Jeff obtained his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, and trained in Internal Medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia Campus, and then did a fellowship in Geriatric Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He stayed at Mount Sinai, where he directs the Mobile Acute Care for the Elderly Service and was recently promoted to Associate Professor. He is also the Director of Appeals Management and Clinical Documentation Improvement Departments at Mount Sinai Hospital, chair of their Utilization Management Committee, and led his hospital’s team effort during the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) demonstration project.

He currently serves on their RAC steering committee, ICD-10 preparation committee, and is a seasoned speaker on these matters at numerous area hospitals and national professional meetings. His career interests include teaching and research in models of care for older adults as well as clinical documentation and the medical interface with hospital finance. He is a two-time recipient of a federal Geriatric Academic Career Award and his research has been published in The Annals of Internal Medicine and The Journal of Hospital Medicine.

Dr. John Haughton is an expert in payer-provider integration, value purchasing, risk adjustment, quality measurement, care coordination and informatics. He is the Chief Quality Officer at Independent Health, a top-rated insurer in western NY, and is the Chief Innovation Officer for the Chautauqua Affiliated Medical Partners (AMP), a provider driven ACO. With the IH team he has responsibility for performance improvement, integration and clinical quality measurement. For AMP, efforts focus on financial and clinical population management strategy and execution. AMP is a 2012 start track 1 MSSP, now in its second contract period, which moved medical expense down 10% in 12 months (from +3% at the end of the first year to -6.5% at the end of the second year, with sustained savings in year 3. During this period, quality scores increased from 76 to 92% and collection effort decreased.

He trained as a geriatric rehabilitation physician, earned a degree in electrical engineering and has first-hand patient experience from having bone cancer as a kid, “really just a systems guy trying to make care work better”. Like many in healthcare, he has been trying to find or create and deploy simple, scalable data-driven, care-focused solutions that allow health teams to easily work together across place, time and organization.

He started in patient care, leading a team-based inpatient and outpatient geriatric rehab practice, in the old shoe towns in Massachusetts, with targeted care programs that decreased inpatient utilization up to 80%. Subsequently, he and his colleagues designed and implemented two early internet native (“cloud”) care management and clinical decision support systems, Cognimed which became part of ActiveHealth and the first commercial “cloud” registry and longitudinal decision support system, DocSite taken over by Covisint. He had a stint running product and research at DxCG (now Verisk) which made the HCC risk adjusters that CMS adopted. Dr. Haughton trained at the University of Michigan and the University of Washington and lives near Annapolis Maryland with his wife Jenn and their three daughters.

Ira Klein, MD, MBA, FACP, is the Senior Director of Health Care Quality Strategy in the Strategic Customer Group of Janssen Pharmaceuticals. As a 15-year health care industry veteran, his role is to advance Janssen’s ability to deliver industry-leading value-based solutions to the marketplace through engaging with and supporting providers in their efforts to improve quality reporting and performance. This will be grounded in Triple Aim solutions to Janssen’s advanced customers, and facilitated by a personal record of having worked on a variety of national quality and policy committees in D.C., and with many medical specialty societies and patient advocacy groups.

Previously, Ira was employed by Aetna, where he held a variety of roles during his near 10 year tenure. Most recently, he was National Medical Director for Clinical Thought Leadership in the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, building value-based programs in oncology. He led quality and policy interactions with individual providers, vendors, ACO’s, pharmaceutical companies and other health systems, developing nationwide programs. In addition to oncology, he worked across multiple therapeutic areas including endocrinology and immunology. As Chief of Staff to the CMO at Aetna, he led policy and economic evaluation of the oncology medical cost category, which led to the establishment of the Oncology Solutions Group at Aetna, focusing on developing value-based programs.

Before joining Aetna, Ira was the Medical Director for Quality and Case Management at Bayshore Community Health Services in New Jersey, where his responsibilities included utilization/case/quality management, coordination of inpatient and outpatient system assets, and supervision of all regulatory and governmental reporting activities. Prior to that, he was with Elderplan, Metropolitan Jewish Health System, as Director of Medical Affairs/CMO, Plan Administration. In this capacity, he led the clinical leadership to establish holistic and coordinated clinical services and pharmacy benefit for a population of frail elderly in an urban environment. His early career included seven years of tenure as full time faculty at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, teaching and practicing medicine as an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine.

Ira holds a BS from Rutgers University College of Pharmacy, an MD from University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey – Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and an MBA from Rutgers University.

He lives in Hillsborough, New Jersey with his wife Laureen and their two boys, Thomas (19) and Kevin (14). He has coached a variety of sports over the years, including travel and recreational soccer and basketball and currently serves as a trainer for the Hillsborough Junior Raiders football team.

Harold L. Paz, M.D., M.S., is executive vice president and chief medical officer for Aetna. He leads clinical strategy and policy at the intersection of all of Aetna’s domestic and global businesses. He is responsible for driving clinical innovation to improve member experience, quality and cost in all areas of the health care delivery system. Reporting to Aetna’s Chairman and CEO, he is a member of the company’s executive committee.

Before joining Aetna in 2014, Dr. Paz served as chief executive officer of Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Health System, senior vice president for Health Affairs for Penn State University, dean of its College of Medicine and professor of medicine and public health sciences for eight years. His vision for health care transformation at Penn State led to the formation of an integrated healthcare system of four hospitals, 64 ambulatory care practices and 18 affiliated hospitals focused on population health across central Pennsylvania. Prior to his appointment to Penn State, he spent 11 years as dean of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and chief executive officer of Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Group, the largest multispecialty group practice in New Jersey where he was professor of medicine.

Dr. Paz has focused his research and teaching on clinical outcomes, health care effectiveness and employee health benefit design. A pioneer in the field of quality management, Dr. Paz was among the first to study clinical outcomes in the intensive care unit. From this early work, he recognized the need to formally train physicians in quality, and in 1993 he started the first fellowship of its kind in quality management. Currently, he is professor adjunct of internal medicine at Yale University School of Medicine and remains clinically active in pulmonary medicine at the West Haven Veteran’s Administration Hospital. He serves on the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Leadership Consortium and the NAM Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Advanced Illness.

A fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians, Dr. Paz is currently on the boards of United Surgical Partners International, Research!America and the National Health Council. Dr. Paz is past chair of the Board of Directors of the Association of Academic Health Centers and a former member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the University Health System Consortium boards of directors. He previously was chair of the AAMC Council of Deans administrative board and has served on the AAMC executive council, in addition to corporate and scientific advisory boards in the biotechnology field. He has authored more than 85 publications, including peer-reviewed research and quality articles, chapters, commentaries and abstracts. He is the recipient of numerous awards and an honorary degree.

Dr. Paz received his bachelor's degree from the University of Rochester, a master of science in life science engineering from Tufts University, and his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He completed his residency at Northwestern University, where he served as chief medical resident and instructor in clinical medicine. He was a Eudowood Fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School. In addition, he was a post-doctoral fellow in environmental health science at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

As the Executive Director of the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia’s Center for Medicare Medication Management (cm³), Dr. Stefanacci continues to build upon his work as Health Policy Scholar at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), as well as a geriatrician and professor at the first college of pharmacy in the country. At CMS he spent a year working on the policy and implementation of the Medicare Part D Pharmacy Benefit especially regarding access issues for frail elderly.

Dr. Stefanacci has been involved in LTC facilities since childhood and remains active in the LTC facilities today. Having served as Medical Director for several nursing facilities as well as continuing care retirement communities, he is well versed in the needs of these facilities’ residents. He completed his clinical training at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in geriatrics. Dr. Stefanacci's geriatric experience includes over a decade as a medical director in several roles including a large primary care private practice, a full risk provider group, a Medicare + Choice HMO (M+C), and just recently for a PACE (Program for All-inclusive Care for the Elderly) program in Philadelphia.

As a geriatrician for the St. Agnes LIFE program, Dr. Stefanacci is involved not only in direct patient care but in the implementation of quality assurance and utilization managed initiatives for the frail elderly. Currently Dr. Stefanacci is working with Newcourtland on several innovative new programs, including the introduction of an electronic dispensing and prescribing medication system throughout their network of LTC facilities. Newcourtland manages 1500 LTC beds in Philadelphia plus a recently opened LIFE center. Given this strong background in LTC Dr. Stefanacci has been tasked with developing at the university The Institute for Geriatric Studies at Mayes College for Healthcare Business & Policy – the institute will support a Geriatric Health Program which will be for both undergraduates and graduate students. The Geriatric Healthcare Program will not only provide additional experts in this growing area but also serve as a national and international resource for all stakeholders involved in geriatric care.

He holds two Master’s degrees one in Geriatric Health the other Business Administration. He is board certified in Quality Assurance and Utilization as well as being a Certified Medical Director (CMD). Dr. Stefanacci has served on the board of trustees at his alma mater A.T. Still University as well as the National PACE Association as well as participates actively in the American Medical Directors Association (AMDA), Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, American Society of Consultant Pharmacist (ASCP), and the American Geriatrics Society (AGS).

He has achieved recognition as a fellow in both the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and AGS as well as becoming an honorary lifetime member of ASCP. In addition to writing and lecturing extensively, he serves as editor-in-chief of the Assisted Living Consult and Medicare Patient Management as well as serving on the editorial boards of Consultant Pharmacist, American Psychiatry News , Managed Care, and Jefferson ’s Health Policy newsletter.

Other specific areas of focus include the Alzheimer’s Disease Screening and Treatment Discussion Group as well as the Alliance for Advancing Senior Health which is working with organizations that have common goals to increase the visibility of senior health issues and enhance the public health information infrastructure designed for and available to America's seniors.

When asked, Dr. Stefanacci will state that his greatest accomplishment is “G4theG” which stands for the Go4theGoal Foundation ( www.G4theG.org). A 501(c)3 public charity which was founded with his children, family and friends when his oldest son Richard was diagnosised with Ewing Sarcoma in May of 2006 developing an intense focus after his son’s death on June 12 th 2007. Just in over three years the foundation has raised well over a million dollars assisting several hundred child affected by cancer while funding cutting edge research to find a cure.