HOST

Brandon Robertson

UCP Merchant Medicine

Brandon J. Robertson is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of UCP Merchant Medicine. He formed UCP Merchant Medicine in 2015 and has sought to create opportunities for health systems to thrive in the ever-changing healthcare consumerism space with focus in the on-demand care industry.

For the last decade, Brandon has advised hundreds of leaders on approaches and models to optimize patient experience and throughput. To date, 150 urgent care centers utilize the UCP Merchant Medicine model and produce 34-minute average door-to-door times and Net Promoter scores in the 90s.

Brandon’s expertise is in healthcare consumer centric modern urgent care, virtual care, and occupational health services. He is an expert in artificial intelligence applications for healthcare as well as Six Sigma and Lean methodologies.

Brandon holds an MBA from the University of Colorado with emphasis in Healthcare Administration.

HOST

Heather Mirjahangir Fernandez

Solv

Heather Mirjahangir Fernandez is the CEO and co-founder of healthcare technology company Solv. She established Solv to transform the healthcare experience by shifting the power back to patients, where it belongs.

Heather focused her career on creating simple, transparent experiences that delight consumers and revolutionize outdated industries, from real estate to healthcare. Prior to Solv, Heather served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Business Services at Trulia, Inc., where she led advertising product, market and sales strategy, which accounted for nearly $200M in annual revenue, through its acquisition by Zillow (NASDAQ: ZG) in 2015. Heather's diverse professional background spans politics, technology and financial services--including time at Morgan Stanley, the U.S. House of Representatives, and Senator John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign.

She currently serves on the Atlassian (NASDAQ: TEAM) board of directors and is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

SPEAKER

DJ Patil

First US Chief Data Scientist

DJ Patil is an entrepreneur, investor, scientist, and leader in public policy. He has held senior roles in industry, academia, and government and his work has been featured in two Michael Lewis books (The Fifth Risk and Premonition). As a General Partner at GreatPoint Ventures he focuses on building companies in healthcare, enterprise technologies, and national security.

Notable early stage investments include Figma, Confluent, Ola in India, Monte Carlo, Chronosphere, Sumologic, RelateIQ, Peoplehood, and Rebellion Defense.

He is a board member for Devoted Health where he was an executive on the founding team and CTO with the mission to build a health care system that takes care of every member like they were family. Previously he led the product teams at RelateIQ which was acquired by Salesforce, and was founding board member for Crisis Text Line which works to use new technologies to provide on demand mental and crisis support. At LinkedIn he was Chief Scientist, Chief Security Officer and led the data efforts which included recommendation systems like People You May Know, Who Viewed My Profile, and Jobs You May Like; new technologies like Kafka; co-coining the term Data Scientist. He has also held a number of roles at Skype, PayPal, and eBay.

Dr. Patil public policy work includes being appointed by President Obama to be the first U.S. Chief Data Scientist where his efforts led to the establishment of nearly 40 Chief Data Officer roles across the Federal government. Establishing new health care programs including the Precision Medicine Initiative (now the NIH All of Us program) and the Cancer Moonshot, new criminal justice reforms including the Data-Driven Justice and Police Data Initiatives that cover more than 94 million Americans, as well as leading the national data efforts. He also has been active in national security and for his efforts was awarded by Secretary Carter the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service which is the highest honor the department bestows on a civilian.

He is a member of the Defense Science Board and a member of the Board of Visitors for National Defense University. He has been a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School and CTO for the Biden-Harris Transition where he led development of technology related policy policies.

As a member of the faculty at the University of Maryland, his research focused on nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory and he helped start a major research initiative on numerical weather prediction. As an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow for the Department of Defense, Dr. Patil directed new efforts to leverage social network analysis and the melding of computational and social sciences to anticipate emerging threats to the US. He has also co-chaired a major review of US efforts to prevent bioweapons proliferation in Central Asia and co-founded the Iraqi Virtual Science Library (IVSL). And if you’ve read this far, he barely graduated from high school because of his math grades.

More details can be found on his LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dpatil and can be followed on twitter @dpatil

SPEAKER

Ajsa Nikolic, MD

Ochsner Urgent Care & Occupational Health

Dr. Nikolic is a New Orleans native and currently serves as System Chair at Ochsner Urgent Care and Occupational Health. 

As an accomplished entrepreneur and clinician, Dr. Nikolic opened two urgent care centers in 2007 to provide immediate quality care for both locals and tourists in downtown New Orleans. After 10 years of successful operation, she sold the sites to Ochsner Health System. Following the acquisition, she was invited to join the Ochsner team to champion their urgent care and occupational health strategy.  

Dr. Nikolic will be speaking on our Now theme focusing on Operational Excellence. She will specifically examine the critical need of urgent care staffing for business survival. This session will cover equipping staff for success to effectively provide quality patient care in the face of staffing challenges. Dr. Nikolic will present Ochsner Health System's findings for what's worked well in helping them staff for success, and the forthcoming projects to keep their workforce strong.

SPEAKER

Jamie Harraid

Texas Health Resources – Breeze Urgent Care

With a prior background in management, sales and retail consumer strategy, Jamie has a strong operations background with Texas Health Resources and has served in a multitude of positions. He initially joined Texas Health in 2010 as the physician and community outreach manager at Texas Health Neighborhood Care & Wellness Center in Burleson. He was then promoted to administrator of the campus where he led critical initiatives to enhance operations, increase revenue while reducing expenses, all while maintaining max patient satisfaction scores in both the emergency and outpatient departments. He has also been instrumental in the development, launching, and oversight of various Texas Health fitness centers across the system.

In May of 2020, Jamie assumed the role of Vice President of Ambulatory Services for Texas Health where he is responsible for the Breeze Urgent Care service line. In this role, he has overseen the opening of 26 locations since November 2020, with several more planned to open by end of this year. With a consumer-centric approach to the design of all aspects of the operating model, Breeze takes a unique approach to delivering care. Jamie is passionate about Breeze redefining what consumers expect from an urgent care visit by focusing on creating superior experiences for each and every patient.

Jamie is a native Texan who holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology, with a specialization in behavioral neuroscience, and a master’s in business administration from Texas A&M University.

SPEAKER

Jeremy Adams

JLL

Jeremy serves as Managing Director at JLL in the healthcare tenant representation practice.

Jeremy has successfully led thousands of healthcare real estate transactions for his national client base. Jeremy specializes in site selection strategies, consulting and transactions for the Healthcare Industry. His strategy for finding the right commercial real estate space is based on statistical analysis and a scientific approach–plotting patient data/addresses, payor mix, no shows/cancellations, referral partners, competition, M&A activity, and current/projected demographics over existing/potential real estate locations.

SPEAKER

Karen Horgan

VAL Health

Karen co-founded VAL Health to apply behavioral economics to improve health and health care. A proven expert in developing high impact behavior change and engagement programs, Karen is commonly found presenting at leading industry conference and private speaking events including SXSW, HIMSS, the AHIP Institute, and the World Economic Forum. As the CEO, she has spearheaded the development of hundreds of behavior change programs that enable clients to overcome healthcare’s biggest challenges.

Prior to starting VAL Health, Karen was Chief Marketing Officer at Keystone Strategy, a consulting firm affiliated with experts from Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and MIT, where she led global client engagements to develop R&D and innovation solutions for Fortune 500 companies. Karen also previously led marketing and product management teams for early-stage technology companies and was a consultant with Bain and Company in Boston and Hong Kong.

Karen holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BS from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER

Katie Fellin

ECG Management Consultants

Katie is intensely focused on helping define and implement practical managed care strategies to position providers for long-term success. Her deep expertise in provider contracting and reimbursement enables her to identify immediate revenue enhancement opportunities through existing or new managed care arrangements as well as solutions to address payer operational challenges that often reduce expected reimbursement for providers.

Since joining ECG in 2008, Katie has conducted managed care reimbursement assessments and led contract negotiations with academic and nonacademic health systems; small and large, single- and multispecialty physician practices; skilled nursing facilities; and behavioral health providers, resulting in an average annual revenue enhancement of 5% to 15%. As the reimbursement market has shifted, Katie’s focus has broadened to support major health systems across the nation in the development of commercial, Medicare Advantage, and managed Medicaid payer contracting strategies. In addition, Katie has supported many providers and private equity firms in the completion of facility and professional black box analyses and the successful transition of payer contracts required as the result of provider mergers and acquisitions.

In recent years, the demand for behavioral health payer contracting support has increased dramatically, largely as a result of the opioid epidemic, demand for increased adolescent behavioral health services, and increased payer focus on controlling overall healthcare expenditures through enhanced behavioral healthcare management. Katie has supported behavioral health providers’ transition from out-of-network to in-network status with commercial payers and has helped negotiate commercial payer agreements for behavioral health providers across the country, including addiction medicine providers, autism therapy providers, and other various psychotherapy providers. Katie has also begun working with providers on identification of opportunities to integrate behavioral health services in a primary care setting.

SPEAKER

Myoung Cha

Carbon Health

Myoung Cha is President of Carbon Health's Home-Based Care division and the Chief Strategy Officer for the company. Myoung is responsible for Carbon’s device-enabled home care operations, including virtual care, remote patient monitoring, and home diagnostics services. In addition, Myoung is driving the company’s omnichannel primary care model, which is designed to meet patients where they are by delivering care via a variety of access points, including in-person clinics, home-based care, and easy-to-use consumer health tools.

Prior to Carbon, Myoung was an executive at Apple, where he led a product organization of engineers, designers, data scientists, and clinicians that incubated and built technologies focused on improving health and wellbeing for consumers around the globe. Myoung spearheaded the development and launch of several products and research initiatives with partners including Google (COVID-19 exposure notifications), the government of Singapore (LumiHealth), CVS/Aetna (Attain), and J&J (Heartline).

SPEAKER

Nikki Cicerani

SYPartners

Nikki strongly believes in the power of companies to be vehicles of positive change in the world. For over 15 years, her leadership in both large corporate companies and small social impact firms has helped organizations realize their purpose, set clear and compelling visions for their future, and galvanize stakeholders across complex systems.

Her passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion has been constant throughout her career. Previously, she was an integral part of EY’s inaugural inclusion initiative, which successfully decreased the gender disparity at the Partner level and improved career advancement pathways for women throughout the firm.

Most recently, she served as the President and CEO of Upwardly Global from 2009-2018. Under her leadership, Upwardly Global grew from a local program to a national organization leading work in breaking down barriers for skilled immigrant and refugee professionals. She now serves on the Board of Directors.

Nikki graduated from Cornell with a B.S. in Policy Analysis, and earned her MBA from Columbia Business School. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two sons.

SPEAKER

Sos Mboijana, MD

Kaiser Permanente, Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group

Dr. Mboijana serves as Assistant Chief Medical Information Officer at Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic.

Dr. Mboijana is focused on bringing healthcare into the modern era and has a deep passion for primary care. In his role with Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Mboijana is constantly exploring new avenues and technologies that can benefit the healthcare experience of patients and their care teams through accessibility and coordination of care delivery.

SPEAKER

Todd Latz

GoHealth

Todd Latz has served as CEO of GoHealth Urgent Care since early 2015. He is a recognized healthcare leader for his work delivering innovative and effortless patient experiences across 225+ centers nationwide through joint ventures with health systems.

Prior to joining GoHealth, Todd served as the CEO of MedQuest, Inc., a leading owner, operator, and manager of diagnostic imaging facilities with over 75 centers in 8 states. In addition to image services, MedQuest also provides management and billing services to hospitals, physician practices, and ambulatory surgery centers.

Before entering the healthcare space, Todd was a practicing attorney focusing on public and private company securities matters, mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance, as well as the representation of issuers and underwriters in a variety of capital raising transactions.

The themes of the Merchant Medicine Symposium are Now, Near, and Next. Todd will be speaking in our Now theme focusing on operational excellence and the major trends impacting urgent care. He will explore the importance of taking signal from consumer preferences to grow your urgent care organization and expand service lines to enhance the patient experience and satisfaction.

SPEAKER

Tom Charland

Merchant Medicine

Tom founded Merchant Medicine in 2007. Prior to his retirement from the urgent care consulting industry in 2021, he was led executive thought leadership, strategic planning, and operational engagements with health systems across the U.S. for UCP Merchant Medicine. He was formerly SVP for Strategy and Business Development for MinuteClinic; Executive Director of National Association for Ambulatory Care (NAFAC); CEO Digital Cyclone (acquired by Garmin); and Executive Director at Control Data Systems (acquired by British Telecom); member of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE); member of Urgent Care Association of America (UCA). In the last several years consulting, Tom was been quoted regarding walk-in medicine in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Fox News, Dow Jones, and Bloomberg. Tom was also a frequent speaker at investment research meetings and hospital strategy conferences.

SPEAKER

Zeev Neuwirth, MD

Reframe Healthcare

Zeev Neuwirth MD most recently served as the Chief Clinical Executive for Care Transformation & Strategic Services at Atrium Health. Prior to this, Dr. Neuwirth served as the Senior Medical Director for Population Health; and prior to that, as the Chief Clinical Executive of the Atrium Health Medical Group.

Prior to joining Atrium Health, Zeev served as Chief of Clinical Effectiveness & Innovation at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, a 600 physician, multi-specialty practice located in eastern Massachusetts.

Dr. Neuwirth has over 15 years of experience in clinical operations, process improvement, population health, as well as care redesign & innovation. His efforts to improve and transform healthcare delivery have been featured in Newsweek, Forbes, Fast Company, The Yale School of Management Journal, and in two Harvard case studies.

In August 2017, Dr. Neuwirth launched a healthcare podcast entitled, Creating a New Healthcare. The podcast was named as one of the most popular healthcare podcasts of 2018 and was awarded "Healthcare Podcast of the Year" by HITMC in April 2019.

In April 2019, Dr. Neuwirth published Reframing Healthcare - A Roadmap for Creating Disruptive Change. In this book, Dr. Neuwirth outlines a comprehensive, sustainable and replicable roadmap to transform healthcare delivery into a more consumer-oriented, humanistic and value-based system.

Dr. Neuwirth is an alum of Tufts University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He received a Masters in Healthcare Management from the Harvard School of Public Health, where he continues to lecture on healthcare transformation.

SPEAKER

Andy Chern

SYPartners

Since joining SYPartners a decade ago, Andy has led work with organizations such as IBM, Coach, WW, NBCUniversal, and CVS Health. From purpose and culture, to corporate strategy, growth platforms, and consumer experience, Andy partners with senior leaders and their teams to envision, design, and realize futures that don’t yet exist.

He previously led the Strategy team across SYP’s New York and San Francisco offices. He enjoys writing about his experiences as a strategist—good and bad—as a way to share practical lessons and insights.

Prior to SYPartners, Andy worked at two smaller boutique agencies in Atlanta focused on marketing campaigns, strategic communications, and consumer/employee experiences. There, his clients included Nike, MTV Networks, UNICEF, FedEx, Interface, and WhiteWave Foods.

Outside the office, Andy can be found outdoors getting up to no good with his two boys, in the kitchen cooking up a storm, or trying to learn how to make something with his hands. Andy holds a B.A. in International Studies, Spanish, and Ethics from Emory University in Atlanta, GA.