In this episode, we will learn more about some of the aspects and considerations around policy in the context of delivery system improvement, with my guest Cheryl Kirchner RN, BSN, MS, CPHQ.

Cheryl is the Owner, Chief Executive Officer, and Senior Consultant of WillowTree Healthcare Consulting, LLC.  She has over twenty-five years of experience in the healthcare industry that includes systems-level healthcare leadership with a specialization in quality improvement, regulatory compliance, directing performance improvement initiatives for acute care hospitals, managing quality projects for Medicare and Medicaid programs and a clinical background in critical care nursing. 

Cheryl obtained her Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing from Samford University (Birmingham, AL), and a Master of Science degree in the Evaluative Clinical Sciences from Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH). She is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality and served as a Baldrige National Examiner in 2013.

Policy management experience includes successful implementation of the RLDatix PolicyStat document management program at a multi-campus hospital system; Serving as Chairperson of the Policy and Procedure Committee for a multi-campus hospital system; and Leading a consulting practice with services to help organizations improve and stay compliant with document management. 

Learn more about her work at www.willowhcc.com 

For this episode, a national thought leader on health technology and software development, Mr. Edward O'Connor shares insights on adoption of machine learning in care delivery.

Edward has over 20 years’ experience as a software developer, enterprise architect, and technology executive – and currently drives special projects in ManTech International’s health division. He is focused on systems of systems engineering (SoSE) practices, human factors engineering, and approaches that bring together clinical, design, engineering, and operational resources to solve multi-disciplinary problems.

Mr. O’Connor served as the Chief Information Officer and lead architect for an ambitious integrated delivery system (IDS) effort in Austin Texas to bring together primary care clinics, the Seton Hospital system, a startup non-profit health-plan, dozens of community service providers, and the Dell Medical School. He also led the independent cloud-migration tiger team and performance testing team for CMS’s Healthcare.gov program and stood up a proof-of-concept for synthetic data creation for large-scale traffic simulation. Edward is currently a subject matter expert advising projects at CMS, the VA, and with the military – in areas ranging from interoperability, technical strategy development, and standing up new capabilities in modeling and simulation.

Although stationary (in Denver, Colorado) for the moment – Edward and his family once dispensed with all possessions that did not fit in an Airstream trailer and a pickup truck – and spent over two years traveling the country while working on technology projects (mostly) full-time.

In this episode, Dr. Shaver shares her insights and experience around rural workforce shortages and opioid use disorder. Carrie S. Shaver, DHA, IHC, is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Sciences and the Director of the Community Health Advocacy program and Regional Healthcare Pipeline at the Indiana University campus in Columbus. Her research focuses on rural public health, related to prevention, treatment, and wellness for patients with Opioid Use Disorder. Prior to her career in academia, she administered prevention, treatment, and health and wellness programs for at-risk populations.

In this first episode, we begin with the foundation of education and sit down with the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA), Dan Gentry PhD. Dan has a distinguished career of mentorship and leadership . He is known all over the country and highly regarded by students, executives, and academicians.  For more information on some of the great initiatives Dan is leading at  AUPHA, visit https://www.aupha.org

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