A native of Boston, MA, Dr. Bessman has been affiliated with The Johns Hopkins University since the age of 5. He received his undergraduate degree from Hopkins in 1977 and his medical degree from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981. After residency training in emergency medicine at the University of Maryland Medical System in 1985 he went into the community to practice emergency medicine as well as taking on a part-time faculty position with the Georgetown University Department of Emergency Medicine. He subsequently joined the emergency medicine faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1992 with his clinical appointment at what was then the Francis Scott Key Medical Center, now Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center (JHBMC). He became Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at JHBMC in 1997, and received his MBA in Medical Services Management from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in 2011.

​

Dr. Bessman’s interests include operations improvement, service excellence, and behavioral economics. He has scholarly publications regarding all phases of Emergency Department (ED) throughput, including triage, diagnosis, consultation, care management, admission and discharge. Under his guidance several innovative programs have been developed at JHBMC including a multidisciplinary combined inpatient/outpatient ED Observation Unit (1994), a credentialing pathway for ED point-of-care ultrasound (1999), a post-graduate residency in emergency medicine for Physician Assistants (2003) and a re-design of the admissions process with the Department of Medicine that has promoted throughput and patient safety and has been copied by many other institutions (2008). In his role as Chairman he fostered an environment of innovation and collaboration that has made the JHBMC ED a preferred site for clinical investigation as well as for educational opportunities for learners from a variety of disciplines. In July of 2017, after leading the transition to new clinical space, Dr. Bessman stepped down as Chairman to take on a role as Senior Director of Faculty Practice across the academic division.

​

Dr. Bessman also performs Urban Search and Rescue operations with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a member of Maryland Task Force-1. He is certified as a Confined Space Medical Specialist and as a Lead Instructor for the Confined Space Medical Specialist training curriculum. Notable deployments include the Oklahoma City bombing (1995), the attack on the Pentagon (2001) and Superstorm Sandy (2012).

Sr. Director of Faculty Practice Department of Emergency Medicine Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Nassim is the current VP of Global Partnerships & Clinical Trial Operations at 360 Medlink Inc. Previously, Nassim served as VP of Business Development for HealthUnlocked, a patient-to-patient support network set up and facilitated by leading health organizations. While in this role, he was instrumental in defining and implementing a wider commercial strategy in the U.S. Nassim has a wealth of experience in business and the pharmaceutical industry, with a focus on patient centricity. His expertise extends across clinical trial productivity, meaningful collaboration with patients and clinical research, having worked at eyeforpharma and The Society for Clinical Research Sites. Nassim holds a master’s degree in finance from the European Business Institute and his MBA from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in 2013.

VP of Global Partnerships & Clinical Trial Operations at 360 Medlink Inc.

Christopher (Chris) Brandt is the Founder and Managing Partner of Audacious Inquiry (Ai), an information technology and policy company focused on connected care. Ai’s care coordination tools currently facilitate more efficient and effective healthcare for nearly thirty million people across ten US states and the District of Columbia. Ai has been named to the Inc. 5000™ list of America’s fastest growing companies for seven consecutive years, and Chris was recognized by Ernst & Young with the Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Maryland Region in 2014. The company has won additional recognition for innovative application of technology in healthcare, diverse composition, and commitment to community development as a “B Corporation.” Chris serves as a staff adviser to CRISP, Maryland's health information exchange. Previously, he served on the boards of Evergreen, a Maryland-based commercial health insurance company, and the Duke University Alumni Association. Prior to founding Audacious Inquiry, Christopher held various information technology positions with Prudential. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an AB in Computer Science from Duke. 

Managing Partner at Audacious Inquiry, LLC.

Rebecca Canino has been with Johns Hopkins Medicine since 2007. Her background includes a long history with international nonprofit startups, and when she returned stateside, the innovation, collaboration, creativity, and compassion for patients that she found at Hopkins fit her personal mission perfectly. She is passionate about reaching as many people as possible with the clinical excellence and game-changing research of our physicians. Rebecca believes that Telemedicine is the optimal platform for our shared mission: improving the health of our community and the world.

Administrative Director of Telemedicine at The Johns Hopkins Health System

Thomas Carroll is the Chief Operating Officer at emocha Mobile Health, an innovative digital health company that is scaling medication adherence to payers, providers, and other at-risk organizations as reimbursement methodologies are better aligned with outcomes.  Prior to his current role, Thomas' career has spanned multiple facets of healthcare from payers to providers to employers.  Most recently, he spent 18 years as a senior equity research analyst leading the health services research group at Legg Mason, and then Stifel Capital Markets.  His primary focus was on the payer market with a heavy concentration of work in Medicaid managed care and the Medicare Advantage program.  Additionally, his group analyzed regulatory topics that dominate healthcare in the US - specifically in the last ten years.  Thomas has an undergraduate degree in finance from Towson University and completed his MHS at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

COO at emocha Mobile Health Inc.

Jessica is the Director of Clinical Innovation Center at UCSF. Jessica overseas the center's operations and leads partnerships with industry and academia. Previously, she has led product design in various San Francisco startups as well as co-founded Healtho, a consumer health information company. She is also the co-founder of one of the largest health meetups in Seattle, the Seattle Health Innovators.

Jessica received her MBA from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in 2012 while she concurrently completed her Residency in Health System Pharmacy Administration at Johns Hopkins Medicine. She also holds a Doctorate in Pharmacy and BS in Biochemistry from the University of Washington. While in college, she attended the UW Academy, an early entrance program for young scholars to attend university at an early age. 

Clinical Innovations Director at UCSF

Prior to joining HRSA, Ilana worked at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) where she worked on policy and regulatory matters with regard to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. She joined HHS/CMS in December 2010 in the Office of Legislation where she worked on Medicaid and CHIP eligibility and the intersection with the Exchanges, Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries, long-term care, and tribal issues. In 2014 she was appointed by Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett to the Commission on Health which advises the County Executive & County Council on public health matters affecting county residents. She has served on the University of Maryland Behavioral and Social Science College’s Alumni Chapter Board since 2012, and now serves as the President.

Prior to joining HHS, Ilana served as the Senior Health Policy Associate for the National Association of State Medicaid Director’s (NASMD) during the implementation of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA), drafting and implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Childrens Health Insurance Programs Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA), and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) from February 2006 through December 2010. Ilana took the lead in the analysis of many pieces of legislation on behalf of the nation’s Medicaid programs and worked closely with the directors and their staff with regard to sharing
their views with Congressional Members, the Obama & Bush Administrations, and HHS. While in law school, she drafted, testified, obtained sponsors, co-sponsors for two bills (now laws) on continuing sex offenses and the Rape Shield before Governors Glendening and Ehrlich signed them into law as well as worked as a Bio-Terrorism law clerk for the Attorney General Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Office. Upon graduation from UB Law ‘03, Cum Laude, she clerked for the Honorable John W. Debelius, III in the Montgomery County Circuit Court where
she worked on complex civil litigation matters (Track IV) and criminal matters appearing on the Judge’s docket.

Ilana earned her law degree cum laude from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 2003. In 2000 she graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in Psychology and in 1998 she received a citation from the College Park Scholars Program in Science, Technology, and Society.

Legal & Compliance Branch for the National Health Service Corps Program at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA)

Tama believes in the power of design to impact lives and enrich communities. As a principal and firmwide leader of Gensler’s Health & Wellness practice, Tama is dedicated to raising awareness of this connection between design and health. A global author, lecturer, and juror, she focuses on the alignment of expectation, interaction, and space to create better user experiences. In the past three decades, she has received more than 50 awards and honors for her work, and is one of the few design professionals to have been inducted as a fellow into the American College of Healthcare Executives. She mentors students from Marymount University, where she earned a MFA in interior design.

Principal, Health & Wellness Practice Leader at Gensler

As CEO of Sage Growth Partners, LLC (SGP), Dan D’Orazio shapes and leads the vision for the firm—a vision focused on helping clients to accelerate their commercial growth. While also leading the firm’s business development efforts, Dan remains actively engaged with client delivery to ensure the quality of work and to deliver successful strategies for clients in an ever-changing and complex healthcare market.

In his 10 plus years with SGP, Dan has held progressively responsible roles that include serving as Director of Corporate Development, General Manager of Strategy and Chief Operating Office. As the first employee of the firm, Dan has been instrumental in the formation and optimization of Sage Growth, and the growth of the firm’s market presence and client relationships. Dan’s career includes extensive experience in value-creation, strategic advisory, marketing, and project launches for non-profit/public sectors as well as the corporate world. Dan has worked extensively with healthcare service providers, technology and device companies, payers, and provider organizations, and private equity/venture capitalists—with firms ranging from startups to Fortune 10 companies. Dan graduated The Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School in 2005. 

CEO Sage Growth Partners

Panagis Galiatsatos, MD is a physician in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His research has focused on community health, health disparities, and resource allocation.  In 2013, along with his colleagues, he established Medicine for the Greater Good at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and continues to serve as its co-director.  Since 2011, he has worked with Dr. Hale in exploring the impact partnerships between religious institutions and medical organizations can have on the community and physicians-in-training, having published several research articles on these themes.  Dr. Galiatsatos is the author on more than thirty research articles, and he has been the recipient of several of awards regarding his work in health disparities.  He is a graduate of Temple University and received his medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine.  His medical training was completed at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in internal medicine, followed by fellowships at the Johns Hopkins University in pulmonary medicine and the National Institutes of Health in critical care medicine.

Co-director & Co-founder of Medicine for the Greater Good

Colleen’s great passion is leveraging data to improve health outcomes in our communities. As an executive who has worked for healthcare organizations ranging from startups to one of the nation’s most prominent health systems and a health insurance company in the Fortune Top 50, she has honed her expertise working across the payer, provider, and healthcare technology vendor spaces. As CEO of Allegro Healthcare, she leads a technology and management consulting firm that focuses on the healthcare industry. 

Managing Partner, CEO, Consultant at Allegro Health

Arif joined CareFirst in October of 2013 and serves as the Vice President of TCCI Program Oversight. He oversees five key areas of the Total Care and Cost Improvement program:

​

• Pharmacy Management

• Home Based Services/Post-Acute Care

• Behavioral Health and Substance Abuse

• Clinical Programs

• Program Evaluation

In this role, he is responsible for program and policy development, vendor management, and contract compliance related to the care management programs that surround the CareFirst Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH).  Some key programs amidst these areas of work include formulary management, specialty pharmacy, enhanced monitoring, addiction support, telemedicine, sleep management, hospice and palliative care, and others.  The centralization of these elements under Arif’s leadership is intended to create a connected, impactful array of services to help CareFirst membership obtain high quality care, at the right time, at an affordable cost.

Prior to joining CareFirst, Arif spent his career in management consulting in the healthcare space and eventually helped start a consulting firm in Washington, DC in 2009. He has expertise in procurements and implementations, organizational restructuring, and vendor management for health plans. 

Arif has an undergraduate degree from UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan Flagler Business School and will be attending Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business for his Executive MBA.

Vice President, TCCI Program Oversight at CareFirst BlueCross Blueshield

Dr. Mathews leads efforts in clinical innovation at the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. He is focused on transforming hospitals and health systems into highly reliable organizations that excel in delivering high quality care. He works closely on strategic initiatives at AI including the development of learning healthcare systems, expansion of governance structures for quality and safety, and collaborations with strategic partners including Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and Ernst & Young. 

In addition, he works clinically in the Division of Gastroenterology at Johns Hopkins where he is immersed in quality and safety efforts. He earned his medical degree at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed his clinical training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at Johns Hopkins. Prior to his medical training he also worked briefly in investment banking at Goldman Sachs in New York City. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia where he studied Economics as a Jefferson Scholar.

Head of Clinical Innovation at Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality

Chris Millet is a co-founder and CEO of Lazy, a healthcare IT start up that lets doctors offices and billing companies submit performance data to Medicare.  Before starting lazy, Chris was the Senior Director for Health IT at the National Quality Forum, a leading institution that vets quality metrics used by healthcare industry for pay for performance initiatives across the country.  From 2011, ChrisMillet was active in Health Level 7, the health care industry’s leading standards development organization, and served as co-chair for the quality reporting workgroup since 2013.  During this time, Chris has co-authored standards used for electronically reporting data to Medicare.  Chris has his Masters in Healthcare IT from Carnegie Mellon University and has previously worked at IBM.

Co-Founder and CEO of Lazy

Dr. Samuel Nokuri is a Lead Physician at Holy Cross Health Center Germantown.  He is a Carey Business School alumni '13 & '15, and founder of Premier Health Express and Telehealth.  Prior to that he worked at Kaiser Permanente where he led the complex care program for chronic care management. He has been awarded and recognized for outstanding patient care and innovator of Cdart App used to treat Clostridium Difficile.  Outside of his great patient care experience, Dr. Nokuri is a member of the United States Air force and Air National Guard.  His main interests involve telehealth as an adjunct to manage chronic diseases, transitional medicine, and urgent care cases.

Lead Physician at Holy Cross Hospital

Mehdi is an Internal Consultant for the Johns Hopkins Health System Operations. He strives to bring changes that allow for the delivery of the highest quality of care in the most efficient manner. His tasks range from problem discovery, to strategy generation, to solution implementation. His focus is aligned patient throughput with maintenance of the highest standard of care. Mehdi obtained his Medical Degree after successfully honoring clinical rotations in Chicago, his Masters in Health Care Management from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School '16, and his Lean Sigma training from the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute. Prior to joining the Johns Hopkins Health System, Mehdi was a consultant for a Baltimore healthcare consulting firm, working with clients from diverse organizations ranging from startups to Federally Qualified Health Systems.

Internal Consultant for Clinical Operations Emergency Management Officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine

Sebastian Seiguer is the CEO of emocha, a mobile health platform that streamlines the continuum of care. From screening all the way through to medication adherence, emocha smartphone and web applications engage the patient and allow various providers to access critical patient information in a timely manner. Before starting emocha in 2011, Sebastian launched a coffee shop chain in Germany from scratch, growing the concept to 25 locations before selling and moving back to his hometown, Baltimore, in 2011. Sebastian received his BA and JD from Columbia University, and holds an MBA in Healthcare and Finance from the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business in 2013.

CEO of emocha Mobile Health Inc.

Previously, Dr. Sharfstein served as Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene from January 2011 to December 2014. In this position, he led efforts to align Maryland’s health care system with improved health outcomes, culminating in the adoption of a revised payment model for all hospital care for Maryland residents. He also oversaw the development of a statewide health improvement process with 18 local public-private coalitions and the reshaping of state’s approach to health information exchange, long-term care, and behavioral health.

From March 2009 to January 2011, Dr. Sharfstein served as Principal Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where he oversaw the agency’s successful performance management and transparency initiatives. From December 2005 to March 2009, as Commissioner of Health for Baltimore City, Dr. Sharfstein led innovative efforts that contributed to major declines in both overdose deaths and infant mortality rates. From July 2001 to December 2005, as minority professional staff and health policy advisor for Congressman Henry A. Waxman, Dr. Sharfstein was engaged in a wide range of oversight and legislative activities on health care topics, including emergency preparedness, HIV, and the politicization of science.

Dr. Sharfstein graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in Social Studies from Harvard College in 1991. From August 1991 to August 1992, he worked on public health projects in Guatemala and Costa Rica with a Frederick Sheldon Prize Fellowship. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1996, from the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center and Children’s Hospital in 1999, and from the fellowship in general academic pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine in 2001.

Dr. Sharfstein is an elected fellow of the Institute of Medicine (2014) and the National Academy of Public Administration (2013). He serves on the Board of Population Health and Public Health Practice of the Institute of Medicine and on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Medical Association. His awards have included the Jay S. Drotman Memorial Award from the American Public Health
Association (1994), Public Official of the Year from Governing Magazine (2008) and the Circle of Commendation Award from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (2013).

Associate Dean for Public Health Practice and Training, Professor of the Practice in Health Policy and Mangement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Grace Sherman has served as a Practice Consultant for CareFirst’s Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Program since June of 2016. She is responsible for a portfolio of about 35,000 CareFirst Members, who represent over $185 million in annual global healthcare spending. Originally from Virginia, Grace obtained a BA degree from the College of William and Mary, and two graduate degrees from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has seven years of health science and public health research experience. Before joining CareFirst, Ms. Sherman worked for the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, coordinating several federally-funded research projects related quality improvement in maternal and child health (MCH) systems.

Consultant, PCMH Program at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield

​

Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology at Johns Hopkins Medicine

Kristen is the Founder and CEO of b.well Connected Health - a platform that puts the consumer at the center of their healthcare.

Most recently, Kristen was the VP of Government Claims and XLHealth at United Healthcare, the largest health insurance company in the country. As VP, Kristen was responsible for oversight and performance of Operations and Technology including analytics and medical economics for the Care Improvement Plus health plans operating in 12 states. In her role, Kristen was responsible for maintaining and growing the profitability of the plan and was instrumental in the acquisition by United Health Group in late 2010 for $2.4 billion.

Kristen began her career in the financial services industry at T. Rowe Price. She then moved into the Medicare and Medicaid space focusing on program reform and cost containment efforts. Kristen was part of the teams that stood up the first fraud, waste, and abuse detection programs across Medicare and Medicaid.  In that role she worked closely with all major claims payers, the FBI and OIG to develop programs and tools to safeguard government funds. She later joined a Baltimore-based disease management company where she was responsible for developing advanced predictive models to isolate gaps in care and intervention opportunities for seniors with chronic conditions. Her role quickly transformed into building back office operations and technology as the Vice President of Operations and Technology for XLHealth as they transitioned to become the fastest growing and most profitable Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plan in the country.

Founder and CEO of b.well Connected Health