THE SCHMIDT INSTITUTE - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Member of the Schmidt Institute Advisory Board
• Patient Safety Physician Consultant

For over 30 years, Dr. Burger has been nationally recognized as a leader in primary care design that is focused on workforce development, the use of clinical decision support systems to supplement provider clinical judgement, as well as advancing the use of non-physicians in skill-based clinical positions. He was an early adopter of the electronic medical record when it was first introduced into his practice back in 1993. His practice has been named as one of the twenty most innovative in the country, by both the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) and the Dartmouth Center for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. Six years ago, his practice was one of thirty selected to participate in the LEAP project (Learning from Exceptional Ambulatory Practices), funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through Group Health Research. The practice was also selected as a case study by the Harvard Center for Primary Care. He has served as CEO of a thirty-provider Primary Care group in Bangor, Maine and Medical Advisor to the Maine Primary Care Association's Patient Safety Organization, and serves as Chief Health Officer of Prosumer Health, a company that combines clinical decision support tools (that are driven by artificial intelligence) with highly trained health coaches, which allows individuals to participate fully in managing their health at a time and place that is convenient for them (i.e., beyond the doctor's office).

Job Titles:

• Member of the Schmidt Institute Advisory Board
• President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Healthcare Improvement

Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, FRCP, KBE, is President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), an organization that Dr. Berwick co-founded and led as President and CEO for 18 years. He is one of the nation's leading authorities on health care quality and improvement. In July, 2010, President Obama appointed Dr. Berwick to the position of Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which he held until December, 2011. A pediatrician by background, Dr. Berwick has served as Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Health Care Policy at the Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, and as a member of the staffs of Boston's Children's Hospital Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He has also served as vice chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the first "Independent Member" of the Board of Trustees of the American Hospital Association, and chair of the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine). Dr. Berwick served two terms on the IOM's governing Council and was a member of the IOM's Global Health Board. He served on President Clinton's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry. He is a recipient of numerous awards, including the 1999 Joint Commission's Ernest Amory Codman Award, the 2002 American Hospital Association's Award of Honor, the 2006 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award for Individual Achievement from the National Quality Forum and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the 2007 William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research, the 2007 Heinz Award for Public Policy from the Heinz Family Foundation, the 2012 Gustav O. Lienhard Award from the IOM, and the 2013 Nathan Davis Award from the American Medical Association. In 2005, he was appointed "Honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire" by Queen Elizabeth II, the highest honor awarded by the UK to non-British subjects, in recognition of his work with the British National Health Service. Dr. Berwick is the author or co-author of over 160 scientific articles and six books. He also serves now as Lecturer in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Schmidt Institute Advisory Board

Jeff has more than twenty years of experience applying human factors and systems-design principles to improve the safety, efficiency, and efficacy of health care. His focus for the past several years has been the improvement of rural health and primary care. He has worked in many safety-critical domains, including border security, public safety, flight operations, regional electrical transmission, and naval operations, among others. The early part of Jeff's career was in aviation, as a pilot and educator. Jeff is a co-recipient of a John M. Eisenberg Award for System Innovation. The Eisenberg Award is the highest patient safety award given by the Joint Commission and National Quality Forum. He earned his M.Ed. and B.S. degrees from the University of Maine.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Schmidt Institute Advisory Board
• Medical Director for the Maine Cancer Genomics Institute
• Medical Director, Maine Cancer Genomics Institute

Dr. Reuter is Medical Director for the Maine Cancer Genomics Institute, and Associate Director for Regional Translational Partnerships at the the Jackson Laboratory (JAX) Cancer Center. He joined JAX for both positions in August of 2016. Dr. Rueter came to those roles from Northern Light Cancer Institute (formerly Eastern Maine Medical Center Cancer Care) in Brewer, Maine, where he was Medical Director for the Translational Oncology Program, and their Biobank. He has been a hematologist/oncologist at EMMC Cancer Care since 2010, and a member of the Jackson Laboratory's adjunct faculty since 2012. He works with several national leaders on advancing the field of Precision Medicine, with the goal of individualizing cancer treatments for patients and improving their outcomes. After graduating from medical school in Berlin, Germany, Rueter completed his residency in internal medicine at Tulane University and his fellowship training in hematology/oncology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Schmidt Institute Advisory Board
• President and CEO of Penquis

Kara Hay is President and CEO of Penquis, Maine's largest Community Action Program, in addition to being President of MaineStream Finance, Rape Response Services, Penquis Development Corp., and Penquis Housing (all Penquis subsidiaries). She serves on the Community Health Leadership Board in Bangor, Northern Light Acadia Hospital Board of Trustees, Northern Light Health-Corporators, Community Housing Capital Board of Directors, and Alliance for Addiction and Mental Health Services. Kara is a recognized leader in comprehensive community development, and a strong advocate for Maine's low-income population.

Job Titles:

• Director of Operations
• Member of the Leadership Team

Job Titles:

• Member of the Schmidt Institute Advisory Board
• Assistant Professor, the University of Maine, School of Nursing

Kelley Strout, Ph.D., RN is an Assistant Professor at UMaine in the School of Nursing. She is a Bangor, Maine native who graduated from John Bapst Memorial High School and returned to Bangor to raise her family after earning her Ph.D. from Northeastern University. Dr. Strout's clinical and scientific career has focused on promoting health and well-being through non-pharmacological, holistic, wellness interventions offered in the community. Her academic career has focused on innovative teaching strategies that promote the application of actual and current training needs of nurses to improve the health of populations. She is an advocate for nurses working across all care settings.

Job Titles:

• Director of Pharmacy
• Member of the Leadership Team

Job Titles:

• Member of the Schmidt Institute Advisory Board
• Market Head, Aetna 's Northern New England Network

Louise joined Aetna in 2012 to develop the initial Aetna ACO network in Maine, and since 2017, she has served as the Northern New England Network Market Head. In this role, Louise is responsible for all network and value-based contracting, as well as provider relationships in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Her team manages all facility/professional contracts for the region; conducts contract negotiations (including the execution, review, and analysis of contracts and/or dispute resolution); recruits providers, as needed, to ensure attainment of network expansion and adequacy targets; manages interactions with assigned providers and internal business partners; and develops/executes ACO relationships and value-based contracting. Prior to joining Aetna, she served as Chief Executive Officer of Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital in Northern New Hampshire, and has over twenty-five years of provider and payer-based experience around total cost of care, quality, and contracting. Louise lives in Farmington, Maine, where she is an avid enthusiast of "anything outdoors".

Job Titles:

• Member of the Schmidt Institute Advisory Board
• FACC, MHCM / Former CMO at PCHC

Robert Allen, MD, graduated from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He served as Chief of Cardiology and Medicine at St. Joseph Hospital, and President of the Medical Staff at Eastern Maine Medical Center, where he developed and directed the Cardiac Wellness Program. Most recently he was Executive Medical Director of Penobscot Community Health Care, where he originated forward-thinking quality improvement programs, a nurse practitioner residency program, and peer groups that helped take on the task of reducing opioid prescriptions. He currently serves as a Board Member at PCHC.

Job Titles:

• Interim Chief Executive Officer
• Member of the Leadership Team

Job Titles:

• Member of the Schmidt Institute Advisory Board
• Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of HealthInfoNet

Shaun Alfreds is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of HealthInfoNet - Maine's robust health information exchange that provides a number of other, value-added services to providers (meaningful use attestation, single sign-on to the state's prescription monitoring program, public health reporting, event-of-care notifications, and population health analytics/reporting services). In his capacity as CEO, Shaun works closely with HealthInfoNet's community-based Board of Directors, and a seasoned team of technical, clinical and programmatic experts whose goal is to assure that interoperability services continually meet the needs of the health care community, in Maine and beyond. HealthInfoNet serves as a resource for many healthcare organizations in the state, assisting them with care coordination, error reduction and assessing patient risk, while promoting the highest quality standards by making real-time, patient information available where and when it is needed. In addition, HealthInfoNet develops and manages software and interoperability services for state governments, with a particular focus on Medicaid and public health agencies.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Schmidt Institute Advisory Board
• Executive Director of LifeFlight of Maine

Tom is the Executive Director of LifeFlight of Maine and the LifeFlight Foundation. With an extensive background in emergency medical services and air medicine, he has worked in the private, public and non-government sectors, designing and implementing systems both nationally and internationally.