Health Leaders Share Whom in the Industry They Would Most Like to Dine With

We asked our board members to share what healthcare industry leader they would most like to sit down to dinner with. Here are their picks.

“Hands down I would want to spend a dinner with Atul Gawande, MD, PhD. He brings an insight to healthcare that combines his strong clinical background with a writing flair and willingness to compare and contrast the healthcare industry with successful approaches in other industries that scream for action.”

- Don Hall, MPH, is principal of DeltaSigma LLC, a consulting practice specializing in strategic problem solving for managed care organizations. He most recently served as president and chief executive officer of a nonprofit, provider-sponsored health plan.

“Dr. Atul Gawande, as he seems to bridge the gap between medical professionals and the public.”

- David Schmidt is president of the TPG International Health Academy, which hosts trade/study missions around the world for U.S. healthcare executives. He also provides strategic consulting to health plans and health systems.

“I would love to have dinner with Charis Eng, MD, PhD, the chair and founding director of the Genomic Medicine Institute of the Cleveland Clinic. She holds many appointments nationally and her research interests are in clinical cancer genetics translational research. I’ve known Charis for many years, and she is one of the brightest and most personable physicians I know. As we all know, the field of genomic medicine is expanding at a rapid pace, and she is a wealth of information on personalized healthcare.”

- Cynthia Hundorfean is president and CEO of Allegheny Health Network (AHN), an integrated healthcare delivery system that serves Western Pennsylvania. AHN is part of the Highmark Health family of companies.

“I would love to spend an afternoon with the Executive Leadership of Kaiser, particularly those who have been directly involved in their evolution since the early days. They have done such a great job picking their spots over the years and have been as successful as anyone from the standpoint of integrated care delivery.”

- Douglas L. Chaet, FACHE is chief managed care officer, Sentara Healthcare, and chairman, American Association of Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems.

“Donald Trump, so I could help him better understand how to manage the cost of healthcare while maintaining access.”

- Perry Cohen, PharmD, is chief executive officer of The Pharmacy Group and the TPG family of companies, which provides services to associations, healthcare and information technology organizations, payers and pharmaceutical companies.

“I'd have dinner with Cortana, Siri, and Alexa, the virtual assistants of Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon, respectively.  By now, these virtual assistants have accumulated more knowledge and insights into human behavior than any humans in history.  Over dinner I'd facilitate a brainstorming session with them to jointly design a choice architecture for each household and workplace they're in that would apply the right mix of rewards, incentives, and levers of influence to help families and workers adopt and sustain healthy lifestyles to reduce the all-too-high prevalence of obesity and chronic disease. 

- Dennis Schmuland, MD, is chief health strategy officer, U.S. Health & Life Sciences division of Microsoft Corp., where he is responsible for setting the company’s strategy and overseeing solutions for the managed care industry.

“I would sit down with Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass) who is poised to be a leader on managed healthcare issues, and Andy Slavitt (former CMS administrator) because I so admire so what he did to save Medicaid.”

- Margaret A. Murray, MPA, is the founding chief executive officer of the Association for Community Affiliated Plans, which represents 54 nonprofit safety net health plans in 26 states.

“Scott Gottlieb, MD, FDA commissioner, to gain an insider’s perspective on his view of, and plans to address, some of nation’s most critical drug-related issues such as the opioid epidemic, drug pricing, reimportation, drug shortages, marketing of unapproved legend drugs, and speed-to-market for new generic drugs once innovator brand patents expire.”

- David Calabrese, RPh, MHP, is senior vice president and chief pharmacy officer at OptumRx, a pharmacy benefits firm that provides pharmacy care services for more than 65 million lives nationally.

“Seema Verma, CMS administrator, so that I can share with her my personal experiences and knowledge of the low-income population and their needs around healthcare.”

- Amy Shin is the CEO of Health Plan of San Joaquin, a not-for-profit plan serving 350,000 Medicaid members in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties of California. Amy has 20 years of progressive Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial managed care leadership experience.

“I wouldn’t have this dinner with someone from just the pure health industry. Instead, I would host a group dinner with Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, Tim Cook, Apple CEO, and Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO.  All have a global lens. Bezos and Cook have a voracious focus on the future of the consumer, and Rometty has a relentless pursuit of clinical impact through AI with Watson. Over dinner we would lay out a map to build the $1T clinical+social economy and redefine health, giving consumers unprecedented control over their lives. For dessert, we would take a time journey and be joined by someone born in 2020 who comes of age in the 2040s. They would give us a God particle look into the future of health and life over the next generation.”

- John Mathewson, MHSA, is interim president and CEO for the DC Primary Care Association, an advocacy and infrastructure organization for Washington, D.C., and Maryland area community primary care providers. He has held C-suite roles for managed care, hospital, and home care companies.