I have practiced as a Hospitalist for over 10 years. In addition to clinical time, I serve as the Chief of Medicine and Co-Lead of the Hospitalist Group at McKay-Dee Hospital. I have been a Physician Advisor for Intermountain Healthcare, a 23 hospital system, for over 6 years. I was the second physician hired to Intermountain's Physician Advisor Service, which started a little over 7 years ago and has grown to a program of 26 physicians. My experience during that 6 years includes utilization review, physician education, and denials and appeals management, which is my primary focus now. I have served as a panel moderator and panel member at previous World Congress Physician Advisor Summits and am excited to be a part of this year's Summit.

Dr. Bansal did his Internal Medicine residency at Good Samaritan Hospital (Johns Hopkins University), Baltimore and started his career as hospitalist in 2012. He continues to practice as hospitalist and also serves as Director of Quality for Rochester General Hospitalist Group, Rochester, NY. He has championed several quality improvement initiatives at Rochester General Hospital over the past few years and has received acknowledgment from the Society of Hospital Medicine as a Fellow in Hospital Medicine. Also he is a fellow of American College of Physicians & American College of Chest Physicians. He has been working as Physician Advisor at Rochester Regional Health for last 3 years and is handling level of care determination, clinical documentation improvement and denial management.

Dr. Joseph Borawski is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. His current administrative responsibilities include Medical Director of the ED-based Observation Unit as well as Assistant Director of the Division’s Acute Care Research Team. He has several research projects ongoing, including site Principle Investigator (PI) for a large, multicenter heart failure randomized clinical trial as well as site PI for the National Emergency Airway Registry (NEAR). Dr. Borawski completed his medical training at Albany Medical College, NY with subsequent post-graduate training at Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, VA. Upon completion, he served four year as a General Medical Officer in the United States Navy, first as Battalion Surgeon for 3d Battalion, 2d Marines and then later as Regimental Surgeon for 10th Marine Regiment. After resigning his active duty commission in 2009, Dr. Borawski completed his residency training in Emergency Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, joining the faculty group in 2012.

Jose M. Carralero, MSN, RN, CMSRN is an Advanced Patient Outcomes Facilitator for the observation units at Baptist Hospital of Miami in South Florida. Jose has 12 years of nursing experience and 6 years in a leadership role. In addition, Jose is presently on the faculty at West Coast University in Doral, Fl.

Dr. Christopher Caspers is a board-certified emergency physician with the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine at NYU Langone Health. Dr. Caspers serves as the chief of observation medicine for the NYU Langone Health system where he oversees a combined 50-bed observation medicine program across multiple hospital sites and is a leading national expert in observation medicine. He is an invited national speaker and his work in observation medicine has been recognized by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the National Patient Safety Foundation, the British Medical Journal, the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and the Vizient Patient Safety Organization (formerly UHC) as well as being described in multiple publications.

Dr. Caspers is also the associate chief of emergency medicine at NYU Langone Tisch Hospital in Manhattan, serves as the secretary for the national ACEP observation medicine section and is an expert advisor to the Vizient Patient Safety Organization. He completed his residency training at the NYU/Bellevue Emergency Medicine Residency in New York City where he was a chief resident and currently enjoys teaching future emergency physicians as a core faculty member. Dr. Caspers’ interests involve clinical operations, innovation, quality improvement and leadership in healthcare.

Dr. Greiner graduated from Ross University School of Medicine and completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He spent one year as an assistant professor and academic hospitalist at the University Hospital and then moved to his current employer, North Memorial Health, where he is medical director in observation services, hospital medicine, and utilization management. Dr. Greiner is also the president of the Twin Cities Medical Society, a component medical society of the Minnesota Medical Association that serves nearly 5,000 members. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and a member of the Society of Hospital Medicine. His interests include physician wellness, the intersection between customer service and healthcare, improving informed consent, and end of life conversations.

Dr. Guarracino is Chair of Emergency Medicine at UPMC Pinnacle. Prior to working at UPMC Pinnacle, he served as Chair of Emergency Medicine and President of the Medical Staff at Carlisle Regional Medical Center. He completed his residency training at Grandview Hospital and Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio where he was a Chief Resident and completed medical school at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Guarracino is Board Certified in Emergency Medicine and earned his Masters of Science in Healthcare Administration from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

Dr. Guarracino’s areas of interest are evidence-based medicine, ED operations and observation medicine. He has lectured nationally on such topics as ED Throughput and the development of ED Observation Units.

Dean Harrison is presently on the Faculty at the Duke University Medical School. In addition to being the Director of the Clinical Observation Unit he serves as the Director of Advance Practice Providers and the Director of the Emergency Medicine APP Residency Program. He previously has held academic appointments at George Washington University and Johns Hopkins University. He has held multiple senior leadership positions both on a State and National Level. In addition to his interest in Observation medicine he is a National and International speaker regarding multiple health care topics. He has been involved with the development and management of Observation Units for the past 16 years

Deeraj is the Medical Director of Physician Advisor program at Unity Hospital/Rochester Regional Health in Rochester, New York. He is an Academic Hospitalist and also serves as the Chair for Utilization Management Committee. Deeraj completed his Internal Medicine residency at Rochester Regional Health. Deeraj graduated with a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester, New York.

Dr. Chris McStay attended the Weill Cornell Medical College and completed his Emergency Medicine residency at NYU/Bellevue in New York City. In New York he completed a fellowship in Patient Safety and Quality through the Greater New York Hospital Association and United Hospital Fund. He served as the Chief of Service for the Bellevue Hospital Emergency Department and co-chaired the Health and Hospitals Corporation Emergency Department Directors Council, a system responsible for over 1 million annual ED visits.

In 2014 Dr. McStay joined the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado as an Associate Professor. He has the pleasure of serving as the Chief of Clinical Operations for the Emergency Department at the University of Colorado Hospital. Dr. McStay's academic interests include disaster management and preparedness, wilderness and environmental medicine and patient safety and quality.

Professor of Medicine Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University Director, Observation Unit Director, Pediatric Education and Quality Improvement Director, Research Rapid Response Team Faculty, MetroHealth Medical Center/Cleveland Clinic Emergency Medicine Residency Cleveland Clinic Cleveland, Ohio Author of medical textbook Author of over 150 articles in the medical literature Former Chair, American College of Emergency Physicians Section of Observation Medicine

Stefanie B. Porges MD is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She completed an Internal Medicine residency at Hahnemann Hospital. She completed an Emergency Medicine fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania and has practiced Emergency Medicine at Penn for over 25 years. Additionally, for over 20 years, she has been one of 4 medical command physicians for the PennStar Flight program.

For the last 5 years, Dr. Porges has served as Medical Director of the Emergency Department Observation Unit and overseen Penn’s Advanced Practice Provider program. Under her direction, Penn’s EDOU has grown to a 27-bed unit. Dr. Porges has developed partnerships with many hospital service lines, including the transplant, hepatology and oncology divisions, to improve quality and prevent readmissions.

She sits on many hospital committees including quality and is the physician lead for Unit Based Clinical Leadership. Dr Porges is the lay member appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for the Attorney State Disciplinary Board as well as appointed by the Pennsylvania governor to the state Maternal Mortality Review Committee.

Melanie joined the faculty of the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine in 2016 as an attending in Observation Medicine. She has led numerous multidisciplinary quality and safety improvement initiatives which resulted in several presentations at national and international conferences. Additionally, Melanie serves as the NYU faculty advisor for the NYC Free Clinic, a clinic run by NYU medical students, and mentors them in their research endeavors.

She received her medical degree from Wright State University with a global health track, and completed her residency at Good Samaritan Community Hospital in Dayton, Ohio, where she served as Chief Resident. After residency, Melanie was one of two selected for the Robert L. Philips Health Policy Fellowship, co-sponsored by the School of Medicine at Georgetown and the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies. While serving as an attending in the Department of Family Medicine, she completed several publications on various health policy issues and received a certification in Health Policy from the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

David M. Schneider, BSN, RN, CMSRN graduated with his Bachelor’s in Science of Nursing from the University of Central Florida in 2014. His career with Baptist Hospital of Miami began in July of 2017. He currently works as a Patient Outcomes Facilitator in the Observation Units.

Blaine Stringer, MSN, RN, CEN, NE-BC, began his nursing career in 1995 after graduating with his BSN from Wright State University in Dayton, OH. He worked as clinical nurse in critical care from 1995-1998. In 1998, Blaine began working in the Emergency Department (ED) at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, MI where he was introduced to nursing leadership and shared governance. Blaine advanced his leadership career path in 2003 by becoming an assistant nurse manager in the ED. In the years to follow, he has held roles of nurse manager of the ED, and trauma coordinator for two major trauma centers in the city of Chicago. In 2009, Blaine joined the Rush University Medical Center (RUMC) team as the assistant unit director (AUD) of emergency services. While in the AUD position at RUMC, he was able to complete his MSN in 2016 at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, IL. In 2017, Blaine became the UD, unit director, the Adult Observation unit at Rush University Medical Center. In this role, Blaine was instrumental in the opening of the 23 bed Adult Observation Unit. Through his leadership he has provided oversight of staff development, proactively impacted the organization’s length of stay, began protocol creation, and overall process improvement of the Adult Observation Unit. Some accomplishments to highlight include leading the medicine/oncology/cardiology department with the highest unit engagement scores and being selected for the American Organization of Nurse Executive’s Fellowship with his project to implement a nurse driven protocol for evaluating the need for physical and occupational therapies in the observation patient population.

Professor of Emergency Medicine at UAB in Birmingham, Alabama. Associate CMO, Director of Emergency Services and Director of Observation Medicine for the UAB Health System. Established the first dedicated unit for Observation Medicine at UAB in 2015, which is currently undergoing expansion to 35-40 beds, plus and admissions holding / treatment space. Medical Education at the University of South Alabama, Residency in Emergency Medicine at UAB. Fellowship in Cardiovascular Emergencies at the University of Virginia. Starting my 12th year on Faculty at UAB in the department of Emergency Medicine with focus on clinical operations, quality improvement, observation medicine, and cardiovascular emergencies.

Dr. Turner is a hospitalist with Maury Regional Medical Group and is the current medical director of the clinical decision unit for Maury Regional Health, a 360 bed health system ranked number 1 in the state of Tennessee for overall hospital care in medical excellence and patient safety by CareChex.com. After completing residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, he joined Maury Regional Health as a hospitalist in 2009. Dr. Turner completed a Masters of Management in Healthcare from Owen Graduate School of Business at Vanderbilt University in 2016. He became faculty at Vanderbilt University in 2017 and was medical director for a program focused on patients with high healthcare utilization until returning to Maury Regional Medical Group in September of 2018 to become medical director of the clinical decision unit where he has led the transition of unit from direction under the emergency department to hospital medicine.

Amit Wadhwa is a board certified Emergency Physician who currently serves as the Medical Director for Utilization at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring Maryland. Prior to serving as Holy Cross Hospital's Medical director for Utilization he served as the assistant medical director of a 50,000 visit ED just outside of Washington D.C where he also served as the medical director for the Clinical decision Unit. He has served as a consultant to numerous hospitals to help optimize observation unit performance and has also lectured at the national level regarding Observation Medicine best practices. In addition to his experience in clinical operations, he has also served as a Consultant for the Delmarva foundation (Maryland's QIO) and has been a Physician accreditor for the Maryland institute of Emergency Medical Services Primary Stroke certification program. He has previously served as the medical director for the Washington D.C's Department of Fire and Emergency Medical services and has held faculty appointments in Emergency Medicine at both the George Washington and Howard University schools of Medicine. He currently practices Emergency Medicine at Fort Belvoir Hospital in Virginia and sits on the Medical Board for Oak view rehabilitation in Maryland.

Stephanie Figueroa has worked as a senior physician assistant in our department since 2002, thus approaching her 15th anniversary at Johns Hopkins in our Emergency Department this June. She has been the Chief PA since 2004, and now serves as PA Manager overseeing our group of over 20 emergency medicine physician assistants and nurse practitioners.

Stephanie was name Director of Observation Medicine in April of this year. Previously, she has served as the Assistant Director of Observation Services since 2011, where she oversees the utilization and management of our emergency department’s observation unit, the EACU. Over the past decade, Stephanie has developed an intimate knowledge of observation medicine and has lectured and chaired conferences across the country regarding the fundamentals of operations, documentation, and management of the observation unit.

Stephanie’s love of technology has led her to pursue many interests along those lines as well. She currently serves as our only EPIC Certified Physician Builder, and has been an EPIC clinician champion representing our ED throughout the enterprise. She has helped to bring the AgileMD tool known as our Evidence Based (EB) Guidelines to Johns Hopkins, and contributes to the content and optimization of each guideline. In addition, she has most recently been serving as the sole telemedicine provider across JHH, Bayview, and Howard County.

For several years now, she has continued the be the liaison between the emergency department and the hematology sickle cell care team. She completed a fellowship with the Armstrong Institute Leadership Academy for Patient Quality and Safety in 2016, focusing on improvements for the care of sickle cell patients presenting to the emergency department. The SCREAM protocol was successfully implemented to standardize patient specific care for patients with sickle cell disease in our ED, and has also helped to reduce ED visits and admissions in this population as well.

Stephanie’s educational background includes a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and a minor in Spanish from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and a Master’s Degree in Physician Assistant Studies from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Last year she was awarded the Distinguished Fellow status by the American Academy of Physician Assistants for outstanding dedication to the PA profession.

Dean Harrison is presently on the Faculty at the Duke University Medical School. In addition to being the Director of the Clinical Observation Unit he serves as the Director of Advance Practice Providers and the Director of the Emergency Medicine APP Residency Program. He previously has held academic appointments at George Washington University and Johns Hopkins University. He has held multiple senior leadership positions both on a State and National Level. In addition to his interest in Observation medicine he is a National and International speaker regarding multiple health care topics. He has been involved with the development and management of Observation Units for the past 16 years

Dr. Chris McStay attended the Weill Cornell Medical College and completed his Emergency Medicine residency at NYU/Bellevue in New York City. In New York he completed a fellowship in Patient Safety and Quality through the Greater New York Hospital Association and United Hospital Fund. He served as the Chief of Service for the Bellevue Hospital Emergency Department and co-chaired the Health and Hospitals Corporation Emergency Department Directors Council, a system responsible for over 1 million annual ED visits.

In 2014 Dr. McStay joined the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado as an Associate Professor. He has the pleasure of serving as the Chief of Clinical Operations for the Emergency Department at the University of Colorado Hospital. Dr. McStay's academic interests include disaster management and preparedness, wilderness and environmental medicine and patient safety and quality.

Professor of Medicine Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University Director, Observation Unit Director, Pediatric Education and Quality Improvement Director, Research Rapid Response Team Faculty, MetroHealth Medical Center/Cleveland Clinic Emergency Medicine Residency Cleveland Clinic Cleveland, Ohio Author of medical textbook Author of over 150 articles in the medical literature Former Chair, American College of Emergency Physicians Section of Observation Medicine

Dr. Bela Nand is an Associate Program Director and Clinical Assistant Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago /Advocate Christ Medical Center (ACMC) Internal Medicine Program. In addition to this she is also the Medical Director of Care Management at our Institution. Dr. Nand developed and initiated an excellent Quality Improvement/Patient Safety and Hospital Administration rotation for Internal Medicine Residents. She is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Case Management and is a Diplomat of American Board of Quality and Utilization. Dr. Nand is also a Fellow of American College of Physician and is certified in Health Care Quality and Management. She has received multiple awards including a MVP for Stewardship and Magnet Clinical Division Award at Christ Hospital Medical Center.