2019 Speaking Faculty

As Chief Strategy Officer for Employer Advantage Health Care Solutions, Jed leverages current trends and local initiatives relating to the medical home model of primary care, as the foundation for efficient health care delivery and employer driven "value based purchasing" benefit plan redesign and data driven decision making to improve outcomes and lower cost.

Jed Constantz is a health care professional from upstate New York with over 30 years of experience in the health care industry, beginning his career with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts in 1978 following graduation from Emerson College with a BS in Education. Jed, a native of northern Virginia, has lived in upstate New York since 1980 when he began working for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Central New York, now known as Excellus Blue Cross/Blue Shield. While working at BCBS, Jed earned a Master's in Human Resource Administration from the University of Scranton. In addition to having worked on the payer side, Jed has also served in a number of administrative and management positions for two upstate New York hospitals, a home health agency, several physician organizations, and a physician/hospital organization. As a consultant, Jed has provided support to employers and payer entities seeking to maximize and enhance their working relationship with local physicians, hospitals and other ancillary providers.

Jed has established collaboratives with firms that provide tools and resources for primary care and employers seeking to improve the health status of patients and employees. One such collaborative includes a risk assessment tool, which is at present the foundation for enhanced patient engagement for the Cornell Program for Healthy Living, a primary care physician focused customized benefit plan design for employees and dependents of Cornell University. The risk assessment tool is designed to help physicians establish meaningful health status improvement goals with their patients. Cornell reports CPHL enrollees are approximately $1,500 per year less expensive than non-CPHL enrollees.

While serving as a consultant to Chemung County Government, he guided stakeholders involved in the Priority Community Health Care "medical home," dedicated to the care and treatment of over 2,500 Medicaid Managed Care eligibles. Jed successfully managed the process of gaining National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) recognition for this practice as a Level III Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH). Jed has also been instrumental in the recognition of 9 practices in Michigan and 4 practices in upstate New York by NCQA as Level I and Level III PCMH practices. The focus of the efforts for Michigan and New York was on developing PCMH capability as the foundation for Accountable Care Organization development and the creation of a Clinically Integrated Network acceptable to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), respectively.

Jed served as a Principal Advisor for Salient Management Company, a data management, data mining concern that was part of the Chemung County effort. Salient, under Jed's direction developed a "medical home" data mining solution empowering primary care access to "meaningfully actionable" data that co-mingled electronic medical record (EMR) data with paid claims data from all payer sources. Jed assisted the development team with data mapping, gap analysis and data validation.

Jennifer Goldman, DO is a Board Certified Family Physician and the Medical Director of Memorial Healthcare System’s Primary Care program known as South Broward Community Health Services (SBCHS). SBCHS has multiple primary care practices across South Broward County, all of which are NCQA Level 3 Certified Patient Centered Medical Homes. Memorial Healthcare System (MHS) is one of the largest public healthcare systems in the country and a national leader in quality care and patient satisfaction.

Dr. Goldman has worked in community medicine for over a decade. She is passionate about providing equal access to healthcare for all patients, regardless of ability to pay, and has been working to improve care coordination and decrease unnecessary ED visits and hospitalizations for all primary care patients. Dr. Goldman’s primary care team manages over 25,000 lives and is part of the Broward Guardian ACO as well as the Memorial Health Network’s Clinically Integrated Network.

Dr. Goldman is fluent in three languages (English, Spanish, and Creole) and earned her medical degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2004. Her internship and residency in family medicine were completed in South Florida in affiliation with Nova Southeastern University.

Dr. Grundy known as the Godfather of the PCMH has spent 4 decades focused on population health built on a platform of a healing relationship of trust in primary care.

Winner of the Barbara Starfield Patient Centered Primary Care, the NCQA Quality and the Sappington, The Second order of the Panda from the Governor of Sichuan – awards for his work in primary care transformation.

Paul spent over 17 years as an executive at IBM where he was Chief Medical Officer and Global Director, Healthcare Transformation, IBM HCLS Industry and a member of the IBM Industry Academy prior to retirement from IBM in 2018.

He is a Healthcare Ambassador for the nation of Denmark, One of 7 given the Honorary Life Member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, Only American award an Honorary Lifetime Membership in the Irish National Association of General Practice and the National Association of Primary Care in the United Kingdom.

Adjunct Professor at the University of California San Francisco Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine and the University of Utah Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. Member of National Academy of Science’s National Academy of Medicine and a member of its leadership forum, Director of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) board which Accredits residency training in both the USA and Singapore

Dr. Grundy is the founding president of the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative. Dr. Grundy served in the Carter, Reagan, Bush 1 and Clinton administrations and is a retired senior diplomat with the rank of Minister Consular U.S. State Department. He served In Singapore for three years as a medical Director at International SOS.

Paul Grundy spent much of his youth in Sierra Leone, West African were his parents worked He went to Medical School at the University of California San Francisco did his residency training in Preventive Medicine and Public Health and post doc fellowship in International Occupational Medicine at Johns Hopkins.

Paul is the Coauthor of Lost and Found: A Consumer's Guide to Healthcare and Provider-Led Population Health Management: Key Healthcare Strategies in the Cognitive Era.

As the Executive Director for CTC-RI, Debra Hurwitz provides program administration, contract development and strategic planning for the Initiative, working closely with project leaders and key stakeholders to improve the Patient-Centered Medical Home Model within the existing practices and to develop plans to expand and spread the model throughout Rhode Island. She works closely with Dr. Yeracaris, Chief Clinical Strategist in supporting the practices and leads the nurse care manager best practice learning collaborative.

Ms. Hurwitz is a graduate of the UMass Dartmouth School of Nursing and University of Rhode Island MBA program. Her career includes work for the Hospital Association of RI as a Senior Management Systems Engineer and Nurse Consultant providing consultation on nurse staffing and quality improvement to member hospitals throughout New England. She later worked in hospital administration and served as the Executive Director/CEO of a non-profit disability management company spinoff which provided care management services for self-insured employers in the area.

As the Director of State Health Policy Analysis for the UMass Center for Health Policy and Research, Ms. Hurwitz led an 11-person team that provided policy analyses, program evaluations and strategic planning for Medicaid and Department of Mental Health (DMH) in Massachusetts. While at the Center, she served as a Senior Director of several large, multi-year CMS grants including the Medicaid Infrastructure Grant and the Real Choices System Change grant. In addition, Ms. Hurwitz served as the Principal Investigator for the Mental Health Systems Transformation Grant working with DMH and a large and diverse group of stakeholders to promote recovery-oriented mental health programs and services in Massachusetts. In addition, she led a large and complex stakeholder group in the development of a strategic plan to promote competitive employment for people with disabilities.

Ms. Hurwitz serves as a faculty member of the UMass Medical School, Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Graduate School of Nursing and as an instructor for Brown University Department of Family Medicine.

Lisa LaCarrubba, MD is Medical Director, Clinical Reengineering for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield New Jersey, where she is responsible for the medical management delegation of risk based partners, clinical transformation of the health plan to better meet the needs of the providers, and education and support of value-based health care providers. Previously she served as Northeast Regional Medical Director of Humana Senior Products and Senior Medical Director of AmeriHealth New Jersey. Dr. LaCarrubba is a board-certified family physician who trained at Virtua-Memorial Hospital, completed medical school at Robert Wood Johnson and earned her undergraduate degree from Villanova University. While in practice at North Country Health Systems, she served as chair of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, president of the Medical Staff, Medical Director of the Derby Green Long Term Care Facility, and was a member of the Board Quality, Maternal Child Health and Ethics Committees. Dr. LaCarrubba is a member of the American Association for Physician Leadership the, American Academy of Family Physicians and New Jersey Immunization Network.

James O’Dea is a clinical psychologist and has been employed at Hartford HealthCare since 1989. He holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology and an MBA from the University of New Haven. A collegiate graduate of Rutgers University, he earned both a Bachelor’s degree in Arts in Psychology and a Bachelor’s degree of Science in Microbiology/Immunology in 1982. Dr. O’Dea has extensive background in healthcare administration, including operational activities in multiple clinical service lines and program development in psychiatry, cardiology, neurology and oncology services. More recently, Dr. O’Dea was named Regional Vice President of Operations for the Hartford HealthCare Behavioral Health Network, the largest integrated behavioral health network in Connecticut. The network includes the Institute of Living, Rushford Center, Natchaug Hospital and its many ambulatory locations, and the behavioral health services at Backus Hospital, Windham Hospital, The Hospital of Central Connecticut, MidState Medical Center and Charlotte Hungerford Hospital.

Lisa Parker-Williams has over 28 years of nursing experience. Lisa received her BSN from Long Island University and has a diverse background which includes Medical –Surgical Nursing, Oncology Nursing, High Risk TB and AIDS, Operating Room, Home Care, Case Management and currently in Population Health. Lisa’s love for Homecare led her to case management and finally to population health where she supports Value-Based Primary Care transformation. Lisa received her MBA in Risk Management from St. Peter’s University. Lisa is currently working on her DNP in Leadership at Rutgers University.

Jeana Reyes has 20 years of professional experience in acute care, nursing education, and population health management. Her career focus has been on building best-practice, competency-based, clinical staff development and training including role advancement within value-based primary care transformation. Currently, Jeana is a manager for the Care Transformation team at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, where she leads internal and external education and training, population health strategy, technology training, and communications. Jeana is a member of the American Nurses Association, American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nurses, American Association of Critical Care Nurses where she served on numerous committees over the past 15 years including Standards of Practice Task Force and National Certification Item Writing Committee. Jeana received her Master’s in Nursing with a post graduate certificate in Nursing Education from Thomas Edison University and is nationally board-certified in critical care nursing, cardiac surgery nursing and cardiac medicine nursing.

Dr. Alvia Siddiqi serves as Medical Director with Advocate Physician Partners (APP) in Illinois. Her responsibilities include oversight of the Advocate Accountable Care Entity (ACE) program with nearly 100,000 beneficiaries in the Family Health Plan, now in a partnership arrangement with Meridian Health Plan. She is a member of the APP Quality Improvement, Utilization Management, Peer Review & Grievance, and Clinical Integration Design committees. She also oversees the APP Process Improvement department, which includes a transformation project of nearly 200 aligned independent primary care practices to Patient-centered Medical Homes.

Dr. Siddiqi was the former Medical Director of the Illinois Health Connect PCCM, which included at its peak nearly 6000 primary care medical homes in the network responsible for the care of 1.8 Million Medicaid beneficiaries. She was responsible for the oversight of the PCCM Quality Improvement projects, Pay-for-performance program, Provider Network & Quality Management and Behavioral Health subcommittees, and Provider education. Prior to the PCCM, Dr. Siddiqi had worked in traditional inpatient and outpatient settings with Alexian Brothers Medical Group in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago and as an Attending Physician with Cook County Health & Hospital Systems (CCHHS).

Dr. Siddiqi is a Board-certified Family Medicine physician and Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). She is an appointed member of the AAFP Commission on Quality and Practice. She has also represented AAFP on the National Quality Forum (NQF) Measures Application Partnership Medicaid Task Forces for adult and pediatric quality core measure sets.

Education, Awards, and Professional Affiliations:

Dr. Siddiqi earned her medical degree from Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in 2005 and completed her Family Medicine Residency at MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, Illinois, where she was also Chief Resident in 2008.

She is president of the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians (IAFP). Dr. Siddiqi also serves on several committees, including a CMS Advisory panel, HFS Medicaid Advisory Quality Care Subcommittee, Chicago Area Patient Outcomes Research Network (CAPriCORN) Patient and Clinician Advisory Committee (PCAC), Illinois State Medical Society (ISMS) Council on Economics, and Illinois Rural Health Association (IRHA) Executive Board. In addition, Dr. Siddiqi co-led the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) Care Transitions workgroup and participated in CHIPRA ED Utilization and PCMH workgroups.

In March 2014, she completed a Medical Home training certification program offered in conjunction with the Sixth National Medical Home Summit in Philadelphia, PA. She has special interests in Quality Improvement, PCMH, and Population Health management for underserved populations.

Staci Swenson is the Integrated Care Manager for PrimaryOne Health, a 10-site federally qualified health center system located in Central Ohio. Her passion for reducing barriers to underserved populations receiving high quality behavioral health care has lead her to practice as an administrator, social worker, therapist, educator, and trainer spanning over 15 years. She specializes in behavioral health integration in the primary care setting, crisis intervention, motivational interviewing, and trauma-informed care. Further, she is a community lecturer in the College of Social Work at The Ohio State University and is the education coordinator for PrimaryOne Health which collaborates with the Integrated and Culturally Relevant Care model of field education with the College providing intensive training for over 25 graduate students a year.

Ralph Tang, President, MD/VA IPA, WellCare Health Plans / Collaborative Health Systems, spearheads the company’s growth strategy and execution to deliver Value Based Care via a risk-capable population health MSO (including episodes of care/bundled payments). This is based on VBC contracting partnership with PCP-led Independent Physician Networks (IPAs/CINs) and related Preferred Provider Networks of specialists and acute/post-acute care providers. The efforts, beginning in Maryland, aim to better serve Medicare, Medicaid and Commercial beneficiaries/members.

Prior to WellCare/CHS, Ralph served as CEO & President of Partners In Care, New Jersey—comprising an 18-year-old population health MSO and a 650-provider IPA, which served and sponsored multiple ACOs (Commercial & Medicare). As chief executive, Ralph led and re-structured the multi-entity organization to deliver better health, better care at lower costs—serving CMS, Health Plans, and Self-Funded Employers.

Formerly, Ralph also served as Senior VP, Solution Marketing for MEDecision. He spearheaded Marketing and Partnering for the industry-leading provider of VBC Health IT care management solutions (software, services, and content/analytics) serving Payers, Providers, and Patients.

Ralph holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. In 2014, he was named NJBIZ “New Jersey Health Care 50”.

Lori Tishler, MD MPH has always been passionate about the care of vulnerable populations and making health care work better for people. She is Vice President of Medical Affairs at Commonwealth Care Alliance; responsible for the oversight and management of medical policy, physician staff, behavioral health integration, clinical network provider engagement and clinical quality initiatives. In her role, Lori partners closely with CCA’s executive leadership to spearhead and further clinical redesign efforts, ensure quality care delivery and care management, respond to the concerns and needs of medical staff members, implement medical policy and help to drive clinical growth and transformation.

Lori comes to CCA from Brigham and Women's Hospital where she was an active primary care physician and Medical Director for the Phyllis Jen Center for Primary Care. She managed over 100 physicians and led the medical home transformation.

Lori graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She graduated from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges with an AB in History and Science and from Harvard School of Public Health with a Masters in Public Health. She loves to spend time with her husband and teenage daughter and to travel.

Deborah Weidner, M.D., M.B.A. started her career caring for adolescents on the inpatient unit at the Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA. She was later appointed as Director of the Child and Adolescent Outpatient Programs where she remained for seven years. In 2009, Dr. Weidner moved to Connecticut to join Hartford HealthCare’s (HHC) Natchaug Hospital as its Chief Medical Officer. In 2015, Dr. Weidner’s role expanded to include oversight of the east region behavioral health services of HHC as its Regional Medical Director.

Dr. Weidner has a special interest in quality improvement and has participated in QI committees and efforts at each organization where she has worked driving excellence including renovating the patient environment, restraint reduction, improved communication with primary care providers, improving access, patient experience, and peer review processes. Her passion for quality improvement led to her appointment in 2013 as Vice President of Patient Safety and Quality for the Behavioral Health Network at HHC.

Dr. Weidner also plays a significant role in HHC’s efforts around primary care behavioral health integration as the medical director. She led similar efforts between child behavioral health services and pediatrics at the Cambridge health Alliance resulting in several publications including in the journal Pediatrics.

Dr Weidner is double board certified in general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry. She completed her general psychiatry residency at the University of Pennsylvania and her child and adolescent fellowship at Harvard Medical School at the Children’s Hospital of Boston. Dr. Weidner earned her medical doctorate at Ross University School of Medicine, Dominica, WI. In 2006, Dr. Weidner received an M.B.A from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

Dr. Wiefling is a practicing internal medicine physician at Rochester Regional Health. In her current role as senior vice president, she is responsible for building a robust primary care network that is adaptive to new challenges and opportunities in health care. She plays a critical role leading the Rochester Regional delivery system transformation under the evolution of new payment models. She spearheads innovative strategies and technology to redesign delivery of medical services in a way that reduces cost and improves quality while integrating care across the continuum. Dr Wiefling has served in multiple leadership roles for the system, including chief quality officer and senior vice president and executive director of the Rochester General Medical Group. Prior to joining Rochester Regional, she was the CEO of the Anthony L. Jordan Community Center.

Dr. Wiefling earned her medical degree from the University of Wisconsin Medical School and completed her dual residency at the University of Rochester. She held a clinical faculty position at the U of R and has worked as an FDA Pediatric Advisory Committee consultant. Dr. Wiefling’s career accomplishments also include being a founder in the creation of multiple health service organizations in the region, including Rochester Integrated Health Network, the Greater Rochester Health Home, and Finger Lake Performing Provider System. She volunteers on the boards of the Greater Rochester Health Foundation, SUNY Brockport College, and the Al Sigl Community of Agencies.

CAPT Jason Woo, MD, MPH, FACOG is the Senior Medical Officer in the Office of Generic Drugs, Center for Drug Evaluation, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. As a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist, Dr. Woo has over 30 years in multiple leadership roles as a Commissioned Corps officer of the U.S. Public Health Service. His leadership and senior executive experience covers the spectrum of roles as a hospital and clinic provider, director, and administrator, and public health leadership roles in research, education, regulation, emergency response and in leading direct patient care, process improvement, staff development and infrastructure initiatives.

Dr. Woo became a student of leadership and systems change when studying economic development at the London School of Economics. His understanding of the failures of so many of the first world and second world approaches to third world problems ingrained the need for a systems thinking and wholistic perspective to implement lasting change. Throughout his career he has utilized this perspective to initiate change, process improvement, and team and individual growth and development.

Dr. Woo received a BA in Economics/Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He studied Economic Development at the London School of Economics. He received his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and completed a residency in Obstetrics/Gynecology at the Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.

He has held leadership roles and responsibilities throughout his career. In served the Phoenix Indian Medical Center as the Director for Gynecologic Services, Director of the Native American Women’s Health Clinic, and Deputy Chief of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. His administrative leadership roles included being the Phoenix Area Indian Health Service Maternal-Child Health Consultant and Telemedicine Programs Director, as well as serving a detail as the Clinical Director for the Elko Service Unit for their JCAHO accreditation. His research and academic interests have been around contraceptive products development, overseeing clinical trial networks and research portfolios with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Contraceptive Development Branch. His broad regulatory experience includes overseeing clinical review of dietary supplements, medical foods, and drugs and serving in senior executive roles for major organizational change efforts in the Office of Compliance and the Office of Generic Drugs for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Woo has published multiple articles and contributed chapters on clinical and regulatory topics. CAPT Woo has had multiple emergency response deployment roles in his career for the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, including as a Team Leader for the Operation Lone Star Border Response mission. He maintains his clinical and teaching role with hospitals and clinics in the Washington, DC area.