advocacy community to systematize complex advocacy processes — work she sees as the foundation for scalable patient empowerment.

Susan Edgman-Levitan, PA, is Executive Director Emerita of the John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital, Senior Advisor to the Stoeckle Decisions Science Center, a lecturer in the Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), an Associate in Health Policy, Harvard Medical School, and an Instructor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. The Stoeckle Center was deeply involved in leading primary care transformation across the Partners Healthcare System in New England, now known as Mass General Brigham. Prior to MGH, Susan was the founding President of the Picker Institute. A constant advocate of understanding the patient’s perspective on healthcare, she is a principal investigator on the Yale Harvard Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) study and is a member of the Lucian Leape Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). She is an editor of Through the Patient’s Eyes, a book on creating and sustaining patient-centered care, The CAHPS Improvement Guide, and co-authored the Institute of Medicine 2006 report, The Future of Drug Safety: Promoting and Protecting the Health of the Public. She is a founding member of the MA Primary Care Alliance for Patients, a statewide coalition working with the MA state legislature to fund enhanced payments for primary care services. She also co-chaired the MassGeneralBrigham Patient Experience Leaders Committee for 13 years.

Ms. Edgman-Levitan is a member of the Beryl Institute’s Global Steering Committee to Co-Design the Future of Patient Experience Measurement.Ms. Edgman-Levitan has served on several boards and national advisory committees, including the AHRQ National Advisory Council, the ABIM Council, the ABIM Foundation, the Patient Experience Policy Forum, and the Primary Care Collaborative. She is an invited subject matter expert for the international Future of Healthcare Collaborative led by Sheba Medical Center and the Federation of American Hospitals. In 2007, she received the Leadership and Innovation Award from the Center for Information Therapy and the 2016 Inaugural Richard Nesson award from the Massachusetts Health Quality Partnership. In 2020 she received the Partners Healthcare System Nesson award for System Collaboration. In 2026 she received the American Board of Medical Specialties Health Care Quality and Patient Safety Award. Susan holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the Duke University Physician Associate program, where she received the Distinguished Alumni Award and was inducted into the Duke University Medical Center Hall of Fame in 2004.

E. Wesley Ely, MD, MPH, is an internist, pulmonologist, and critical care physician. Dr. Ely earned his MD at Tulane University School of Medicine, in conjunction with a master’s in public health. He is a founder and faculty member of Scopes and Shields which is a movement to provide improved and dignified care to hospitalized patients who are in the carceral system. He serves as the Grant W. Liddle endowed chair in medicine and is a physician-scientist and tenured Professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is also the Associate Director of aging research for the Tennessee Valley Veteran’s Affairs Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center (GRECC) in Nashville TN. He is the founder and codirector of the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship (CIBS) Center, and a pioneer in the investigation of delirium and long-term cognitive outcomes, including dementia, in survivors of critical illness, with continuous NIH and VA funding for 25 years and over 600 peer reviewed publications. He designed and was a lead investigator for the study of JAK/STAT inhibitors in acute COVID-19, which successfully proved a survival advantage for this class of medications, leading to FDA-approval and the strong WHO recommendation for these medications for hospitalized patients receiving oxygen. He is the principal investigator for an NIA/NIH funded phase III investigation of immunomodulation for patients suffering from Long COVID. His CIBS research center hosts free daily support groups to provide community and help in recovery for patients with Long COVID and their families. Dr. Ely is the author of a work of narrative non-fiction entitled Every Deep-Drawn Breath, from which he’s donating100% net proceeds to help COVID survivors and family members rebuild their lives.

Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, is an adjunct professor of medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and President Emerita of The John A. Hartford Foundation in New York City, a foundation dedicated to improving older adults’ care. She served for 10 years as the chief strategist for the Foundation, and her vision for better care of older adults is catalyzing the Age-Friendly Health Systems social movement. Dr. Fulmer is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and served on the 2020 independent Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes to advise the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She completed a Brookdale National Fellowship, and she is the first nurse to have served on the American Geriatrics Society board. The first nurse to have served as President of the Gerontological Society of America, which awarded her the 2019 Donald P. Kent Award for exemplifying the highest standards for professional leadership in the field of aging.

Dr. Archelle Georgiou is a physician, healthcare executive, and nationally recognized health journalist known for translating complex healthcare realities into clear, actionable insight. Her career spans the full healthcare ecosystem, operating at the intersection of clinical care, enterprise strategy, and consumer experience. Archelle spent 13 years at UnitedHealth Group, served as Chief Medical Officer, and held responsibility for the medical management of 17 million members. Today, she serves as a strategic advisor to organizations committed to designing healthcare that is smarter, more accountable, and grounded in real human outcomes.

For nearly two decades, Archelle has also been a trusted media voice, producing more than 2,000 on-air segments as a TV medical correspondent on ABC, helping the public—and industry leaders—understand how healthcare really works. She has appeared on CNN and Fox Business, spoken at the World Bank and Mayo Clinic, and co-presented with the U.S. Surgeon General.

Archelle is the author of Healthcare Choices: 5 Steps to Getting the Medical Care You Want and Need and the host of the podcast Speak Up For Your Health.

Lauren S. Hughes, MD, MPH, MSc, MHCDS, FAAFP, is the state policy director of the Farley Health Policy Center and associate professor of family medicine, both at the University of Colorado, where she researches how to strengthen primary care infrastructure, transform rural health care delivery, and advance behavioral health integration. Dr. Hughes previously served as Deputy Secretary for Health Innovation in the Pennsylvania Department of Health, where she launched the state’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program and the Pennsylvania Rural Health Model, a new payment and delivery model co-designed with the CMS Innovation Center that transitions rural hospitals from fee-for-service to multi-payer global budgets. Dr. Hughes is a former chair of the American Board of Family Medicine and an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program. She currently serves as chair of the Rural Health Redesign Center Organization Board of Directors and is a member of the Primary Care Payment Reform Collaborative convened by the Colorado Division of Insurance. In 2018, she was selected as a Presidential Leadership Scholar by Presidents Clinton and Bush, and in 2023, she was named as the co-chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Standing Committee on Primary Care. In 2026, along with co-editors Drs. Anthony Cheng and Jen DeVoe, she published the textbook “Primary Care in a Public Health Emergency: Lessons from the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic” through Springer.

Dr. Hughes has long known the US health care system is flawed from her clinical and policy perspectives. After surviving a bad car accident in February 2025 and navigating subsequent billing and insurance challenges, she now understands this on a deeply personal level. Her story was featured in a Kaiser Health News “Bill of the Month” article in October 2025. She looks forward to using her experience and insight to advocate for a more intuitive, compassionate, and patient-centered health care system.

Frederick Isasi, JD, MPH, is a national expert on a wide range of health care issues including value, coverage, and equity. He also successfully led key consumer efforts to reform the health care system, including campaigns focused on pharmaceutical pricing, hospital pricing and quality, and insurance coverage and reform.

Frederick frequently testifies in front of Congress for both Democrat and Republican majorities, and is often quoted in major news outlets including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post. Most recently Frederick was the Executive Director
of Families USA (2017-2023), a national consumer organization working on the federal and state levels to ensure that the best health and health care are equally accessible and affordable to all. Before joining Families USA, Mr. Isasi served as the Health Division Director at the bipartisan National Governors Association, Vice President for Health Policy at the Advisory Board Company, and Senior Legislative Counsel to Sen. Jeff Bingaman on the U.S. Senate Finance and HELP Committees, where he was a key staff negotiator on both Committees during creation of the Affordable Care Act. He serves on several national boards including at the Duke Margolis Institute for Health Policy and Accountable for Health, as well as serving on several key studies for the National Academy of Medicine. He also frequently lectures at the graduate level including at schools of policy, law, and public health at Harvard University, Duke University, the University of California at Berkley, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Howard University Law School, and George Washington University.

Frederick holds a Juris Doctorate from Duke University Law School, a Master in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Frederick is the proud son of Cuban immigrants and member of the LGBTQ community; and is crazy about his dog Madison.

Sachin (pronounced SUCH-in) H. Jain, MD, MBA is CEO of SCAN Group and SCAN Health Plan. SCAN is a nonprofit organization with annual revenues of $8B that serves nearly 500,000 people across Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington.

Previously, Dr. Jain was President and CEO of CareMore and Aspire Health. He also served as Chief Medical Information & Innovation Officer at Merck & Co., was Senior Advisor to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and was the first Deputy Director for policy and programs at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). He was also Special Assistant to the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

Dr. Jain graduated from Harvard where he earned his AB, MD, and MBA degrees. He is Adjunct Professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and is a member of the boards of Omada Health, Advantage Healthcare Services, The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He is an advisor to LRV Ventures, Obvious Ventures, and Team8. He also serves on the editorial board of Health Affairs and the American Journal of Managed Care. He is a member of the Aspen Health Strategy Group (AHSG), an initiative of the Health, Medicine & Society Program of the Aspen Institute
and elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance. Dr. Jain is also the author of the forthcoming book, The Moral Alibi: How Healthcare Learned to Look Away—and How We See Again.

Joe McCannon is Executive Fellow at the Higher Ambition Leadership Alliance. His career has focused on leading large-scale change in the government and nonprofit sectors.

Joe’s most recent government service occurred during the Biden Administration where he was Director of Sustainability at the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the Executive Office of the President. He also served at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS/AHRQ) as part of the team developing HHS policy on climate health and equity. He previously served as an Obama Administration appointee as Senior Advisor to the Administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and was part of the founding leadership team at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.

Joe was also CEO of the Billions Institute, supporting governments, foundations and nonprofits in scaling effective innovations, and Vice President at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, where he directed the 100,000 Lives Campaign. He has led graduate courses on systems improvement and social movements at the UPenn School of Social Policy and Practice and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and served on committees of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the National Academy of Medicine. His writing has appeared in JAMA, Health Affairs, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post and Stanford Social Innovation Review, and he served on the Journal for Healthcare Quality editorial board. He graduated from Harvard University and was a Reuters Fellow at Stanford.

Arshad Rahim is the chief medical officer and senior vice president for population health for Mount Sinai Health System and the Mount Sinai Clinically Integrated Network. He has spent the last 9 years driving value-based care transformation and contract success in greater New York City for 500K managed lives, including 200K with downside financial risk, and 6000 providers in the CIN. He oversees clinical operations to drive value-based care outcomes and contracting with public and private payers. He is a practicing primary care internist and hospitalist at Mount Sinai Health System. He is also on the board of directors for America’s Physician Groups (APG) and NAACOS. Dr. Rahim has over 25 years of healthcare industry leadership experience at innovative organizations including as vice president of quality improvement and UM for Lumeris; a group vice president of quality improvement and innovation at Healthgrades; and a director at Sg2 (now part of Vizient).

Diane Rowland, Executive Vice President Emerita of the Kaiser Family Foundation, is a nationally recognized health policy expert with a distinguished career in public policy and research focusing on health insurance coverage, access to care, and health financing for low-income, elderly, and disabled populations. From 1993-2019, she directed the Foundation’s health policy analytic work on Medicaid, Medicare, private health Insurance, HIV and global health policy, women’s Health Policy, and disparities. Dr. Rowland also served as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School of Public Health of the Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Lisa Simpson is currently an adjunct professor in the University of South Florida School of Public Health and the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. She served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of AcademyHealth for 13 years (2011-2024). A nationally recognized health policy researcher and pediatrician, she is a passionate advocate for the translation of research into policy and practice. Her research, and over 120 articles and commentaries in peer reviewed journals, focuses on the role of evidence and data to improve health and health care, particularly for children and marginalized populations.

Bruce C. Vladeck is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Medicare Rights Center, and serves on the boards of the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital and the Altarum Institute. During his professional career, Vladeck held a number of senior positions, including: Assistant Commissioner, New Jersey State Department of Health; President, United Hospital Fund; Administrator, Health Care Financing Administration (now called CMS); Senior Vice President, Mount Sinai Medical Center; and Interim President, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.  At the Health Care Financing Administration, Vladeck was the principal federal official responsible for Medicare and Medicaid; of his many accomplishments in that position, he is proudest of refocusing the organization on services to beneficiaries.

Previously, Vladeck also served as full-time faculty at Columbia University and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and as a trustee or director of many organizations, including New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, Ascension Health, the Hadassah Hospital, the Kaiser Family Foundation, Health Care for the Homeless, the Primary Care Development Corporation; and the March of Dimes. He is also an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Social Insurance.  Vladeck received his BA, magna cum laude, from Harvard College, and an MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan.  He is the author of Unloving Care: The Nursing Home Tragedy (Basic Books, 1980), still considered the standard reference on nursing home policy in the United States, and of more than one hundred articles in the professional literature.

Allison Brennan, MPP is a healthcare consultant specializing in value-based care and patient advocacy, and she serves as the Executive Director of PowerToPatients. She has twenty years of experience in healthcare policy and is also an external consultant to Oliver Wyman, where she brings policy expertise to a multidisciplinary team that supports healthcare organizations and Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) with strategic planning and performance optimization.

From 2015 to 2022, she served as the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS), where she led a team responsible for advocating for policies that benefit ACOs and for educating ACO leaders on complex government policies and programs. Prior to NAACOS, she was a Senior Advocacy Advisor at the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), where she lobbied Congress and the administration and supported medical group practices’ understanding of federal policy. Before joining MGMA, she worked at the Brookings Institution and the National Patient Advocate Foundation, and she began her career as an intern in the United States Senate.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in government and economics from the College of William and Mary and a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University, with a focus on health policy.

Elizabeth Holder has been an IT professional for most of her career. While working at NAACOS, she supported staff in the advocacy of Accountable Care Organizations. Prior to NAACOS she educated clients in the use of Learning Management Software and Resume Applicant Tracking systems. Elizabeth’s favorite activity is spending time with her dogs as well as volunteering at local food pantries.

David Pittman is and Founder & Principal of Pittman Policy Strategies, a healthcare consulting firm specializing in policy, advocacy, and strategic communications. He brings more than a decade of experience helping organizations navigate complex healthcare policy, engage policymakers, and communicate effectively with stakeholders, media, and the public.
Through his work, David is committed to helping patients better understand the healthcare system and advancing policies that promote accountability, transparency, and better outcomes. He spent seven years at the National Association of ACOs, where he led federal advocacy, directed national media strategy, and served as the organization’s chief spokesperson. Earlier in his career, he was a health policy journalist covering Washington for outlets including POLITICO and MedPage Today.
David holds an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where his research focused on Medicare supplemental insurance and has been published in leading journals including Health Affairs, the American Journal of Managed Care, and JCO Oncology Practice. He advises organizations across the health care ecosystem on policy strategy, communications, and advocacy.