Take Five
Take Five with Heather Howard
Heather Howard, JD, a Quality Institute board member, is director of State Health and Values Strategies and a Lecturer in Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. You just returned from testifying before the California legislature. Can you tell us why you traveled to California? I was invited by the Assembly Select…Read More…
Take Five with Tucker Woods
Tucker Woods, DO, is the Chief Medical Officer at CarePoint Health-Christ Hospital in Jersey City. Dr. Woods also provides oversight for the three CarePoint Health Emergency Departments. You oversee the emergency departments at CarePoint Health and are making a push to reduce the use of opioids in emergency care. How much of the problems linked…Read More…
Take Five with Niall Brennan
Niall Brennan, former Chief Data Officer at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is President and Executive Director of the Health Care Cost Institute. Brennan will be the keynote speaker at the Quality Institute’s Winter All Council Conference on December 8. You have spoken about how, as CMS chief data officer, you oversaw the…Read More…
Take Five with Glenn A. MacFarlane
Glenn A. MacFarlane is Chief Executive Officer of Aetna Better Health of New Jersey. You became CEO of Aetna Better Health of New Jersey just last year. The plan started in 2015 and now has 40,000 members. What makes the plan different from others? Aetna started on January 1, 2015. We initially went live in…Read More…
Take Five with Saira A. Jan
Saira A. Jan, M.S., Pharm.D, is a clinical professor at Rutgers University Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy. Dr. Jan recently presented the Pharmacy School’s ‘Opioid Abuse Toolkit: Resources for New Jersey Communities’ to community and provider representatives from Jersey City, Trenton, and Cumberland County, three regions involved in the Quality Institute’s Healthy Communities create Healthy…Read More…
Take Five with Paul G. Vidal
Paul G. Vidal, PT, DPT, is president of the American Physical Therapy Association of New Jersey, APTANJ. You have said we are experiencing an epidemic of chronic pain. How do you see the connection to the current opioid crisis? Almost nine in 10 Americans suffer from pain at some point in their lives. About 50 million…Read More…
Take Five with Ana Lòpez-DeFede
Ana Lòpez-DeFede, PhD, is Director of the Division of Medicaid Policy Research at the University of South Carolina Institute for Families in Society. Dr. Lopez-DeFede, at a recent Medicaid 2.0 work group, explained how her state uses Medicaid data to improve health quality. Your organization is contracted by South Carolina’s Medicaid program to produce a…Read More…
Take Five with Arturo Brito
Arturo Brito, MD, MPH, is the new CEO of The Nicholson Foundation. A community pediatrician with a background in public health, Brito formerly worked as Medical Director and Senior Vice President of the Children’s Health Fund in New York City and, most recently, Deputy Commissioner of Health in New Jersey. When did you decide that…Read More…
Take Five with Keagen Brown, MBA, CPHIMS, Vice President of Operations at VITAS Healthcare
Recently you were a featured speaker at the Innovation Showcase hosted by New Jersey Innovation Institute and the Quality Institute, where you spoke on ‘Webside Manner.’ Tell us why you have been so dedicated to making medical technology more patient friendly? Personally, I have always been involved in hospice. I have seen the impact of…Read More…
Take Five with Adrian Diogo
Adrian Diogo is a new Community Health Associate at the Quality Institute, where he works on the Mayors Wellness Campaign, and the Healthy Communities Create Healthy Citizens project. You were in the first graduating class of Public Health at The College of New Jersey. What do you know about how and why that program got…Read More…