Jim Burke
Director of Information Services, Carolinas HealthCare System
Charlotte, North Carolina
Jim Burke is a director of information services at the Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS), the fourth largest public healthcare system in the country and one of Most Wired magazine's 100 Most Wired hospitals. He is responsible for a team of people that focuses on enterprise application integration and revenue cycle automation for CHS and its affiliated entities. Prior to his current position, he held leadership positions at First Consulting Group and Deloitte & Touche, and was a systems engineer for Electronic Data Systems, Inc. Jim is a frequent speaker at Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) meetings and has published an article on revenue cycle management for Gartner. He holds a bachelor’s degree in management information systems.
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Chris Dimos
Vice President of Pharmacy Services, SUPERVALU
Chris Dimos is a 1988 Graduate of the Purdue University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and attended Indiana University Business School. He has worked in healthcare for over 18 years primarily in community-based pharmacy. Chris has held several different positions within community pharmacy from Pharmacy Manager to his current position of Vice President of Pharmacy Services. As Vice President of Pharmacy Services for SUPERVALU, Sav-on and Osco Pharmacies, he currently has responsibilities for Pharmaceutical Procurement, Pharmacy Systems, Pharmacy Process Redesign and Managed Care for approximately 1950 community-based pharmacies.
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Phil Harker
Vice President of Risk Management, INGENIX
Phil Harker, Vice President of Risk Management for INGENIX, is focused on the use of predictive modeling and pharmacy claims data in health care pricing and underwriting. He has an M.B.A. from Arizona State University and has healthcare and consulting experience.
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Tom Haus
Director of Enterprise Architect Services, BlueCross BlueShield of Minnesota
A newcomer to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, Tom Haus graduated from Creighton University with a triple major in Accounting, Management Information Systems and Finance.
As Director of Architecture Services, Tom's position focuses on delivering the enterprise technical strategies and direction for BCBSM. He also has the responsibility for the defining and delivering on the operational data strategies, modeling and integration activates for all operational systems. This includes delivering an enterprise application platform to provide both real-time and multichannel operational application platform while continuing to drive down costs. Tom's extensive experience in both retail and consulting provide a winning combination for the architecture services at Blue Cross Blue Shield on both the IS and customer side.
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Ash Lalani
Customer Information System Manager, Wells Fargo & Co.
Ash Lalani is the Customer Information System Manager with Wells Fargo and is responsible for managing the central operational customer system and vendor management. He is also a member of the data management council and the data quality stewardship council.
Before joining Wells Fargo in 2000, Ash spent the past 20 years working for several consulting companies in England and the United States. He started a small consulting company in 1991 and ran it until 1999, working at many different financial institutions, including First Interstate Bank, Bank One and Washington Mutual. Ash has a bachelor's of science in Computer Science from the University of Westminster in London.
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Jess Lewis
Vice President of Strategic Services, Optum
Jess Lewis is currently Vice President of Strategic Solutions within Optum, a personal health services business within UnitedHealth Group. In this role, Jess establishes technical strategy and architecture plans in accordance with Optum's business strategies and directions. Jess has over 15 years' experience in systems integration, venture capital, enterprise architecture and business / IT strategy alignment, at both Accenture and UnitedHealth Group
While at UnitedHealth Group and in addition to his current role, Jess has served as Senior Technical Analyst with UnitedHealth Group’s venture capital investment arm, Validus Partners. In this role, Jess identified earlier stage, private companies in both the technology and healthcare industries that were perceived as financially and strategically positive investments for UnitedHealth Group. Prior to Validus, Jess created and served as Director of the Solutions Engineering team within the Corporate Systems department. The Solutions Engineering team provided technical architecture development and support, end-user training and communications, and cross-departmental program management.
Prior to joining UnitedHealth Group, Jess spent eight years with Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, focusing on management and architecture development for distributed systems in the healthcare, telecommunications and the airline industries. In addition to client-specific engagement work, Jess also led efforts in the area of systems development methodology specifically targeted at the obtaining Capability Maturity Model (CMM) Level 3 certification for a solution center based in Minneapolis.
Jess graduated Cum Laude from the Luther College (Decorah, IA) in 1990, receiving his BA in Computer Science.
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J.P. Little
Chief Information Officer, Senior Vice President/General Manager Eastern Region, RxHub
St. Paul, Minnesota
J.P. Little is the chief information officer and senior vice president/general manager for the eastern region of RxHub. Previously, he was vice president of advanced technology at iMcKesson, a division of McKesson Corporation. J.P. also served as vice president of technology and operations at Abaton.com, Inc., and vice president of the Advanced Technology Center at United HealthCare Corporation. J.P. serves on the board of directors of Pragmatek Consulting, as well as on the grantmaking committee of Social Venture Partners Minnesota. He received his master’s degree in computer science with a concentration in artificial intelligence from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and received a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology.
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Nader Moawad
Pharmacy Systems Coordinator, Kroger
Nader Moawad has been with Kroger since 1991. He has worked on data conversions through many acquisitions. Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, Nader has a degree from Alexandria University.
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Gary Thomson
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Choice Hotels International
Gary Thomson is senior vice president and chief information officer for Choice Hotels International, the second largest hotel franchise company in the world. He is also an officer of the company, based at the company’s Phoenix, Arizona regional headquarters, where he is responsible for overseeing all information systems design development and technology.
Previously, Gary served as vice president, information systems technologies for Choice where he led the transformation of various systems and the development of Choice's Internet and web technology. He played an integral role in the creation and rollout of successful technologies to support Choice's hotel property management system, interfaces with global distribution systems, reservations support system and Choice Privileges frequent guest program.
Prior to joining Choice, Gary spent 11 years with AT&T Bell Laboratories in various technical and management positions. Thomson began his career as a design engineer with Stromberg-Carlson, a telephone systems manufacturer, after graduating from the University of Memphis with a degree in electrical engineering.
Choice franchises more than 5,000 hotels open and under development in 43 countries. Brands marketed by Choice include Comfort, Comfort Suites, Quality, Clarion, Sleep, Econo Lodge, Rodeway Inn, MainStay Suites, Cambria Suites and Suburban Lodge.
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Jerome Wang, MD
Director for Clinical Information Systems, Cedars-Sinai Medical Care Foundation
Los Angeles, California
Jerome K. Wang, MD, is a board-certified internist and pediatrician with Cedars-Sinai Medical Group and serves as the Associate Medical Director for Enterprise Information Services (EIS) within the Cedars-Sinai Health System and director for clinical information systems for the Cedars-Sinai Medical Care Foundation. Dr. Wang is the physician lead for the implementation of an outpatient electronic medical record (EMR) system at the Foundation as well as the outpatient areas of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He has published peer-reviewed papers on the use of SNOMED-CT in clinical information systems, decision-support in computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and medication errors in pediatrics. He also serves as assistant clinical professor of medicine and pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
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