The Reimagining Primary Care Forum

Ryan Vega, MD, MSHA, currently serves as the Chief Officer of the Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning in the VHA Office of Discovery, Education and Affiliate Networks where he oversees the management of both grassroot and strategic innovation initiatives across VHA. Dr. Vega is a graduate of the Louisiana State University School of Medicine and completed his Internal Medicine residency at the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System where served as Chief Medicine Resident in the Department of Internal Medicine as well as the VA Chief Resident for Quality and Safety. He also gained additional training in clinical quality through the Advanced Training Program at Intermountain Health Care under the tutelage of Dr. Brett James and received his Master of Science in Healthcare Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University where he was an A.D. Williams Scholar.

Dr. Donna O’Shea is the chief medical officer of population health for UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health care company. Dr. O’Shea provides enterprise-wide leadership to design and implement clinical quality and affordability strategies to better serve the health care needs of individuals, employers, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.

Since joining UnitedHealthcare in 2013, she has helped build and expand hundreds of Accountable Care Organizations with health care providers and facilities nationwide to support the delivery of efficient, evidence-based care. She also collaborated with health care provider groups across the country to start or increase the use of technology to connect patients to medical services, including for primary care, chronic disease management and same-day visits. In addition, she leads HEDIS quality member focused programs and manages the Health Homes, a coordinated care management program for Medicaid beneficiaries. She is a national spokesperson, including for media interviews and webinars for health care providers.

Dr. O’Shea is a board-certified OB/GYN and reproductive endocrinologist. She graduated from the University of Rochester School of Medicine, completed her fellowship training at Washington University in St. Louis and residency training at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. She holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, is a fellow in the American College of OB/GYN and a Certified Physician Executive through the Certifying Commission in Medical Management.

Dr. Erica Savage-Jeter completed her undergraduate degree at Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC. Her training includes her medical degree from University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Family Medicine training at Palmetto Health Family Medicine Residency program and a master’s degree in business administration from Auburn University. Dr. Savage-Jeter started her medical career as a family physician in her hometown of Union, SC. Her practice became centered around the care of all age groups of people with preponderance of chronic illness including diabetes mellitus, congestive heart failure, atrial fibrillation, just to name a few. Dr. Savage-Jeter was also recognized for her commitment to provide evidence-based measures and excellent care to her patients with diabetes by the National Committee of Quality Assurance. In 2016, Dr. Savage-Jeter joined Partners in Primary Care, now CenterWell Senior Primary Care as it launched its care delivery model to Greenville SC. Her responsibilities during her tenure have grown from center medical director to Division Chief Medical Office. Her work has been focused on providing personalized healthcare with exceptional service to her personal patients as well as all the patients in her market with the goal to reduce the complexity and burden of disease and promote well-being while growing talent and developing physician leaders. CenterWell is committed to early disease detection, management of chronic diseases to prevent complications, and eliminating barriers to healthy lifestyle habits while nurturing a relationship of mutual trust and respect among all the patients and providers within CenterWell Senior Primary Care.

Kameron Leigh Matthews MD, JD, FAAFP is the Chief Health Officer of Cityblock Health, a transformative, value-based healthcare provider integrating medical, behavioral, and social services for Medicaid and dually eligible and low-income Medicare beneficiaries. A board-certified Family Physician, Dr. Matthews has focused her career on underserved and vulnerable communities, having held multiple leadership roles in correctional medicine, federally qualified health centers, and managed care. Most recently at the Veterans Health Administration, she led transformational efforts focused on integrated, Veteran-centered models of care including the implementation of the MISSION Act of 2018 and the EHR modernization effort. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. She is a member of the sixth class of the Aspen Institute’s Health Innovators Fellowship. She received her bachelor’s degree at Duke University, her medical degree at Johns Hopkins University, and her law degree at the University of Chicago. As a passion outside of work, she co-founded and co-direct the Tour for Diversity in Medicine, an initiative seeking to bring premedical enrichment activities to underrepresented minority high school and undergraduate students across the country.

Kristin Wikelius is the Chief Program Officer at United State of Care. In this capacity, she leads the organization’s programmatic work to develop and advance innovative solutions to build a more affordable and equitable health care system. 

Kristin brings deep experience in the health policy sector. Before joining USofCare, she served in the Office of Legislation at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), where she worked on issues related to Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance. Prior to her service at CMS, Kristin worked on Capitol Hill for nearly a decade providing counsel to members of Congress, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Kristin holds a BA from Williams College and a Masters in Public Affairs (MPA) from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

David L. Longworth, M.D. is the past President of Lahey Hospital and Medical Center and past Chair of Beth Israel Lahey Health Primary Care. He received his undergraduate degree from Williams College and his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College. He completed residency training in internal medicine at the University of California San Francisco and fellowship training in infectious diseases at Harvard Medical School in the combined Beth Israel–Brigham and Women’s program. He is board certified in both internal medicine and infectious diseases.

In 1992 he was appointed Chair of the Department of Infectious Diseases at The Cleveland Clinic. In 2002 he moved to Baystate Health in Springfield Massachusetts as Chair of Medicine and Deputy Chair and Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. There his work focused on population health management at the time of Medicaid expansion in Massachusetts; quality, safety, and practice operations optimization; alignment of employed and community based physicians; and educational innovation in internal medicine residency training.

In 2011 he returned to The Cleveland Clinic as Chair of the Medicine Institute, where he oversaw population health, primary care, hospital medicine and selected subspecialties, and the Clinic’s internal medicine and family medicine residency programs, along with The Medicine Institute Center for Research and Innovation. He also led the Clinic’s care transformation initiative in primary and specialty care.

He joined Lahey Health in July 2015 as Chair of the Division of Primary Care and Chief Medical Officer of the Community Physician Network. His subsequent roles at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center included Chief of Ambulatory Practice Transformation and Operations, Chief Medical Officer, Interim Chief Executive Officer, and President.

He is the author of 100 peer-reviewed publications, 30 book chapters and 5 books. He retired in January 2023.

Haipeng (Mark) Zhang D.O. is the Medical Director of the Brigham Digital Innovation Hub, as well as of Digital Health Implementation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Zhang also holds the position of Associate Program Director of the Clinical Informatics and Innovation Fellowship at Partners Healthcare and a Palliative Care consultant at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Zhang completed an Internal Medicine residency and a chief year at Allegheny General Hospital.  He is a graduate of the Harvard Interprofessional Palliative Care Fellowship, the first graduate of the Clinical Informatics and Innovation fellowship at Partners Healthcare, and completed a Masters Medical Science in Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School.

Throughout his career, Mark has held an interest in leveraging technology to improve clinical medicine.  He is the founder and co-creator of Palliative Care Fast Facts for iOS and Android mobile applications.  This application is one of the most widely used mobile reference applications in palliative care in the world.  He is the co-founder of Cake, a venture backed company focused on advance care planning.

He also founded and was the first president of AMIA Clinical Informatics Fellows (ACIF), the national organization for clinical informatics fellows.

Dr. Katherine Gergen Barnett is the Vice Chair of Primary Care Innovation and Transformation in the Department of Family Medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC), a Clinical Associate Professor at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, an Associate at Harvard’s Center for Primary Care, and a Health Innovators Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a highly competitive fellowship that catalyzes leaders to improve US health care.

Prior to joining BMC in 2009, Dr. Gergen Barnett attended Yale University School of Medicine, worked at the National Institutes of Health, and completed a fellowship studying a model of group prenatal care for women in low-income communities. At BMC, she has served in multiple leadership roles including as a chief resident, Director of Integrative Medicine, Medical Director, Residency Director, and Vice Chair. Her primary clinical interests are behavioral health, preventive medicine, nutrition, trauma informed care, gender affirming care, women’s health, reproductive care, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and group medical care.

Dr. Gergen Barnett’s research career has been focused on innovative models of care to address chronic medical conditions, physician burnout, and engaging community partners in creating feasible solutions to increase health and wellness and to address medical distrust in traditionally marginalized communities. Dr. Gergen Barnett brings her training and passion for community engaged research to her role as PI in a clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of Paxlovid, an antiviral, in treating high risk children infected with COVID-19.

Finally, Dr. Gergen Barnett is involved in local and state health policy addressing health inequities, national policy addressing primary care delivery, and is a regular contributor to The Boston Globe, Boston Public Radio, and multiple television outlets.

Dr. Valerie Stone is Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Director of Health Equity Initiatives of the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Stone is an academic general internist who has been a practicing primary care physician for more than 30 years. Dr. Stone spent the majority of her career at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was Director of the Primary Care Residency Program and Associate Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine for more than a decade. In those roles, Dr. Stone transformed the training of primary care physicians, incorporating innovations in advancing health equity, community engagement, leadership, and cross-cultural care. Prior to her current role, Dr. Stone was the Chair of the Department of Medicine at Mount Auburn Hospital, where she expanded the primary care network and implemented programs to mitigate provider burnout. Dr. Stone’s scholarship examines HIV care inequities, diversity in healthcare, strategies for advancing health equity, healthcare leadership, and innovations in residency training. Dr. Stone has received many awards for her work, including the Elnora Rhodes Award for exceptional contributions to patient care, education and research in primary care from the Society of General Internal Medicine, the W. Lester Henry Award from the American College of Physicians for advancing diversity in medicine and access to care, the BWPO Pillar Award for Outstanding Achievements in Faculty Development and Diversity, and in 2021, the Harold Amos Award for promoting diversity from Harvard Medical School.

Gary Price is a Board Member and the current President of The Physicians Foundation. As a board-certified plastic surgeon, he serves as an attending surgeon and clinical assistant professor of surgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Additionally, he is affiliated with numerous local and national medical associations and societies and is a past President of the Connecticut State Medical Society and the Connecticut and New England Societies of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. He received his M.D. from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and completed residency training in Surgery and Plastic Surgery at Yale. Dr. Price holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management. Under his leadership, the Physicians Foundation has successfully supported surveys, grants, research, public awareness campaigns and leadership training regarding physician wellness. 

Dr. Price is a subject matter expert on topics including physician burnout, social drivers of health, issues facing physician practices, physician wellbeing and leadership. He has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Kaiser Health News, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, NBC News and Radio, Health Leaders, MedPage Today, Modern Healthcare and Medscape. Having addressed national and international audiences on physician wellness issues for many years, Dr. Price is a staunch advocate of practical steps towards systemic change aimed at reducing burnout in our health care workforce.

Stephanie Quinn is senior vice president of advocacy, practice advancement, and policy at the American Academy of Family Physicians where she oversees the AAFP Divisions of Government Relations and Practice Advancement as well as the Alliance for e-Health Innovation. Prior to joining the AAFP, Stephanie Quinn was vice president of federal government affairs at CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield where she led the company’s federal legislative agenda on issues such as market stability, drug pricing policy, and social determinants of health. Before CareFirst, Stephanie was assistant director of congressional relations for the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and served as deputy director of federal government affairs for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. Stephanie holds a combined degree in linguistics and Spanish from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Meg is passionate about driving change by collaborating with physicians, technology leaders and solution innovators to improve health care. She has served in product development and business development leadership roles at the AMA and most recently is responsible for driving the roadmap of initiatives that support the AMA’s digital health and medicine strategy. In addition, she has led partnerships and innovation related initiatives, such as the inaugural AMA Healthier Nation Innovation Challenge, the establishment of the AMA Interaction Studio at MATTER, the AMA Physician Innovation Network that enables entrepreneurs and physicians to collaborate on the development of new solutions, the AMA Digital Health & Telehealth Implementation Playbook series, AMA Digital Health research and The Telehealth Initiative with collaborators. She participates on the Advisory Board for MATTER, MassChallenge HealthTech, HealthTech Arkansas, Together.Health and as a TEDMed Research Scholar. She also participates on the Editorial Review Board of The Telehealth and Medicine Today Journal.

Meg has spoken at national conferences such as Health 2.0, Connected Health, HLTH, American Telemedicine Association National Conference, AMA State Advocacy Conference and contributes as speaking faculty for Columbia Business School’s Digital Health program curriculum. She has articles published in Health Affairs, Harvard Business Review and Nature Digital Medicine.

Prior to AMA, Meg worked in the Consumer Product & Retail vertical at Capgemini and at SmithBucklin Corporation for various business and health care clients.

Dr. Whisman serves as the Regional Vice President and Medical Director of the Central Region Medicare for Elevance Health, a region encompassing eight states and over 650,000 members.

Previously, he served as the Vice President, Senior Medical Director for OhioHealth Group and the OhioHealth Clinically Integrated Network (CIN), a collective of approximately 3,200 providers managing valued-based arrangements with payers.

As a member of the Central Region executive team, Dr. Whisman works closely with leaders to improve the quality and value of care provided to the Medicare members in the region. Dr. Whisman leads the medical leadership including utilization management and care management. He works closely with our care provider collaborative partners to drive improved patient outcomes and partner success in the management of their Elevance Health affiliated plans’ Medicare Advantage patients.

Dr. Whisman received his Doctor of Medicine degree from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health and completed his residency in Family Medicine at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital. He earned a Master of Business Administration in Strategy and Operations Management from the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University.

Dr. Karthik Sivashanker is the Vice President of Equitable Health Systems in the Center for Health Equity at the American Medical Association, and a Medical Director in Quality, Safety, and Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is a psychiatrist at Justice Resource Institute. He is a former Fulbright scholar and VA Under Secretary for Health Diffusion of Excellence Gold Fellow. His work is focused on transforming the health care ecosystem to provide more equitable, high-quality, and safe care for every patient and community.

Dr. Faisel Syed is a Board-certified family medicine physician who believes the doctor/patient relationship is sacred. He considers every life invaluable, and expects every individual to be treated the same, regardless of their financial circumstances.

Dr. Syed served as Chief Medical Officer at Tampa Family Health Centers. He oversaw efforts to improve both the quality and efficiency of care for over 100,000 patients.

His passion for community health, specifically for the underserved, led him to ChenMed as a Primary Care Physician in 2017.

Before he knew it, he was working with ChenMed doctors across the country to inspire residents and others towards primary care. Today, he is ChenMed’s National Director of Primary Care, but if you ask him, his title will always be, “community doctor.”

Dr. Dan McCarter is the National Director of Primary Care Advancement for ChenMed. Prior to this he served for 2 years as Market CMO in Richmond, Virginia for JenCare Senior Medical Center, a ChenMed company. Before coming to ChenMed, Dr. McCarter was at the University of Virginia for 27 years. In 1990, he founded Stoney Creek Family Practice, one of their first satellite teaching practices with the first EHR in the UVA health system. This practice went on to achieve Level 3 PCMH certification.

His various administrative positions at UVA included Vice-Chair of Family Medicine, Medical Director of Regional Primary Care, Associate Chief Medical Officer for Ambulatory Services, and Medical Director for WellVirginia ACO, a Track 1 MSSP. He was course director for the Virginia Population Health Summit in 2014, 2015 and 2016. He has presented at numerous local, regional and national conferences. He participated in the Starfield IV summit on Family Medicine Resident Education and Co-Chairs the Virginia Academy of Family Physicians Resident and Student Committee.

Dr McCarter continues to hold a teaching appointment in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

Full Academic CV is available upon request.

Mikel Whittier is the inaugural director of the Office of Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion established April 2021 at UCLA Health.

Mikel has vast experience advancing health equity and racial equity in health care settings like academic medical centers, state, and urban public health systems, and non-for-profit hospital systems. His work has focused on quality improvement and systems transformation to progress access to quality, affordable care for various marginalized demographics.

Prior to joining UCLA Health, Mikel served as the senior director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at top ranked academic medical centers. Additionally, he served on the senior leadership team at St. Louis Integrated Health Network, where he worked to build an accountable care community to improve racial equity in the local public health system as part of the recommendations made by the Ferguson Commission after the murder of Michael Brown Jr. Mikel has also served as an advisor on several political campaigns and worked as an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University prior to moving to Los Angeles.

Mikel received his master’s degree in health care administration from the University of Missouri and his doctorate in business administration from Liberty University.

Nina Jain is a primary care physician and the medical director of value based care for Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In this role she leads strategy to meet cost and quality targets in risk-bearing arrangements, and supports the MassHealth ACO at the Brigham. She also serves as medical director for the integrated care management program for high-risk patients. She previously led clinical strategy for population health programs in the Analytics and Behavior Change arm of Aetna. Her research focuses on ambulatory care transformation and pharmaceutical pricing, and has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. She holds an MD and MBA from Harvard University and an MSc in Evidence-Based Social Intervention from Oxford University. 

Sheila Phicil is the Director of Innovation at Boston Medical Center’s (BMC) Health Equity Accelerator where she leads initiatives that advance racial health equity. Before her current role, Sheila served as the Administrative Director of the Neurology Department at BMC where she oversaw the operations and finance in support of the Department’s clinical, research, and teaching missions. Sheila has 13 years of experience in healthcare spanning policy, strategy, and operations. She has worked at multiple healthcare institutions including Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the Veterans Health Administration. Sheila holds two Master’s degrees in Public Health and Financial Economics and is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP). In 2020, she received the BMC Leadership Impact Award for transformative leadership on diversity, inclusion, and health equity. In 2022, Sheila was one of 24 high-potential healthcare leaders selected to participate in the Massachusetts Health Leadership College fellowship program. Sheila believes every system is perfectly designed to produce the results it gets. Therefore, she is passionate about innovating systems of care designed to work for and with vulnerable and marginalized populations. Sheila also has a knack for storytelling to shed light on complex issues, often drawing from her lived experience as a first-generation Haitian American woman.

Megan Mahoney, MD MBA is the Chair and Professor of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at University of California San Francisco.  She has expertise in precision health, practice transformation, and care model redesign in large academic health care systems. She has served in senior level positions at AMCs in the U.S. and internationally, developing innovative and transformative approaches to proactive and personalized team-based primary care that empowers patients, health care providers, and communities. As Chief of the Medical Staff at Stanford Health Care, she provided oversight of quality, safety, and professionalism activities of the 3000 physicians within Stanford Health Care. Prior to assuming this role she served as chief of primary care where she led primary care precision health equity, practice transformation, and population health initiatives for the network of primary care faculty practices at Stanford Health Care. She was a visiting professor at Aga Khan Medical College of East Africa and served on the family medicine committee of the Kenya Ministry of Health. Dr. Mahoney earned her B.A in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of California Berkeley, her M.D. at the University of California San Francisco, and her M.B.A. at Brandeis University.

Dr. Anita Gupta is a globally recognized physician-pharmacist, World Economic Forum Member Expert, Top 10 Women of Influence-Fierce Healthcare®, Princeton-Harvard Business School Alum, and an award winning c-suite executive. Dr. Gupta is a highly accomplished, innovation, drug expert with a proven track record of advancing #breakthrough initiatives. Notably, recognized for breakthroughs related to the #drug crisis as the American Society of Anesthesiologists appointed Gupta to advocate at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand the use of naloxone, an opioid-blocking drug, on the front lines to address overdoses. Gupta helped to flag the emergence of synthetic opioids in the Philadelphia drug trade, including fentanyl and W-18. Board governor of the Princeton University Asian Alumni Association, board director of HealthyWomen, and a Co-President of the Regional Director of the Alumnae Network of the Harvard Women. Appointed as a member of the National Academies of Sciences Global Forum and a distinguished fellow member of the National Academies of Practice. Featured by New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes, CNN, MSNBC, The Huffington Post, Milken Power of Ideas, among others. She is also the recipient of top industry & business awards: Patient Advocacy Award by the National Academies, Top 100 Most Inspiring Leaders by PharmaVoice, Top 10 in Healthcare Business in Philadelphia, Top 10 Emerging Leaders by Pharmaceutical Executives, and Goldman Sachs 10K Small Business Scholars, among others.