Chris Boyd, Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara

Chris Boyd is Senior VP and Area Manager for Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara, bringing over 25 years of hospital management experience. Kaiser’s Santa Clara Medical Center provides healthcare for 289,000 members in Silicon Valley, with more than 485 physicians and 4,300 staff members at a 327-bed acute care hospital, a 270-provider medical office building, and three satellite clinics in Campbell, Milpitas and Mountain View. Chris assumed his current position in November 2009. For the prior nine years, he was CEO of Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, part of Sharp HealthCare. Earlier, he was CEO and Managing Director of Inland Valley Regional Medical Center in Wildomar, and started with Inland Valley.  Beginning in 1984, he held administrative positions in private, not-for-profit and investor-owned hospitals in Oregon, Illinois, Washington and Louisiana. Referred by Terry Austen, Chris has joined the Silicon Valley Healthcare Executives Round Table.

Carl Sanchez, Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker

Carl Sanchez is Chair of Paul Hastings' San Diego office, as well as Chair of the firm’s Global Mergers & Acquisitions Practice and a Partner in its Corporate Practice. Since joining Paul Hastings, in 2003, Carl’s practice has focused on the area of M&As, having represented public and private companies in a variety of such transactions, including stock acquisitions, divisional asset acquisitions and divestitures, tender offers and share exchange offers, restructurings, dissolutions, going-private transactions, joint ventures, distressed company acquisitions, cross-border acquisitions. Carl has represented numerous companies in the biotechnology, life sciences and medical device areas. Among his honors, he's been named one of the Best Lawyers in the area of M&A Law by San Diego Magazine and to The Best Lawyers in America list. Previously, Carl worked for Deloitte & Touche and served in the U.S. Air Force Intelligence Division as a Russian crypto-linguist. Carl has joined ABL as a Sponsoring Member and Host of our new San Diego Round Table.

Steven Wheeler, Scigen Inc.

Steven Wheeler is Founder, CEO and President of Scigen, an intellectual property-based firm that develops, manufactures and markets its patented devices globally. Scigen is engaged in the diagnosing of various cancers using nanoparticles, and the quick preservation of histopathological samples employing the Wheeler-diffusivity equation. It's also a full-service supplier and private-label manufacturer for such firms as Thermo Fisher Scientific, Cardinal Health, LabCorp of America, Kaiser Hospital Foundation, Hoag Memorial, and Unilab. Earlier in his career, Steven designed methods and chemical products for Chevron USA and ARCO Products Company, where he was a key scientist in the development of clean fuel technology. He has developed over 100 products for the chemical and medical industries. He has also managed operational expansions in excess of $400 million. Steven has joined the Orange County Round Table.

Spotlight on Debra Reisenthel, CEO of Novasys Medical,
ABL's 2010 "Leadership in Innovation" Awardee

Debra will receive ABL’s 2010 “Leadership in Innovation” Award and make the Keynote presentation at our 12th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event on April 28, at the Radisson Hotel in Newport Beach. Debra has led Novasys since its inception, in 2001, raising $90 million in venture capital along the way, to see the company’s flagship product -- the Renessa® System -- through development, animal studies, human clinical trials, FDA approval, market acceptance, and widespread reimbursement. In a market with huge challenges, few visionaries remain a company’s chief executive throughout the entire progression, from idea to commercialization.
     Renessa was named the 2009 Most Promising New Product, selected by industry CEOs, at the Phoenix Medical Device and Diagnostic Conference. Also since 2009, Renessa has received several positive insurance coverage decisions, including approvals for nationwide coverage from Aetna, a positive Blue Shield of California Technology Assessment, and coverage approvals from seven of the ten Medicare regions, enabling Medicare to cover Renessa for over 75% of insured women nationwide. Read our full press release on Debra and the Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event. And make your plans now to join us on April 28th!

Accuray Signs First NHS Facility to Acquire a CyberKnife System
Accuray, Inc., where Euan Thomson, Ph.D. is CEO, announced that Mount Vernon Cancer Centre in the United Kingdom has become the first National Health Service (NHS) hospital to acquire a CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery System. NHS is the world’s largest publicly funded health service and the CyberKnife System will enable Mount Vernon to expand its radiation offerings to patients who may not have been able to tolerate other treatments or have medically or surgically inoperable tumors.
 
Aetna Medicare Members to Receive Medication Therapy Management Services
Aetna Health Plans, where Pam Kehaly is President of National Accounts, will give members who enroll in their 2010 Medicare plans access to medication therapy management (MTM), which are enhanced services aimed at helping them safely and effectively take medications prescribed by their physician. MTM brings together pharmacists, patients, physicians and other healthcare professionals to help patients with their medications. According to CMS, MTM programs are to include patients with multiple chronic conditions who are expected to spend $3,000 per year on up to eight or more medications.

AT&T Expands Healthcare Community Online to Improve Patient Care
AT&T, where Marina Younani and Judi Manis are Regional VPs in Healthcare Markets, is expanding its AT&T Healthcare Community Online (HCO) solution to include a dynamic portal with pre-integrated applications. AT&T HCO -- a highly secure, cloud-based health information exchange and collaboration portal -- provides communities, hospitals and large healthcare systems the foundation necessary to support the meaningful use of health information technology. With AT&T HCO, physicians and medical staff only need to sign-in once to access applications, including labs, reporting, ePrescribing, billing systems, patient registries, medical images, EMRs and other data.
 
Axolotl Celebrates 15 Successful Years with Industry Plaudits
Lots of news from Axolotl Corp., where Ray Scott is CEO, as it celebrates 15 successful years of software development and Health Information Exchange (HIE) implementation. The Santa Cruz HIE is using Axolotl's Elysium NHIN Gateway to connect to two California HIE networks -- EKCITA in Tehachapi and the Long Beach Network for Health -- for exchange and sharing of critical clinical information.  Also, NeHII, the Nebraska Health Information Initiative powered by Axolotl's Elysium Exchange, announced its successful expansion to Central Nebraska. NeHII is featured in a new book on technology and healthcare transformation released by the Center for Health Transformation: "Paper Kills 2.0: How Health IT Can Help Save Your Life and Your Money."  Meanwhile, Axolotl was identified as one of the early leading Health Information Exchange solution providers with a fast-growing client base in the new KLAS report, "Health Information Exchanges: The Reality of HIE Adoption." KLAS confirmed that Axolotl has the most live HIE clients in the acute-to-acute space, where two or more non-affiliated hospitals or health systems are sharing patient data with authorized physicians and healthcare professionals in the region.

Buck Institute Study Predicts Molecular Causes of Many Genetic Diseases
A new study using bioinformatics, led by scientists at the Buck Institute for Age Research, where Jim Kovach, MD, is President, reports the ability to predict the molecular cause of many inherited genetic diseases. These predictions involve tens of thousands of genetic disease-causing mutations and have led to the creation of a web-based tool -- designed to enhance the functional profiling of novel amino acid substitutions -- available to academic researchers who study disease.
 
California Family Health Council: 2011 Title X Funds Available
The California Family Health Council, where Margie Fites Seigle is CEO, has announced the availability of Title X funds to be awarded via a competitive application to family planning services for low-income men and women throughout the state of California. Grants will be awarded for the period of January 1 – December 31, 2011. Interested applicants must submit a Notice of Intent to Apply by 5:00 pm March 11, 2010. Eligibility requirements include: FPACT provider for a minimum of 2 years; Non-profit 501c3 status, or a country or city health department. Click for more information.

CalorieKing Teams with Salvation Army Kroc Center on Community Program
CalorieKing, where Keith McGuinness is CEO, is partnering with the Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in San Diego to pilot a community weight control program. Its goals are to learn if it's possible to provide a long-term, community-based, public treatment program, and to offer something that people can move in and out of as their personal circumstances and needs require. The Kroc Fit Challenge will incorporate CalorieKing's online program and print tools to teach the fundamentals of weight control. Subsequent pilot phases will experiment with outreach, using the connectivity tools within the CalorieKing Program to communicate with participants in creative ways.

CIGNA's New Worksite Program Combats Metabolic Syndrome
CIGNA Health, where Chris De Rosa is Southern California/Nevada President, has added a new worksite lifestyle improvement program to help people combat metabolic syndrome, a condition that significantly increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The intensive, 90-day Metabolic Syndrome Improvement Program helps people adopt healthy behaviors, such as increased physical activity, better eating habits, weight loss and stress reduction. A key element of the program is access to a social networking site that gives participants an opportunity to share their experiences and keep one another motivated toward making healthy behavior changes.

Epocrates to Enter EHR Market
Epocrates, Inc., where Rose Crane is CEO, is preparing to enter the electronic health records market with the development of a new mobile and web-based EHR offering that meets the unique needs of solo and small group physician practices -- which includes more than 50% of U.S. physicians. It will feature Epocrates' drug and safety content, and will be easy to learn, accessible at the point of care, affordable via a web-hosted, customizable offering with low up-front investment, and will meet "meaningful use" and HIPAA compliance requirements.  Meanwhile, Epocrates announced that healthcare professionals can now use beta versions of its software on mobile devices running the Palm webOS and Android platforms.

Genentech Gets Innovation Recognition & FDA Approval
Genentech, Inc., where Art Small, MD, heads Oncology Health Outcomes, has been honored in Fast Company’s annual Most Innovative Companies issue as the fourth Most Innovative Biotech Company in the World (as Roche/Genentech), noting that Genentech has three of the five best-selling biotech drugs.  Meanwhile, Genentech and Biogen Idec announced that the FDA has approved Rituxan (rituximab) in combination with fludarabine and cyclophosphamide for people with previously untreated and previously treated CD20-positive chronic lymphocytic leukemia.  And, Genentech announced that a Phase III study showed the combination of Avastin (bevacizumab) and chemotherapy followed by maintenance use of Avastin alone increased the time women with previously untreated advanced ovarian cancer lived without the disease worsening, compared to chemotherapy alone.

HeartMath Offers Online Learning Program to Companies
HeartMath LLC, where Bruce Cryer is CEO, is offering a video-based, online learning program that companies can provide to their employees, called Revitalize You!  It consists of five one-hour sessions that teach more than ten health-promoting HeartMath tools and techniques. It includes emWave technology for each participant, online support and coaching, technical support, analytics, reporting of results, and more.
 
IBM Fosters Creation of Health Information Exchanges
IBM, where Bill Craddock is Client Service Leader West of Global Business Services, has completed its acquisition of software company Initiate Systems and subsequently introduced Initiate Exchange, a new service that enables health systems to exchange patient data with physicians. Using Initiate's software as a service delivery model, physicians can quickly achieve their information-sharing objectives, such as issuing orders, accessing test results, sharing registration information, directly from their EMR or practice management system, without the cost and time associated with internal development or additional computing infrastructure. The offering gives health systems the flexibility to say "yes" to community physicians seeking to work more closely with the health system.

Kaiser Permanente Completes EHR Implementation
Kaiser Permanente, where Chris Boyd and Dan Edmonds-Waters are senior executives, announced that every medical facility within the health system is now equipped with Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect, the largest private sector electronic health record in the world. KP hospitals in Oakland, Richmond and Vallejo in Northern California are the most recent facilities to complete the final phase of EHR implementation, which includes bedside documentation, clinical decision support and bar-coding for medication administration.  Meanwhile, Kaiser has been honored in Fast Company’s annual Most Innovative Companies issue as the fifth Most Innovative Health Care Company in the World for its pioneering electronic health record -- the world’s largest civilian EHR, and for its healthcare innovation center that develops the future of healthcare.

On Lok May Expand PACE to Rural California
On Lok Senior Health Services, where Bob Edmondson is CEO, is collaborating with providers of eldercare in Riverside, San Joaquin and Humboldt counties to assess the feasibility of PACE (Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly) in their rural communities. A $100,000 grant provided by the SCAN Foundation enables On Lok to lay the groundwork for developing local PACE programs to serve these areas. Successfully modifying PACE for rural California will require innovation to translate the success PACE has had in densely populated urban settings. Challenges include a relative lack of healthcare providers and facilities, long distances between seniors and services, and lower population densities.

Pediatrix Adds Idaho Neonatal Practice
Pediatrix Medical Group, where Dave Mintz is VP of Pacific Region Operations, has acquired a neonatal physician group based in Idaho Falls, Idaho, consisting of two physicians who staff the Level III neonatal intensive care unit at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center and two area hospitals in Southeast Idaho. Annual NICU patient volume at Eastern Idaho Regional exceeds 4,000 patient days.

PeriGen Partners with MDAdvantage to Reduce Physician Insurance Costs
PeriGen, Inc., where Don Deieso is CEO, has partnered with MDAdvantage, a professional medical liability insurance company serving obstetricians throughout New Jersey. Under the multiyear agreement, MDAdvantage has purchased licenses for the web-based PeriCALM system that will be made available to their insured obstetricians at a reduced cost. MDAdvantage physicians who elect to use the PeriCALM Shoulder Screen will receive a 5% discount on annual insurance premium costs. Those who also participate in a CME course on fetal monitoring are eligible for a 15% discount.

3/3 - Orange County Round Table
3/9 - Silicon Valley Round Table
3/10 - San Francisco Round Table
3/16 - San Diego Round Table Kick-Off
3/19 - Los Angeles Round Table

3/13 - Medical Devices and Pharmaceuticals: Great Opportunity and Great Challenges, at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California – a CalTech MIT Enterprise Forum program

3/24 - Developing an Effective Board Workshop, Costa Mesa: This interactive discussion program will address the Purposes, Types and Key Drivers for Getting Value from a Board, including Shareholder, Advisory and Special Purpose Boards.

4/28 - 12th Annual Innovations in Healthcare^SM Awards Event, Newport Beach - Hold the Date!

MEMBER RESOURCES: Outstanding Office Manager/EA Available

 
Chris Selecky, former CEO of LifeMasters, enthusiastically recommends her former assistant, Nancy Kluve, declaring her "the most outstanding assistant that I've had in the 30 years of my career."  Based in Orange County, Nancy has gained 13 years of healthcare industry work experience at LifeMasters and Blue Shield. Click here for her resume.

INSIGHT:  Learning the Hard Way
With Thanks to our Guest Blogger Subbu Murthy, Ph.D., Chairman of USourceIT

Everywhere we turn, we are confronted with rising healthcare costs. My son, who has some history of asthma, was denied coverage with us on the family plan when we had to switch coverage (after expiry of COBRA benefits). Naturally, the carrier offered separate coverage for him at a substantially higher cost. I chose the high deductible option, making the coverage I have almost like a stop-loss insurance. In other words, I am, for all practical reasons, carrying my own insurance.

You will most likely contest any hypothesis I may make, so please permit me to dream. Assume a million like me formed a virtual social enterprise. That would give us a budget around $12 billion USD. Suppose further that we were able to carve out volunteers who would work a specified set of hours for reduced premiums (almost like a renter-manager in small apartments). Suppose further that we created a vast social network (no major investments: Facebook will do fine, thank you). Since I am dreaming, nothing will stop me from assuming that a few amongst us are more inclined to contribute more time, experience and energy to this noble enterprise. These selected few negotiate contracts with physicians (my dream physicians are honorable and charge ethically), develop a global drug network (I mean the good kind of drugs – even in dreams I cannot think of evil), develop a self-claims process (I can do this – so this part of the dream is real), and reduce the administrative costs to near zero. We of course initiate health awareness programs (yoga is not a dream), we propagate that eating right, thinking right, and stress-free life is essential. Needless to say, of course, that none in our network will be called to put in long, stressful hours of work.

If I achieve this, what have I established? Have I made a dent or set a trend at least? Have I shown a way for all of us to think of healthcare differently? Or even to dream this is a dream?

COMMENTS:

I would say that what you’ve dreamed up is an embryonic, low cost health insurance company, staffed by volunteers. And after a while, the Federal and State governments and labor unions will impose rules, restrictions and limits on you; corporate greed, ambition, waste and fraud will start to creep into the organization; you’ll get sued several times. In the end, if you survive, you’ll have been forced to modify the model so much as to be indistinguishable from HealthNet, Anthem, Aetna and Pacificare.

Dave Dickinson, COO, Managed Care Resources

HEALTHCARE & GOVERNMENT

In Case You Were Wondering: Why a 39% Rate Increase?
Apparently you weren't alone. According to the opening lines of Brian Sassi's, CEO of WellPoint Consumer Business Unit (which includes the individual market business in California), "letter of explanation," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wondered why, too. Sassi's six-page explanation as to why Anthem Blue Cross believed they were compelled to raise their rates so dramatically, presents a cogent explanation of the way the individual market works, and why the "personal coverage requirements" (i.e., "mandates") in the current House and Senate Health Reform bills are inadequate to assure a successful program. Brian has condensed a course in healthcare economics into these six pages, that are highly worth reading.

Obama Urges Congress Toward Reconciliation; Says He’s Open to Some GOP Ideas
President Obama called on Congress Wednesday to finish healthcare reform with an “up-or-down vote” in the next few weeks. In his speech, he didn’t mention the word reconciliation -- the Senate procedure that can get past a filibuster with a simple majority -- but made it clear that he supports the Senate using the tactic to pass a final reform bill. He didn’t go into specifics on the content of his plan, though he did mention supporting Republican-backed elements. Instead, he recapped the last year of debate and in effect, exhorted Democrats in Congress to put potential political consequences aside and finish the legislation. President Obama will hit the road next week to push the case for reform. The goal is to finish the legislation by March 29, when Congress begins spring recess. (Christian Science Monitor & Boston Globe, 3/3/10)
     A day earlier, the president sent a letter to congressional leaders of both parties saying that he is open to considering four GOP health reform proposals for inclusion in final overhaul legislation:  *Adding $50 million to current reform legislation to develop state demonstration projects intended to lower the cost of medical malpractice disputes; *Offering high-deductible insurance plans that could encourage U.S. residents to set up health savings accounts; *Using undercover patients to discover Medicare and Medicaid fraud; and *Increasing Medicaid payments to physicians to entice them to stay in the program. (Los Angeles Times, 3/2/10)

ONC to Expedite EHR Certification
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS will exercise the authority it was given by Congress and expedite the authorization of organizations for the certification of electronic health-records systems under the federal stimulus law. The ONC action, which came in the form of a proposed new federal rule released this week, could ease a major bottleneck to a multibillion-dollar federal program to subsidize the purchase of EHR systems by hospitals and office-based physicians under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, aka the stimulus law.
     The new rule outlines a bifurcated certification process, one temporary and one permanent. One prong of the new process would establish one or more entities called an ONC-authorized testing and certification body. The expedited process could permit EHRs and separate component parts or modules of an EHR to be certified by as early as this summer. Organizations seeking to become certification bodies can begin applying for recognition once the final rule is published, which should be this spring.
     The temporary program would expire in the first quarter of 2012. It would be replaced by a permanent program in which certification organizations are accredited by an outside agency. The permanent program would separate the responsibilities for performing testing and certification and also provide for testing of IT systems in addition to EHRs and EHR modules, such as personal health records and health information exchanges. To be eligible for federal IT subsidy payments under the stimulus law, hospitals and “eligible professionals,” chiefly physicians, must use “certified” EHR systems in a meaningful manner. (ModernHealthcare.com, 3/3/10)

Proposal Would Give Californians Final Say on Healthcare Reform
California Senator Tony Strickland (R-Moorpark) recently announced that he’s introducing a state constitutional amendment (SCA 29) that would require Californian voter approval before any of these provisions of national healthcare reform could take effect in California: *A requirement that individuals have health insurance coverage; *Regulations that require insurers to offer insurance coverage to people without regard to age or pre-existing conditions; *Requirements that employers provide insurance or contribute to the cost of workers' health insurance; *A government-run health plan that competes with private insurers; and *A single-payer health plan. (Ventura County Star, 2/25/10)