Session 1 – Health Equity: Are We Ready for the Data Revolution?
Brooke Cunningham, MD, PhD, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Health
Dr. Brooke Cunningham was appointed in January 2023 as commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). Dr. Cunningham is responsible for directing the work of MDH, the state’s lead public health agency, responsible for protecting, maintaining, and improving the health of all Minnesotans. MDH has approximately 1,400 employees in the Twin Cities area and seven offices in Greater Minnesota. Dr. Cunningham is a general internist, sociologist, and assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining MDH, her research focused on developing strategies to reduce racial disparities in health, including addressing the adverse impacts of exposure to racism. She also co-directed the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Thread in medical education. Cunningham is a primary care provider at the Community-University Health Care Clinic (CUHCC), a federally qualified health clinic in Minneapolis that serves a diverse patient population. Cunningham received her doctorates in medicine and sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. After completing a residency in internal medicine at Duke University, she completed fellowships in health services research, health policy, and bioethics at Johns Hopkins University and an AcademyHealth Delivery System Science Fellowship at the Medica Research Institute.
Mark Cullen, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Trellis
Mark Cullen is the Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Trellis. He is responsible for Trellis’ home and community-based services strategy that focuses on assisting older adults in maintaining their independence and thriving as they age. As a part of that work, Mark led the development of Trellis’ management services organization (MSO), including programs operating under the brand name Juniper. This effort creates a pathway for health care organizations (providers and payers) to access home and community-based services for their patients/members through a single, coordinated network. In Minnesota, our statewide network includes over 70 organizations. Mark holds a Master’s in Public Administration from the University of South Dakota.
Steve Johnson, PhD, Assistant Professor, Institute for Health Informatics, Associate Director, CTSI Health Informatics Program, Director, Informatics Innovation Dissemination, University of Minnesota
Steve Johnson, PhD, has had an extensive career in the health care industry, leading technology, product development, and data analytics teams. He was most recently VP of Technology and Clinical Informatics at Wolters Kluwer where he oversaw product development and medical content for clinical documentation and clinical decision support products. Prior to that, he was Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and VP of Data Analytics for Experian Health where he oversaw technology and architecture for all healthcare products, including data and analytics for a 150M patient data repository. Dr. Johnson’s research is focused on enhancing the secondary use of EHR data using healthcare data science and machine learning, improving clinical decision support, and using rich ontologies to model clinical knowledge.
Session 2 – Technology-enabled Health Care Disruption
Kevin Larsen, MD, FACP, Senior Vice President, Clinical Innovation, Center for Advanced Clinical Solutions, Optum Health
Dr. Kevin Larsen is an internist and medical informaticist who started his career at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, where he had a variety of executive and clinical leadership roles. Kevin is currently senior vice president, clinical innovation at Optum, where he provides a clinical voice and leadership to the Optum Center for Advanced Clinical Solutions, and leads the clinical and informatics team in building and deploying provider enablement technologies, including electronic health record-integrated clinical decision support. Kevin joined Optum from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where, most recently, he has been Senior Health IT Advisor at the office of the Chief Technology Officer. There, he was the executive lead for the 10-billion-dollar Indian Health Service Electronic Health Record Modernization Project. He consulted on health IT policy, standards, and project execution for numerous Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) models, such as Million Hearts, Oncology Bundle, State Innovation Models, and Accountable Health Communities. Dr. Larsen served as the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) Medical Director of Meaningful Use.
He is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota and the founder and leader of the Center for Urban Health, a research institute focused on health care financing for people living in poverty, social determinants of health, health equity, and the digital divide.
Jenny Ramseth, Chief Product Officer of Best Buy Health for Best Buy Co., Inc.
Jenny Ramseth recently joined Best Buy Health, overseeing product management, research, design, and marketing teams. She is responsible for delivering valuable products and experiences that enable care in the home and help people live better, healthier, more independent lives. Jenny has over 15 years of health technology experience leading product, strategy, and innovation teams. She is passionate about deeply understanding what people need and building collaborative teams to co-create solutions that make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. Before joining Best Buy Health, Jenny was at Medtronic, focusing on cardiovascular disease management, diagnostics, and monitoring. Jenny has a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s in business administration from the University of Minnesota.
Session 3 – Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: Promises and Perils
Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics, Director, Division of Medical Ethics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Before coming to the New York University School of Medicine, Dr. Caplan was the Sidney D. Caplan professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, where he created the Center for Bioethics and the Department of Medical Ethics. Caplan has also taught at the University of Minnesota, where he founded the Center for Biomedical Ethics, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University. He received his PhD from Columbia University.
Dr. Caplan is the author or editor of thirty-five books and over 860 papers in peer-reviewed journals. His most recent books are Vaccination Ethics and Policy, with Jason Schwartz, and Getting to Good: Research Integrity in Biomedicine with Barbara Redman.
Caplan has served since 2015 as the chairperson of the Compassionate Use Advisory Committee (CompAC), an independent group of internationally recognized medical experts, bioethicists, and patient representatives that advises Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals about requests for compassionate use of some of its investigational medicines.
Dr. Caplan regularly comments on bioethics and health care issues for WebMD/Medscape, WGBH radio in Boston, WOR radio in New York City, and KNX-CBS radio in Los Angeles. He frequently appears as a guest and commentator on other national and international media outlets.
Brenna Loufek, MS, SaMD Regulatory Affairs Manager at Mayo Clinic – Center for Digital Health, Doctoral Student, Evidence-Based Healthcare, University of Oxford Nuffield Department of Primary Health Sciences
Brenna Loufek is the SaMD regulatory affairs manager in the Center for Digital Health – Data & Analytics at Mayo Clinic. Brenna collaborates with user-innovators to create regulatory strategies that offer the least burdensome pathway to market for digital health technologies developed at Mayo Clinic. Her subject matter expertise is in the application of U.S. FDA regulatory policies for AI/ML-enabled software functionalities.
While at Medtronic and Philips, Brenna managed complex regulatory submissions and advised on digital health product studies, including AI/ML-based technologies, telehealth platforms, and in-clinic management tools. She has served as a cross-departmental liaison to provide training for and interpretation of the FDA’s current positioning on digital health products.
Brenna has a master’s in Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality from Johns Hopkins. She is pursuing a PhD in Evidence-Based Healthcare from the University of Oxford with a research focus on the efficacy of regulatory and ethical frameworks within healthcare institutions to manage AI/ML-enabled clinical decision support software.
Greg Papillon, MPH, Director, Public Health Innovation, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)
Greg Papillon, MPH, is the Director of Public Health Innovation at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). In this capacity, Papillon oversees the development and implementation of ASTHO’s innovation strategy through program management and subject matter expertise on innovation research and best practices. Papillon oversaw the launch of ASTHO’s new multimedia series on artificial intelligence (AI) in state and territorial public health. This series provides a foundational knowledge of artificial intelligence, insights on emerging public health use cases, and key considerations in strategic and responsible AI use. Papillon received his master’s degree in public health from George Mason University. He received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Tech.
Kari Thurlow, JD, President, Chief Executive Officer, LeadingAge MN
Kari Thurlow is the president and CEO of LeadingAge Minnesota. She took the role at the beginning of 2022 after 15 years leading the Association’s advocacy efforts. Kari came to LeadingAge Minnesota with a strong background in law and public policy. Kari worked for several years at Flaherty & Hood, P.A., where she had the opportunity to provide legislative representation to clients on a variety of issues, including bonding, property taxes, environmental and land use. Kari holds a J.D. from Mitchell Hamline School of Law and a B.A. in political science and communications from Concordia College.
Session 4 – Social Determinants of Health: Aligning Forces for Change
Nebeyou Abebe, Senior Vice President of Social Determinants of Health, Highmark Health
Amy Bloomquist, MPH, Director, Population Health, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota
Amy Bloomquist leads the vision, strategy, and development of the population health product portfolio and social determinants of health efforts for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. She is a health care strategist, creative problem solver, and champion for racial and health equity dedicated to advancing our population health program, practices, and systems to ensure people can achieve their best health. Amy joined Blue Cross in 2001, holding several roles during that time, including diabetes population health and value-based partnerships, corporate strategy development and business planning, health care reform readiness and implementation, health improvement and prevention, product development, and quality program management. She was the founding Chair of the MN Health Literacy Partnership, and before joining Blue Cross, she worked in local public health. Amy has a Master of Public Health from the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health, and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Christopher Kunney, MS, Chair, Healthcare Informatics Advisory Board, Morehouse School of Medicine