OnDemand Telehealthier: Improving Access and Increasing Care

About this On Demand Training

Since the onset of the pandemic, telehealth utilization has experienced an upward trend, and industry experts are advocating for it to be a permanent option. Join NCQA and top industry experts to highlight practices that are using telehealth/remote care delivery to successfully drive improvements in care. 

This 3-day series includes panel discussions about the evolution of telehealth, best practices in care delivery, its impact on the quality improvement experience and its use for chronic conditions such as behavior health and cardio rehabilitation. 

Day 1: Virtual kick-off event featuring keynote from NCQA President Peggy O’Kane.

• Moderator: Frank Micciche
• Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals 
• Krista Drobac, Executive Director, Alliance for Connected Care 
• Ceci Connolly, President and CEO, Alliance of Community Health Plans

Day 2: How telehealth supports quality improvement and how it is measured.

• Ethan A. Booker, MD, FACEP, MedStar Telehealth Innovation Center 
• Andrew Watson, MD, MLitt, FACS, UPMC

Day 3: An exploration of care needs and telehealth best practices in behavioral health and cardio rehabilitation.  

• Thomas Kim, MD, Internist, Psychiatrist, Telehealth Advocate 
• Ade Adesanya, Co. Founder & President, Moving Analytics Inc.

Who Should Attend

•    Health care professionals
•    Health care decision makers
•    Consultants
•    Health plans
•    Health systems
•    Hospitals
•    Managed behavioral healthcare organizations
•    Population health organizations
•    Wellness organization leverages within federal, states and employers

Faculty

Ade Adesanya
Co. Founder & President
Moving Analytics Inc.

Ade Adesanya, the Co-founder & President of Moving Analytics Inc, a telehealth company that is increasing access to cardiac rehab and helping patients recover faster at home through an innovative app-based virtual cardiac rehab program, Movn. Their programs are developed in partnership with Stanford University and are based on more than 30 years of published research. Moving Analytics works with several leading healthcare organizations including Veterans Affairs Administration, Healthcare Services Corporation, Highmark Health plan, Kaiser Permanente, Capital District Physicians Health Plan, Mayo Clinic and many others. Ade has a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the University of Houston and a master's in Engineering Management from the University of Southern California.

Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals 

Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA Founder and CEO of the BayouClinic/ Gulf States Health Policy Center, and served as the 18th United States Surgeon General (2009-2013). She holds the Endowed Chair in Public Health Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana. She specializes in prevention policies and health promotion among individuals as well as large populations, especially concerning obesity, heart disease, stroke, and tobacco use. She has special interest in rural health care, health disparities among socio-economic groups, suicide, violence, mental health, and breastfeeding.

From her early days as the founder of a rural health clinic in Alabama to her leadership role in the worldwide advancement of preventive health, Dr. Regina Benjamin has forged a career that has been recognized by a broad spectrum of organizations and publications. In 1995, she was the first physician under the age of 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees. Other past board memberships included the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Family Foundation Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, Catholic Health Association, and Morehouse School of Medicine.

Dr Benjamin advises or consults with various stages of growth companies, including technology and healthcare. She currently serves on the boards of Kaiser Hospitals and Health Plan; Ascension; ConvaTec PLC; Computer Technology Systems Inc (CPSI); Doximity; Oak Street Health; and the American Heart Association.

Dr. Benjamin is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. She was chosen as a Kellogg National Fellow and Rockefeller Next Generation Leader.

In 1998 Dr. Benjamin was the United States recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health

And Human Rights. She received the 2000 National Caring Award, which was inspired by Mother Teresa and was recognized with the Papal honor Pro Ecclesia et Ponticifice from Pope Benedict XVI. In 2008, she was honored with a MacArthur Genius Award Fellowship. In 2011, Dr. Benjamin became the recipient of the Chairman’s Award at the 42nd NAACP Image Awards

In May 2013, Reader’s Digest, ranked her #22 of the “100 Most Trusted People in America.

Benjamin has a B.S. in chemistry from Xavier University, New Orleans, attended Morehouse School of Medicine, earned an MD degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and an MBA from Tulane University. She is the recipient of more than 30 honorary degrees

Ethan A. Booker, MD, FACEP
MedStar Telehealth Innovation Center 

Ethan Booker, MD, FACEP, is the medical director of the MedStar Telehealth Innovation Center (MTIC) and MedStar eVisit. MTIC has supported MedStar Health in providing more than 1.5 million telehealth encounters since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr Booker received undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Michigan and completed residency training in emergency medicine at the University of Chicago. He represented emergency medicine to the AMA RBRVS Update Committee from 2010-2018 and has been a member of ACEP’s Reimbursement Committee and Alternative Payment Task Force. He is a co-principal investigator in the Connected Care Access, Research, Equity (CARE) & Safety Consortium, supported by R-01 AHRQ research grant, examining the impact of telehealth in primary care in response to COVID-19. He is a practicing emergency physician, a core faculty member of the MedStar Georgetown/Washington Hospital Center emergency medicine residency and the founding director of the MedStar Health Telehealth Fellowship.

Ceci Connolly, President and CEO
Alliance of Community Health Plans

Ceci Connolly is President and CEO of the Alliance of Community Health Plans (ACHP), the trade association for nonprofit, community health plans. A prominent voice in health care for 15+ years, Connolly has served as a national correspondent for the Washington Post and a leader at international consulting firms, including PwC and McKinsey. She is coauthor of LANDMARK: The Inside Story of America’s Health Law and What it Means for Us All and has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Modern Healthcare and THCB. Connolly was included on Business Insider’s inaugural list of “DC Health Care Power Players” and was also the first non-physician to receive the prestigious Mayo Clinic Plummer Society award for promoting deeper understanding of science and medicine. Additionally, she is a Women of Impact (WOI) founding member, a Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) Board member and formerly a Whitman-Walker Health Board member.

Krista Drobac, Executive Director
Alliance for Connected Care 

Krista Drobac is the Executive Director of the Alliance for Connected Care and also a partner at Sirona Strategies. She has more than twenty years of experience in federal and state government, and in public affairs. She was previously the director of the Health Division at the National Governors Association’s Center for Best Practices, and a Senior Advisor at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) during the Obama Administration. She also served as Deputy Director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services and spent five years on Capitol Hill as a health advisor to Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin and Senator Debbie Stabenow. The Alliance for Connected Care is a 501(c)(6) organization dedicated to ensuring that all patients and providers are able to realize the benefits of telehealth and remote monitoring. In addition to the Alliance, Krista serves as Co-Chair of Aligning for Health, a coalition advancing social determinants of health policy at the federal level, and founder of Moving Health Home, aimed at making the home a clinical site of care.

Krista holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MPP from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.

Thomas Kim, MD, Internist, Psychiatrist
Telehealth Advocate 

Dr. Thomas J Kim serves as Chief Behavioral Health Office for Prism Health North Texas. Dr. Kim has devoted his professional life to realizing a value-based approach to healthcare through telehealth. Dr. Kim has supported Prism’s continued growth and impact in the development of an integrated, behavioral health service line. These efforts have allowed Prism to not only obtain a Patient Centered Medical Home designation, but also a distinction in Behavioral Health. Dr. Kim has supported a wide range of vulnerable populations including incarcerated adults and juveniles, the elderly, those struggling with substance dependence, the military, people living with HIV/AIDS, and disaster victims. Dr. Kim has provided advocacy, leadership, and content expertise to service organizations, academic centers, government agencies, professional organizations, and industry startups. Dr. Kim serves or has served on the TMA’s Council on Legislation, Committee on Health Information Technology, Subcommittee on Behavioral Health, and other working groups and committees in support of the health of all Texans. Dr. Kim also continues to serve his state through the Governor’s Broadband Development Council. Dr. Kim received his BA in Philosophy from Georgetown University and MD, MPH from Tulane University. Dr. Kim continued at Tulane with a combined residency in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry and General Medicine Fellowship in Health Services Rese

Frank Micciche
Vice President
Public Policy and External Relations

Frank Micciche is NCQA’s vice president of Public Policy and External Relations. In this position, he directs NCQA’s relations with Congress, federal agencies and the states, as well as NCQA’s work with employers, associations, corporate sponsors and the media.

Micciche was formerly the Vice President for Partnerships and Coalitions at the Campaign to Fix the Debt, a nonpartisan collaboration of prominent public and private sector leaders and more than 350,000 grassroots supporters working to address the nation’s fiscal imbalance.  Prior to this position, he was a Senior Advisor on health reform at McKenna, Long & Aldridge, LLP and worked for the New America Foundation think tank.

Micciche’s service in the public sector includes his time as a legislative director for the House Minority Leader in Massachusetts and as a federal liaison for Governor John Engler of Michigan.  He served for four years as the Director of State-Federal Relations for Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA), where he led the Commonwealth’s Washington, DC, office and advised the governor on federal policy issues, with a focus on health care reform.

Micciche holds a master’s degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Tufts University.

Peggy O'Kane
President
NCQA

Margaret E. O’Kane is founder and President of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and has received the Picker Institute Individual Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Patient-Centered Care, as well as the Gail L. Warden Leadership Excellence Award from the National Center for Healthcare Leadership.

Modern Healthcare magazine has named O’Kane one of the “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” 12 times, and one of the “Top 25 Women in Healthcare” 3 times. She is a board member of the Milbank Memorial Fund and the Institute for Exceptional Care. She is also a board member and former board chair of Healthwise, a nonprofit organization that helps people make better health decisions.  O’Kane holds a master’s degree in health administration and planning from Johns Hopkins University, where she received the Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Eric Schneider,  MD, M.Sc
Executive Vice President
Quality Measurement and Research Group

Eric Schneider, MD, M.Sc. leads NCQA’s measurement, research and contracting agenda as Executive Vice President of the Quality Measurement and Research Group. In this role, he helps drive NCQA’s efforts to create a more equitable health care system and to advance the move to digital quality measurement.

Dr. Schneider came to NCQA from The Commonwealth Fund, where he was Senior Vice President for Policy and Research and a member of its executive management team. He has a long history with NCQA, most recently as Co-Chair of its Committee on Performance Measurement. He served on that committee for more than 10 years, including nine as Co-Chair.

Prior to his tenure at The Commonwealth Fund, Dr. Schneider was principal researcher at the RAND Corporation and held the RAND Distinguished Chair in Health Care Quality. As the first director of Rand’s Boston office, Schneider built its highly regarded multidisciplinary team of health services researchers.  As a professor at the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School Eric taught health policy and practiced primary care internal medicine for 25 years.

Widely regarded as one of the nation’s preeminent health services researchers, Dr. Schneider has authored more than 125 published peer-reviewed research investigations and dozens of other scientific or medical research publications, reviews, chapters, editorials, and more. His work has focused on four aspects of health care quality — performance measurement methods; evaluation of quality and safety measurement in public reporting and financial incentive programs; use of health care quality measures to assess racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health care quality; and evaluation of innovative approaches in health insurance, organization and financing of health care, and the organization of health care delivery.

Dr. Schneider trained in health services research, public health and primary care general internal medicine. He holds a Bachelor of Science, cum laude, in biology from Columbia University and a Master of Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco. He is a member of the AcademyHealth Board of Directors and a fellow of both the American College of Physicians and the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Andrew Watson, MD, MLitt, FACS
UPMC

Dr. Andrew Watson is a fourth-generation surgeon and the eighth surgeon in his family. He earned his Master’s degree at the University of Oxford studying 17th Century Baroque Architecture and attended medical school at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

He did his surgical training and fellowship at UPMC. He is an actively practicing colorectal surgeon specializing in minimally invasive inflammatory bowel diseases and complex re-operative abdominal surgery. He is the primary colorectal surgeon in the IBD medical home at UPMC. He is a Professor of Surgery in the Division of Colorectal Surgery. He actively uses and helps to develop telemedicine at UPMC with a focus on remote patient monitoring, he has personally done over 700 virtual consults including pre-operative, post-operative, tele-rounding, intra-operative, and remote patient monitoring.

He blends his career working for all four UPMC business units – International, Insurance Services, Enterprises and Health Services Divisions to practice and help envision the transformation of healthcare, with a focus on telemedicine. He past-President of the American Telemedicine Association. He is an advisor to the American Board of Telehealth. He also started the largest telemedicine tweet-chat #TelemedNow. Follow him on Twitter @arwMD.

Continuing Education

This live course grants 2.0 Continuing Education Unit (CEU) points for PCMH Certified Content Experts.  

* Please note – You must attend the entire program to be eligible for total number of contact hours.

Disclosure of Relevant Financial Relationships

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) endorses the Standards of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education which specify that sponsors of continuing medical education activities and presenters at and planners for these activities disclose any relevant financial relationships either party might have with commercial companies whose products or services are discussed in educational presentations.

For sponsors, relevant financial relationships include large research grants, institutional agreements for joint initiatives, substantial gifts, or other relationships that benefit the institution.  For presenters or planning committee members, relevant financial relationships include the receipt of research grants from a commercial company, consultancies, honoraria, travel, or other benefits, or having a self-managed equity interest in a company; or having an immediate family member or partner with such a relationship.

Disclosure of a relationship is not intended to suggest or condone bias in any presentation but is made to provide participants with information that might be of potential importance to their evaluation of a presentation.

Relevant financial relationships exist with the following companies/organizations:

Faculty:
Ade Adesanya:   has stock interests and affiliation in Moving Analytics. All relevant financial relationships have been mitigated.
Regina Benjamin:  None
Ethan A. Booker:   None
Ceci Connolly:       None   
Krista Drobac:       None
Thomas Kim:         None
Frank Micciche:     None
Peggy O'Kane:      None
Eric Schneider       None
Andrew Watson:   None

Additional Planning Committee Members:
Cathy Beckner: None
Tammy Donnelly: None

This program was developed in part by NCQA staff.

Event Type

1. Self Paced