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NCSL HITCh at HIMSS 2007 Web-Assisted Audioconference Speaker Biographies
Tuesday, February 27, 2007, New Orleans, LA
Conference Speakers Consisted of: Delegate Shan Pendergrass, Maryland
Member of House of Delegates since January 11, 1995. Deputy Majority Leader, 2007-. Member, Health and Government Operations Committee, 2003- (health insurance subcommittee, 2003-04; long-term care subcommittee, 2003-04; minority health disparities subcommittee, 2005-; chair, health occupations subcommittee, 2005; chair, insurance subcommittee, 2005-, member, 2004-); Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review, 2003-; House Facilities Committee, 2005-; Joint Legislative Task Force on Small-Group Market Health Insurance, 2005-. Member, Economic Matters Committee, 1995-2002 (workers' compensation subcommittee, 1995-96; health insurance subcommittee, 1996-2002; vice-chair, science & technology subcommittee, 1999-2002); Joint Technology Oversight Committee, 2000-03; Joint Committee on Health Care Delivery and Financing, 2003-05; Medical Malpractice Insurance Work Group, 2004. Chair, Howard County Delegation, 1997-2000, 2005-. Member, Women Legislators of Maryland, 1995- (endorsement committee, 2001-). Member, National Conference of State Legislatures (commerce & communications committee, 1995-2002; women's legislative network, 1995-; health committee, 2002-; health chairs committee, 2005-). Member, County Council, Howard County, 1986-94 (chair, 1989, 1990, 1993). Member, State Commission on Neighborhoods, 1995-96; Task Force on Access to Mental Health Services, 2003-04; State Advisory Council on Pain Management, 2003; Task Force to Study Electronic Health Records, 2005-. Born in Los Angeles, California, March 14, 1950. Attended Fenger High School, Chicago; University of Illinois, B.F.A. (fine arts), cum laude, 1973, M.A. (fine arts), 1974. Art instructor, Aurora University, 1974-75. Art therapist, Children's Unit, Edgemont Hospital, 1977 (program coordinator, 1978). Art teacher, Severn School, 1978-79. Member, National Council of Jewish Women, 1997-; Milbank Foundation, 2004-. 100% Environmental Record Award, Maryland League of Conservation Voters, 1994-2004. Outstanding Individual Award, The Arc of Howard County, 2000. Tera Partner Award for spearheading creation of Howard County Technology Incubator, Center for Business and Technology Development, 2000. Conservationist of the Year, Audubon Society of Central Maryland, 2001. Hannah A. Solomon Award, National Council of Jewish Women, 2001. Legislator of the Year, Maryland Cares, 2002. Senator James Clark Award for distinguished public service to the people of Columbia, Howard County Democratic Party, 2003. Outstanding Conservationist of 2004, Audubon Society of Central Maryland, 2004. Legislative Sponsor Award, Maryland Children's Action Network, 2005. Maryland's Top 100 Women, Daily Record, 2005. Married; two children.
Rep. Judy Baker, a Democrat, represents part of Boone County (District 25) in the Missouri House of Representatives. Elected to the House in 2004, Rep. Baker is a Adjunct Professor of Managerial Economics at Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri and a Healthcare Consultant and a Managing Partner at Cura Advantage, a healthcare consulting firm.
Mr. Saunders is responsible for the executive leadership and strategic direction of ACS Heritage, Inc. ACS Heritage, an operating unit of ACS Government solutions, is a premier healthcare information technology firm that services 18 Medicaid programs, over a dozen BCBS plans, large Fortune 100 employers, multiple national commercial payers and PBMs. The business model of ACS Heritage is to leverage best in class proprietary analytic and utilization management capabilities to bring innovative solutions to market that dramatically impact the cost and quality of healthcare delivery. In the past five years ACS Heritage has successfully developed and implemented over eight new service offerings. These offerings include the industry’s first rules based utilization management solution that evaluates healthcare services at the point of care, a personal health record for individual recipients, and a real time pharmacist-centric medication therapy management program. Mr. Saunders also recently led the successful entry of ACS Heritage into the Electronic Health Record (E.H.R.) market with three successful state Medicaid program (Missouri, Texas, and Wyoming) implementations. The ACS Heritage E.H.R. suite contains custom applications that exchange clinical and claims information among the physician, recipient, pharmacist and payer and engage each constituent in actionable recommendations to improve care and lower cost. Mr. Saunders was appointed leader of the ACS Heritage organization upon the acquisition of Heritage Information Systems, Inc. by Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (http://www.acs-inc.com/), a Fortune 500 publicly traded organization. Mr. Saunders oversees all facets of service delivery, operations and sales. Mr. Saunders closely monitors client satisfaction and ensures operational excellence in the delivery of Heritage services. Prior to joining Heritage in 1999, Mr. Saunders held several positions with Per-Se Technologies, Inc. (formerly Medaphis Corporation), a company providing outsourced information technology, claims processing, accounts receivable management and practice management services to hospital based radiology, anesthesia, pathology and emergency medicine physician practices. As Regional Vice President of Account Management, Mr. Saunders oversaw a staff of 360 professional and production employees that serviced 85 practices comprised of 400 physicians. Prior to joining Per-Se, Mr. Saunders worked for Price Waterhouse, LLP in Washington, DC and was a licensed CPA in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Mr. Saunders holds a Bachelor of Science in Commerce from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. Mr. Saunders is frequently asked to speak at industry conferences and meetings, and recent presentations include the Health Information Technology Summit, National Healthcare Antifraud Association, and the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association.
Lisa Gallagher, BSEE, CISM serves as the HIMSS Director of Privacy and Security. In this role, she is responsible for all of the privacy and security programs and volunteer Steering Committee, Task Force and five Work Groups. As well, Ms. Gallagher provides privacy and security content support for HIMSS’ Federal and State Government relations/advocacy work. With more than 25 years of experience consulting in security engineering, hardware design and software development, Ms. Gallagher is a thought leader with respect to the practical application of security techniques and standards as well as privacy and security policy in today's health care environment. Ms. Gallagher currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Health IT sub-council on the Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC). The HSCC serves as the designated healthcare industry representative body, and coordinates with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to implement critical infrastructure/security planning and analysis activities for the healthcare sector in accordance with Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD-7). In a past position as Senior Vice President of the Health Information Technology Department at URAC, an independent, nonprofit healthcare accreditation organization, Ms. Gallagher created and managed a series of information technology-focused healthcare accreditation programs. Ms. Gallagher has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering, is a certified trust technology evaluator (NSA), and is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) (ISACA). Mr. W. Ob Soonthornsima serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana. He is responsible for the company’s information technology division. As a member of the senior management staff, Ob provides IT strategic and tactical directions in support of the company’s corporate strategy. Ob is directing the company’s Louisiana Health Information Technology strategy to establish, facilitate and increase the adoption of electronic health record across the state. Prior to joining Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana in 2003, Ob served on the senior management team as senior vice president and CIO of Pan-American Life Insurance Company, an international insurance and financial services company. His responsibilities included information technology, corporate program office and business process engineering, as well as corporate services. Within the insurance / financial services industry, both corporate and management consulting, Ob’s main focus has been in technology. His work has been in the areas of business process reengineering, strategic information systems planning, sales process transformation and Internet-based service delivery. As a management consultant, Ob developed information systems, operational and distribution strategies for national and international insurance companies and other Fortune 100 financial services companies. Ob began his career as a software developer with Health Systems Consulting, Inc., a health insurance consulting firm in Miami, Florida. He served as vice president, information systems, for Loan America Financial Corporation of Florida, a national wholesale mortgage banking company. He was Manager with Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group in Atlanta, prior to joining Pan-American Life in 1998. Ob received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Miami. He currently serves on Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) steering/governance committee on the Louisiana Health Information Exchange initiative. Ob serves on Louisiana DHH steering committee for Louisiana’s Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration project. He currently serves on the board of trustees at Trinity Episcopal Day School. He was an adjunct professor at University of New Orleans’ business school. He chaired the IT Consortium Executive Committee of the Louisiana School-to-Career Program, a high school career development program established by the National Academy Foundation. Ob served as a board member of the New Orleans Regional Chamber of Commerce School-to-Career Governance Board. He also served on the executive committee of the Louisiana Technology Council’s Board of Directors.
Eileen Koski holds the position of Director, Informatics Research at Quest Diagnostics Incorporated. Her focus for the past few years has been the development and application of data mining and anomaly detection processes to population based data analysis. Much of this work has been done in conjunction with public health surveillance, beginning with a pioneering project in 1999, in collaboration with colleagues at the CDC, using St. Louis Encephalitis testing as a marker for the emergence of West Nile Encephalitis in NYC. Other projects were on a larger scale and involved data of more general interest to the medical community and consumers, such as LDL cholesterol. One of Ms. Koski’s other areas of expertise is in the graphical display of medical information, particularly data visualization and the application of innovative graphical design to medical reports. Beginning nearly ten years ago with participation in the ANSI HISB, Ms. Koski has also been actively engaged in the HIT standards arena. Most recently she served on both the ANSI HITSP Biosurveillance and Electronic Health Record technical committees as well as the AHIC Biosurveillance Data Steering Group. Prior to joining Quest Diagnostics, Ms. Koski worked at Columbia University for many years where her work included serving as director of operations on a large, multi-center, NIH-sponsored, randomized clinical trial, as well as the design and implementation of medical databases for numerous clinical and research applications. Ms. Koski‘s publications include co-authorship of a review article in JAMIA on syndromic surveillance and she has made many presentations at peer-reviewed scientific meetings ranging from the American College of Cardiology (ACC) to the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). She holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology, a master’s and an M.Phil. degree in Sociomedical Sciences, all from Columbia University.
Kala Evelyn Ladenheim, Ph.D., M.S.P.H. is a Program Director, Forum for State Health Policy Leadership at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Ladenheim specializes in state-level access and financing issues: health care for the uninsured, insurance market reform, managed care, HIPAA, ERISA, risk pools, and comprehensive access reforms. She is the director of NCSL’s HITCh (Health Information Technology Champions) project, which supports state legislative expertise in HIT. Previously, Ladenheim was Executive Director, Maine Health Policy Advisory Council , and has taught health policy at Johns Hopkins University; The George Washington University and other graduate and professional programs.  Back to HITCh at HIMSS page
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