Colloquium in Healthcare Leadership: Thursday Evening Series

Howard P. Forman, MD, MBA, is a Professor of Diagnostic Radiology (and faculty director for Finance),  Public Health (Health Policy), Economics and Management. Professor Forman directs the Health Care management program in the Yale School of Public Health and teaches healthcare economics in the Yale College Economics Department. He is the faculty founder and director of the MD/MBA program as well as the faculty director of the healthcare focus area in the School of Management’s MBA for Executives program. He is the co-founder and special advisor to the Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership program. He co-hosts the Health & Veritas podcast with Dr. Harlan Krumholz.

As a practicing emergency/trauma radiologist, he is actively involved in patient care and issues related to financial administration, healthcare compliance, and contracting. His research has been focused on improving imaging services delivery through better access to information. He has worked as a health policy fellow in the U.S. Senate, on Medicare legislation.

During the COVID Pandemic, Professor Forman has actively tracked outbreaks at local, national, and international levels; expounding on mitigation strategies and engaging to dispel misinformation through social and print media. He has been a frequent guest commentator and expert on national video and audio platforms.

Carly Stockdale is a healthcare executive, entrepreneur, Board advisor, and investor with 18 years of experience. She specializes in building, turning around, and investing in venture-backed companies in digital health, longevity, and women's health. Previously, Carly co-founded and served as the CEO of BestLife (DBA Cenegenics), a healthyaging platform. She was also involved in ChartRequest, a release of information company, and played a crucial role as the second employee and executive at Prelude Fertility, contributing to its growth into the largest fertility network in the US. Carly holds an MPH in Healthcare Management from Yale School of Public Health and a BA in Political Science (Health Politics) from Yale.

Jaewon Ryu, MD, JD, is the CEO of Risant Health, after having served as the President and CEO of Geisinger, its inaugural member organization. Risant Health is a nonprofit organization created by Kaiser Permanente to expand and accelerate the adoption and success of value-based care in diverse, multi-payer, multi-provider, health system environments across the country. By doing so, it seeks to improve the health of the communities it serves, achieve better health outcomes, and improve health care affordability.

Dr. Ryu came to Geisinger in 2016 from Humana, where he was responsible for the company’s care delivery assets and capabilities, and previously, he held various leadership roles at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, Kaiser Permanente, and in government at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and as a White House Fellow placed at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He started his career as a practicing corporate healthcare attorney.

Dr. Ryu recently completed a full, two-term stint (2018-2024) on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a body legislatively tasked with advising Congress on policies governing health plans and providers serving Medicare beneficiaries. Currently, he serves on the boards of various organizations including the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the Commonwealth Fund.

Dr. Ryu earned his B.A. from Yale University and his M.D. and J.D. from the University of Chicago. He completed his residency training in emergency medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Kayla Wooley, MPH ’21 (health care management), hadn’t planned on going into senior care, let alone becoming a CEO; she entered Boston College as an undergraduate working toward a career as an elementary school teacher.

Instead, Wooley – whose family has over 60 years of experience in nursing home management – developed a passion for working in senior care, and in June 2017 became a nursing home administrator in Rhode Island. In September 2018, she became director of business development for Apple Rehab, an Avon, Connecticut, firm that specializes in short-term care and long-term facilities; it owns 25 skilled nursing facilities throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Today, she is founder and CEO of StaffOnTap and Nurse Ranger, two SaaS (software as a service) platforms that help health care companies optimize nursing home staffing.

As a part of its Innovation Exchange Speaker Series, InnovateHealth Yale (IHY) recently sat down with Wooley to discuss a key tenet of startup success: founder-market fit – the alignment between a startup’s founders and their target market. Wooley said her intimate knowledge of the senior care industry provided a solid foundation for her to innovate effectively.

Dr. Suzanne Lagarde serves as CEO of Fair Haven Community Health Care, a Federally Qualified Health Center providing comprehensive health care to nearly 30,000 residents of southern CT.

In her 9 years at the helm of Fair Haven, she has overseen considerable growth, with the addition of several new clinical sites and new clinical services. She currently oversees the health center’s efforts in practice transformation, transitioning from volume based to value based health care delivery.

Trained as a gastroenterologist, Dr. Lagarde was a founding member of CT Gastroenterology Consultants, a large private practice in southern CT, where she worked for many years prior to her current position. She is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Yale University and an attending gastroenterologist at Yale New Haven Hospital. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in mathematics from Fordham University and obtained her medical degree from Cornell University. She acquired her MBA, specializing in Healthcare, from Yale University.

Dr. Lagarde is a founding member and past president of Project Access-New Haven, a non-profit which provides access to specialty care for the uninsured. She has devoted her career to improving health care for the underserved. In acknowledgement of her many contributions, she has received numerous community service awards. In 2015, she was the recipient of the “Healthcare Leadership and Innovator Award” from the Connecticut State Medical Society, one of the medical society’s highest recognitions.

Dr. Lagarde advocates for the underserved at both city and state levels. She serves on many key committees, including the Steering Committee of CT SIM (State Innovation Model) charged with healthcare reform in the state of CT. She serves on the Council on Medical Assistance Program Oversight for the state of CT, the agency with direct oversight of the Medicaid Program in CT. She chairs the Medicaid Committee of the CT State Medical Society and serves on the Board of Directors of Community Health Network (CHN), the ASO for CT Medicaid.

Dr. Shereef Elnahal is Under Secretary for Health at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden and confirmed by the United States Senate on July 21, 2022. As the Under Secretary for Health, Dr. Elnahal directs a health care system with an annual budget of approximately $102.2 billion, overseeing the delivery of care to more than 9 million enrolled Veterans. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, providing care at over 1,300 health care facilities, including 171 VA Medical Centers and 1,120 outpatient sites of care of varying complexity (VHA outpatient clinics). VHA is the nation's largest provider of graduate medical education and a major contributor to medical and scientific research. More than 73,000 active volunteers, 127,000 health professions trainees, and more than 362,000 health care professionals and support staff are an integral part of the VHA community.

Dr. Elnahal is physician leader who previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer of University Hospital in Newark, NJ from 2019 through 2022. Dr. Elnahal led University Hospital through the COVID-19 public health emergency. The hospital has served as a model for urban hospital and regional response efforts. In addition to his leadership during the pandemic, Dr. Elnahal oversaw substantial improvements in care quality and patient safety at University Hospital, leading to improvements against national benchmarks.

Prior to his time at University Hospital, Elnahal served as New Jersey’s 21st Health Commissioner, appointed to the Cabinet post by Governor Phil Murphy and confirmed unanimously by the New Jersey Senate. During his nearly two years as Commissioner, he expanded the New Jersey Health Information Network, an interoperability platform that allows for electronic exchange of patient health information among healthcare providers. He worked closely with New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy on her Nurture NJ campaign to help improve infant and maternal health outcomes and reduce health disparities—a mission he continued at University Hospital, with its top tier maternal health services. He also made strides in curbing the opioid epidemic, granting funding to institutions to facilitate data sharing and public health reporting, and marked NJ as the first state in the nation to allow EMS responders to use buprenorphine in the field to prevent withdrawal after naloxone.

Dr. Elnahal previously served as VA’s Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Quality, Safety, and Value from 2016 through 2018, overseeing national policies around quality of care for the VHA, and as a White House Fellow in the VA from 2015-16. During that time, he co-founded the VHA Innovation Ecosystem, a program that continues to foster the spread of innovation and best practices that improve Veteran care across the nation.

Dr. Elnahal holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and an M.B.A. with Distinction from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Kristen Nwanyanwu graduated with highest honors from the University of Michigan. Her degrees in African-American Studies and Biochemistry became the foundation for her career as a health disparities researcher. At the University of Pennsylvania, she earned her medical degree and MBA from the Wharton School. She is a board-certified ophthalmologist and a practicing vitreoretinal surgeon. She completed residency at the University of Michigan and vitreoretinal surgery fellowship at the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary at the University of Illinois at Chicago. After joining the Yale faculty, she was selected for the YCCI Junior Faculty Scholars Program through which she completed her Master of Health Science. She is currently the PI for the NIH-funded Sight-Saving Engagement and Evaluation in New Haven (SEEN) Program, a multi-method approach to identifying and addressing health disparities in diabetic retinopathy. She has lectured nationally on health disparities, access to care, and the surgical management of diabetic retinopathy.

Dr. Lisa Rosenbaum is a national correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and practicing cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston.

Dr. Rosenbaum started writing while completing her undergraduate studies at Stanford University. She went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, did an Internal Medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Cardiology fellowship at NYPH Weill-Cornell. She spent a third year of fellowship at the NEJM where she learned about writing, reporting, and investigative journalism. She was later hired for an academic position at the Brigham and presented with the opportunity to write for the NEJM full-time. She writes on topics including physician burnout, practicing medicine, cognitive bias, and others.

Courtney Ricciuti is a Senior Director at Pfizer, leading the U.S. ELIQUIS Healthcare Professional & Consumer team in Pfizer's Internal Medicine Division. In 2025 ELIQUIS will reach 15 million patients treated in the US since launch and during her 5 year tenure, she's built high-powered teams that drove 40% brand share growth and doubled the growth rate of the oral anticoagulant market. In partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb, she's launched multiple omnichannel campaigns including the "No Time To Wait" atrial fibrillation awareness campaign with basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Her team has also commercialized and promoted clinical and real world evidence though a field force of +600 and all digital channels. She previously served as the U.S. ELIQUIS Strategic Brand Planning Director and Payer Marketing Lead where identified growth opportunities to extend ELIQUIS's market leadership. She launched an innovative pricing pilot with Amazon, enhanced the brand’s contracting strategy to maintain unrestricted access, and launched digital delivery of ELIQUIS’s Payer Value Proposition including real world economic evidence. Prior to joining the U.S. ELIQUIS team, Courtney was on the Internal Medicine Global Commercial team. There, she developed the customer experience strategy and spearheaded the global research and market co-creation of patient support solutions across the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Courtney joined Pfizer as part of Pfizer's MBA Marketing Rotational Program. While in the program, she led healthcare professional and consumer marketing initiatives across Internal Medicine, Vaccines, and a Gates Foundation-Pfizer partnership. Before Pfizer, Courtney was a Strategic Brand Planner at Grey Health (a WPP company) where she helped deliver multiple global brand launch campaigns. Courtney earned her MBA and MPH degrees at Yale University and dual undergraduate degrees in Hispanic Studies and Psychology at The University of Pennsylvania. On weekends, Courtney can be found running around local D.C. parks with her husband Mike, her sons Evan and Max, and their dog Ty.

Asia V. Brown is a Principal at Wellspring Consulting, a strategy consulting firm that works across the social sector. As a Principal, Asia is responsible for managing client projects and teams, and supporting research, analysis, strategy development, and implementation planning. Through her work at Wellspring, Asia has worked with organizations in various sectors including education, poverty alleviation, healthcare, refugee resettlement, and social justice.

Prior to her time at Wellspring, Asia has worked directly in global health including the Instituto de Desarollo Humano in Cochabamba, Bolivia where she helped develop programming. She also conducted research through the Instituto de Efectividad Clínica y Sanitaria (IECS) in Buenos Aires, about the characteristics of postpartum depression among Argentinian women. During her time at the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, she supported a range of research projects through a needs assessment, community engagement, and creating financial tools for budgeting.

Asia received her dual Master’s degrees from the Yale School of Public Health and the Yale Divinity School in 2019 and her BA in History of Public Health from Yale College in 2016.

Matthew Comerford is the Chief Strategy Officer of Yale New Haven Health System, and Senior Vice President and Managing Director of the Office of Strategy Management. Matthew currently has over nine years of experience within the health system. His areas of responsibility consist of strategy development, including corporate, service line, and exploratory strategies, as well as transaction support and integration, organizational design, performance management, and cost reduction strategies (within the Internal Consulting Group). At OSM, Matthew leads 30 individuals supporting our executive team with system-wide initiatives.
Matthew has over twenty-five years of prior management consulting experience that focuses on working with C-level executives to address a variety of strategic, organizational, and transformational issues. Matthew has a cross-industry background including experience working with payers, medical device companies, and provider organizations. 
Matthew holds an MBA from Clarkson University and a Bachelor of Science, Marketing from SUNY College. He is also a graduate of the GE Healthcare Management Academy. Matthew served as a speaker for several healthcare conferences, been published in the American Journal of Medicine and serves as Vice Chair for Vizient CSO Network Advisory Committee. 
 

Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, MACP is the Chief Executive Officer of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), a coalition of more than 50 specialty societies representing more than 800,000 physicians. As the national organization of specialty societies, CMSS advances the expertise and collective voice of medical specialty societies in support of physicians and the patients they serve. Representing every specialty, from primary care to surgery, CMSS addresses critical issues across specialties through shared learning and innovation, convening, collaboration, and collective action.

Dr. Burstin formerly served as Chief Scientific Officer of The National Quality Forum (NQF). Prior to joining NQF, she was the Director of the Center for Primary Care, Prevention, and Clinical Partnerships at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Prior to joining AHRQ, Dr. Burstin was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and served as Director of Quality Measurement at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is the author of more than 100 articles and book chapters on quality, safety, equity, and measurement. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Burstin currently serves on the board of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine. A graduate of the State University of New York at Upstate College of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Burstin completed her residency training in primary care internal medicine at Boston City Hospital and fellowship in General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

David Baugham a healthcare leader and nonprofit professional with a goal of improving access and care for the most vulnerable, particularly the elderly. Innovation is at the intersection of multiple fields, ideas, and perspectives, so I aspire to bring my whole self and interests to work. Let's figure out a way to help others with minimal use of buzzwords.