Virtual-First Care East Summit

Gaurav Shivhare serves as Head of Products, enterprise virtual care at CVS Health, where he leads teams in the strategy, development, & delivery of new and innovative virtual care products and services. Most recently he led the launch of B2B virtual primary care offering at national scale.

Before his current role, Gaurav was the founding team member of HealthHUBs, an intrapreneurial & strategic enterprise initiative, where he led the technology product strategy, development, and investments. Prior to CVS, Gaurav was a leader at PwC consulting where he collaborated with multiple organizations across the healthcare landscape (national & regional payors, providers, retail health, and pharmaceuticals) and led various strategic initiatives at the intersection of Healthcare, business, and technology.

Gaurav is passionate about building new and innovative digital health businesses/ solutions to solve complex healthcare industry issues. He earned his MBA from Wharton business school at University of Pennsylvania and Bachelor of Engineering from BVP, Pune.

Sheila Phicil is the Director of Innovation at Boston Medical Center’s (BMC) Health Equity Accelerator where she facilitates the development of initiatives that advance racial health equity. Prior to 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 clinical, research and teaching missions of the Department. Sheila has over 10 years of experience in healthcare spanning policy, strategy, and operations. She has two Master’s degrees in Public Health and Financial Economics and is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP). In 2020, Sheila was awarded the BMC Leadership Impact Award for demonstrating transformative leadership on topics of diversity, inclusion, and health equity. In 2022, she graduated as a fellow from the Massachusetts Health Leadership College. She believes that every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets and therefore is passionate about innovating systems of care to intentionally work for and with the vulnerable and marginalized populations. Sheila also has a knack for storytelling, drawing from her lived experience as a first-generation, Haitian-American woman to shed light on complex issues.

Dr. Jamie Feusner is Chief Medical Officer at NOCD, Inc., a digital behavioural telehealth company where he designed the treatment protocols for delivering evidence-based exposure and response prevention treatment, virtually, for adults and children with OCD. He is also Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Division of Neurosciences & Clinical Translation, is a Clinician Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He also has appointments as Adjunct Professor at the Karolinska Institute, Dept. of Women’s and Children’s Health, and as a Visiting Researcher at UCLA. Dr. Feusner was previously the Director of the UCLA OCD Intensive Treatment Program for 15 years, from 2006-2021.

Dr. Feusner’s groundbreaking clinical neuroscience research in OCD and related disorders, over the past 18 years, includes the first functional brain imaging studies in body dysmorphic disorder, and studies of accurate predictive modeling of treatment outcomes using neuroimaging, clinical data, and machine learning. Through his work with NOCD, he recently published the largest study of clinical treatment in OCD to-date, demonstrating that virtual exposure and response prevention is an efficacious and efficient treatment.

Dr. Feusner is a member of the Board of Directors of the International College of Obsessive Compulsive Spectrum Disorders, and a member of the International OCD
Foundation Clinical and Scientific Advisory Board. He has published over 125 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and he lectures nationally & internationally on
the topics of OCD, body dysmorphic disorder, and eating disorders.

Tania Elliott, MD, FAAAAI, FACAAI, served as Chief Medical Officer, Virtual Care, and Vice President, Clinical & Network Services, for Ascension. In this role, Dr. Elliott led virtual care services and innovative care delivery models, including advancing the adoption of virtual care inclusive of inpatient, ambulatory, remote patient monitoring, and hospital care at home programs.  She also led the organizations’ ambulatory behavioral health strategy, leveraging technology to imbed behavioral health services into primary care.

A nationally recognized leader in the digital health space, Dr. Elliott previously served as Medical Director, Clinical Solutions, at Aetna, a CVS Health Company, where she specialized in the development of innovative clinical programs incorporating the use of RPM and digital engagement for cardiovascular disease, women’s health, and championed telemedicine reimbursement strategy.  She also served as medical director of Doctor On Demand (now Included Health), responsible for recruiting, hiring, and training the nation’s first virtual-only physician workforce.

Dr. Elliott is  a board member of the American Telemedicine Association (ATA), co-chair of the Telehealth Standards committee for the Consumer Technology Association (CTA),  chair of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (ACAAI) Telehealth and Technology Taskforce, a faculty mentor for Stanford University’s Masters in Clinical Informatics Management (MCiM) program, and a Senior Fellow for the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.  She has published multiple peer-reviewed journal articles on telehealth. Her videos on how to conduct professional telehealth visits and perform virtual physical examinations have gleaned over 66,000 views and have been embedded into medical school and residency program curricula across the country.

She completed medical school at Jefferson Medical College (now the Sidney Kimmel Medical College) at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia; residency at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York; fellowship at NYU Winthrop Hospital, Mineola, New York, and is board certified in Allergy/Immunology and Internal Medicine.  She sits on faculty at NYU Langone Health.

Dr. Joe Kvedar has been driving innovation, creating the market, and gaining acceptance for connected health for nearly three decades. He is now applying his expertise, insights, and influence to advancing adoption of telehealth and virtual care technologies at the national level. Dr. Kvedar continues to guide the transformation of healthcare delivery as a respected thought leader, author, and convener.

Dr. Kvedar is Immediate Past Chair of the Board of the American Telemedicine Association (ATA). As Editor-in-Chief of npj Digital Medicine, a Nature Research journal, he is working to establish the evidence base needed to guide innovation and the implementation of virtual care.

He is co-chair the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Digital Medicine Payment Advisory Group (DMPAG), which works to ensure widespread coverage of telehealth and remote patient monitoring, and successfully established several new provider codes for telehealth reimbursement through the CPT process. Dr. Kvedar is also a member of the AAMC’s (Association of American Medical Colleges) telehealth committee, creating tools that will enable medical schools and residency programs to integrate telehealth into the training of future practitioners.

Dr. Kvedar is the author of two books: The Internet of Healthy Things and The New Mobile Age: How Technology Will Extend the Healthspan and Optimize the Lifespan. The cHealth Blog provides his insights and vision for connected health.

Dr. Kvedar is a Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School.

Donald Jones is a globally recognized leader in digital medicine, digital therapies, technology enabled health services and virtual-first healthcare delivery. He is a sought out as a speaker, advisor and board member. He works across the spectrum of healthcare, pharmaceutical, medical device, wearable, smart apparel, material science and healthcare companies. He is an Operating Partner with Takeda Digital Ventures. He sits as an independent director on multiple boards of VC and PE backed companies. Don has advised the Boards and executive suites of many of the largest pharmaceutical and medical device companies including Dexcom, Resmed, Cepheid, Sanofi, Teva, Astra Zeneca, Genentech, Otsuka, Novo Nordisk and the Verily/Sanofi joint venture, Onduo. He is a Senior Advisor with both McKinsey & Co. and the GLG Institute. Jones serves as Chief Digital Officer of the Scripps Research Translational Institute (SRTI), collaborating with the renowned Eric Topol, MD, where they co-founded Scripps Digital Medicine, the world’s first digital health clinical trial center and the non-profit West Health Institute, raising over $130 million. At JP Morgan Healthcare in 2021, Don founded IMPACT, the Virtual First Medical Practice Collaboration, in partnership with DiMe (Digital Medicine Society).

​Beginning in 2002, Don led Qualcomm Wireless Health Global Strategy and founded its healthcare subsidiary. In 2005 he founded the international Wireless Life Sciences Alliance, merging it with HIMSS in 2016. Earlier in his career, Don was COO of MedTrans (re-named AMR), in which he was instrumental in growing from $4.5 million into the largest emergency services provider in the world (now Global Medical Response), with over 38,000 EMS personnel, 7000 ambulances and 450 medical aircraft. He was Founder and Chair of EMME, Mexico’s largest consumer membership healthcare provider and largest private practice, with over 450 physicians. As advisor to the Board of AMR, he helped build the largest medical group in the US, under the EmCare brand (now Envision Healthcare), with over 25,000 physicians. In 2014, EvoNexus recognized Donald Jones as Digital Health Innovator of the Year. Don conceived the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, a global competition for a consumer device which successfully makes medical diagnoses. The XPRIZE was awarded in Hollywood in April 2017.

Luis Velez MD is a recognized entrepreneur in prehospital medical care in Mexico with 35 years of hand on experience; he is sought by Mexican and foreign companies offering and/or wanting to start medical related operations in Mexico.

He has been involved in several startups of well recognized companies that are current leaders in their respective areas.

In 1988 he founded TRANSMEDIC, a ground and air ambulance company providing ALS transports within Mexico as well as from Mexico to de United States, TRANSMEDIC was instrumental on improving the level of medical care improving the outcome of hundreds of patients that require medical attention in San Diego Hospitals including Sharp Memorial, Scripps, UCSD and Children´s. In 1991 he was hired by MedTrans in San Diego California as project Manager for the launch in Mexico of a Physician Staff ambulance system to repatriate ill or injured US Citizens from Mexico; the project evolve to what is now known as EMME a membership based primary healthcare provider that begun operations in 1995, at this time EMME has 300,000 members in Monterrey and Guadalajara, Mexico. In 2002 he founded SIAM Monterrey a company that provide specialized services to insurance companies including administer and authorized medical care to over 100,000 patients a year thru a network of over 400 hospitals, his role included develop protocols and establish standards of care as well as design new models of care. 1n 2013 he started SIAM Hermosillo a membership-based healthcare provider offering Physician staffed ambulances for emergency ALS response, schedule doctor/nurse home visit and access to a walk-in clinic including doctor’s office; nursing room and pharmacy; the membership included also 24-hour access to telephone medical consultation.

Luis understands and encourages his clients to include in their services easy, secure and friendly access to preventive medicine and primary care including close and continue medical follow up on establish medical treatments including chronic or degenerative diseases.

Timothy Law, DO is Chief Medical Officer, Vice President Integrative Care Delivery at Highmark. Dr. Law leads efforts on Living Health Solutions Collaborations, the Clinical Quality Governance Committee, the Utilization Management Prior Authorization team, Federal Employee Program and VBR – True Performance. He began as a member of the Medical Policy Team, where he drove completion of HM CED (Coverage with Evidence) policy to allow better access to new technology for our strategic partners and our members. He now leads the Medical Policy Team as part of his direct reporting structure in Clinical Services. He also serves as chairman of the Care Management and Quality Committee.

Dr. Law is telehealth lead on Highmark’s Covid-19 Command Center team, and led the team in the organization of adding over 1000 codes for inclusion in the coverage policy during the pandemic, helping to bring virtual care to patients in the midst of a pandemic.
A board certified physician with two decades of clinical experience, Dr. Law serves as the Medical Director and Principal Investigator of the Ohio Musculoskeletal and Neurological Institute (OMNI) at Ohio University with multiple NIH grants funding research in healthy aging and wellness.

Dr. Law is in active clinical practice as a rural Family Doctor in Central Ky. He uses virtual health and house calls to perform full service family medicine to include obstetrics and minor orthopedic and dermatologic surgeries.

In addition, he has an aesthetics practice for
over 15 years. Trained by vascular surgeons
at the Chandler Medical Center in Lexington, KY. He also took his post
graduate aesthetics training at the Pfenninger Procedural Institute nearly 20 years ago. He currently does traveling Botox and Filler parties around the country and is collaborating medical director for his aesthetics practice in Beverly Hills, CA.

Dr. Law earned his medical degree from
Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, and an MBA in Health Care Management from Indiana Wesleyan University. He completed family medicine residency at Ireland Army Community Hospital, Fort Knox, KY.

Ryan has spent the past 12 years working to optimize and innovate care delivery in roles spanning research, consulting, and internal operations. Beginning his healthcare career with The Advisory Board Company, he spent a number of years conducting long-form research developing innovative and actionable solutions to pressing clinical operations challenges. Wanting to go from theory to practice, Ryan spent time with the Implementation practices at Huron Consulting and McKinsey & Company, where he developed and implemented solutions for an array of health systems, ranging from academic medical centers, to for-profit specialty chains, to large multi-state health systems. Joining Kaiser Permanente as the COVID-19 pandemic began, he focused on developing, implementing, and scaling initiatives that addressed strategic challenges and opportunities. In addition to working on KP’s COVID response, he developed a novel hybrid physical-virtual micro-clinic concept, as well as leading a team which developed the organization’s first Level 1 Geriatric Emergency Department. In his current role at Teladoc Health, Ryan’s focus is on developing care models and clinical strategies that enable the delivery of integrated, collaborative, Whole Person Care across service lines and the broader health ecosystem.

 Joe Connolly is the co-founder and CEO of Visana Health, a virtual-first gynecology clinic he founded from his mother’s experience with endometriosis. Joe’s worked in the virtual-first care space for nearly a decade, including in clinical evidence development, economic evidence development, sales, implementations, and product. Joe’s a founding member of IMPACT, the virtual-first medical practice collaboration committed to supporting virtual-first care companies and their commitment to improving patient outcomes.

Previous to founding Visana, he worked in digital health at Boston Scientific, where he created and scaled a virtual-first digital healthcare solution to health systems. Joe’s a thought leader in the virtual care space and publishes a popular blog on virtual-first care.

Joe has a BS in Bioengineering from Clemson and an MEng in Biomedical Engineering from Duke.

Ryan A. Grant, MD, MS, MBA, FAANS is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vori Health. Dr. Grant is a serial entrepreneur and board-certified, Yale-trained neurosurgeon who was most recently at Geisinger Medical Center practicing complex spine surgery. He left his surgical practice during the pandemic to focus on value-based healthcare transformation in the musculoskeletal sector by starting Vori Health which is an award-winning, nationwide, virtual-first, hybrid musculoskeletal/orthopedic medical practice focused on evidence-based care that treats the whole person. Prior to Vori Health, Dr. Grant co-founded Nomad Health, which is an award-winning online marketplace that directly connects healthcare clinicians to healthcare jobs, participated in medical device development, and taught at several medical schools and universities. He received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science from the University of Michigan, his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed his neurosurgical residency and complex spine fellowship at Yale University.

Michael spends his time and energy leading the Digital Health Institute for Transformation (DHIT) a 501(C-3) that supports communities through the process of digital transformation.

Michael is an experienced healthcare executive turned entrepreneur, with a purpose-driven mindset. He is on a path to unite culture, process, people, and technology to create a new healthcare operating system for the 21st century. Michael has held leadership roles as Vice Chair of Administration for the Department of Medicine at the University of Miami Health System, Director of Clinical Operations for UNC Health Care’s specialty ambulatory clinics, as well as several other leadership roles at UCLA Health within various clinical departments. Michael has also served as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the Center for Health Innovation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he designed and developed their Digital Health Program in support of UNC’s Digital Transformation strategy. As an entrepreneur, Michael was COO of Digital Therapy, a cognitive computing platform powered by IBM Watson in the behavioral health space. He is Co-founder of Bluedoor Group, a digital health growth and innovation agency.

Michael earned his BS in Neuroscience from Tulane University and his MBA from Elon University.

Ryan Schoenecker, MBA has spent two decades in emerging businesses driving the adoption of and use of virtual care solutions.  In his role as Chief Commercial Officer at Vori Health, Ryan runs the commercialization and growth of Vori’s offerings in the marketplace.  Prior to joining Vori, Ryan was on leadership teams expanding solutions at Icario, Teladoc, and Virgin Pulse.  Ryan received his B.A. from University of St. Thomas, and MBA from University of Notre Dame, Mendoza School of Business.

Randy is currently the Chief Commercial Officer at Oshi Health, a virtual first GI clinic that is transforming care for people living with digestive health issues.   Most recently he was the Chief Commercial Officer at Path Mental Health. Prior to Path he was the Vice President of Government and Labor at Livongo (acquired by Teladoc) and led their commercial efforts focused on expanding Livongo’s presence in the public and labor sector.  He was the first commercial employee at Livongo and held a variety of commercial leadership positions as Livongo grew, went public, and then merged with Teladoc. Randy is also an investor and commercial advisor for several digital health companies including WellTheory, Tuned, Flowy, Hone Health and Posterity Health  He has spent most of his career helping to build digital health companies looking to bend the cost curve in the healthcare system, improve care, while also reshaping the physician, patient/member experience. Randy holds a B.A. in American Studies from Yale University and lives in Glencoe, IL with his wife and two daughters.

Marina has spent her career on the business side of health care and is driven by improving the patient’s experience in their care journey. Having worked across Fortune 500 companies like Johnson & Johnson in sales, marketing, and M&A, management consulting at BCG, and digital health, Marina is currently the co-founder and COO of Paloma Health, the first virtual clinic improving thyroid care – a set of conditions that overwhelmingly impact women. Marina finished Wharton in 2010 with a Health Care Management concentration and currently lives in NYC with her husband and 2 children.

Ellen Herlacher is a healthcare investor with a deep background in investment management, healthcare operations, and corporate strategy. As Principal at LRVHealth, Ellen co-leads the firm’s research and investments in new care delivery, behavioral health, and workforce transformation. In this role, she led the firm’s investment in Diana Health, a reimagined maternity care company. She also supports the executive teams at portfolio companies, Reimagine Care, DotCom Therapy, Greater Good Health, and Season.  Before joining LRVHealth, Ellen was director of Tufts Health Ventures, the corporate development and corporate investment arm of Tufts Health Plan (now Point32 Health). Prior to joining Tufts, she held management roles at athenahealth and investment and consulting roles at Goldman Sachs and Bain & Company. Ellen earned a B.A. from Cornell University and M.B.A. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jonathan Neufeld, PhD, is Program Director of the Great Plains Telehealth Resource and Assistance Center (gpTRAC), a federally funded technical assistance program housed at the University of Minnesota. The Center provides telehealth training and consultation to healthcare providers and programs interested in implementing, evaluating, and enhancing all types of telehealth services in the Great Plains region.

Dr. Neufeld has consulted on a wide range of projects related to rural health and telehealth over the past 15 years. He has presented at regional and national conferences and published peer-reviewed articles in the fields of telemedicine, clinical decision support tools, mental health services evaluation, and clinical outcomes.

Dr. Neufeld was formerly the Vice President of Information Technology and Integrated Care at Oaklawn Psychiatric Center in Goshen, Indiana. In this role, he oversaw the IT programs and services at Oaklawn as well as leading a team of clinicians providing mental and behavioral health services in primary care settings across Elkhart and St. Joseph Counties. Oaklawn has been using telehealth technology since 2011.

Dr. Neufeld received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from Ohio University and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Integrated Primary Care in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, California.

Before moving to Indiana, Dr. Neufeld was an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UC Davis Medical Center, and Senior Research Associate at the UC Davis Center for Healthcare Policy and Research. There he collaborated on a wide range of clinical and research projects in the fields of mental health, primary care, telemedicine, and health care technology.

Matthew (Matt) Weinberg is a Partner at Max Ventures, an early- stage venture capital fund based in New York City with a global reach. They are first-check investors who lead or co-lead rounds and primarily focus on digital healthcare, SaaS, and digital commerce. They have also co-founded 7 venture backed companies and seek to partner with talented founders at day zero.

Prior to joining Max Ventures, Matt was an Obama White House appointee in the U.S. Small Business Administration and served as Senior Advisor in the Office of Investment and Innovation. He helped drive federal programs that directed over $6 billion in capital to investment funds, early-stage technology companies, and accelerators and incubators across the country. Before joining the Obama Administration, Matt worked for the New York City Economic Development Corporation and managed city-wide programs aimed at developing and supporting the City’s technology and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Matt is an op-ed contributor for Forbes, TechCrunch, Huffington Post, and several other publications. He holds a B.A. in History and Political Science from the University of Washington and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Deb Socia is President and CEO of The Enterprise Center, a nonprofit that nurtures innovation in Chattanooga with the goal of connecting people to resources and building an inclusive community. Growing the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the Innovation District, building digital equity, and supporting research and implementation of smart city applications are all a part of the organization’s focus. Prior to her current role, Deb was the Executive Director of Next Century Cities, a nonprofit that supports community leaders as they seek to ensure that all have access to fast, affordable, and reliable Internet. Previously, Deb was the Executive Director of the Tech Goes Home program in Boston whose mission is to ensure digital equity. Deb’s early career included 32 years as an educator and administrator.  She was the founding principal of the award winning Lilla G. Frederick Middle School, a Boston Public School where she led the one-to-one laptop initiative.

Deb has been the recipient of many awards for her work, including the NATOA Community Broadband Hero, the Pathfinder Award from MassCUE, the CRSTE Leadership and Vision Award, a Google Digital Inclusion Award, Motherboard Human of the Year, an NTENny Award, a Red Cross Community Hero Award, and the Charles Benton Digital Equity Award.

Elise is on the investment team at Human Ventures– a Pre-seed, Seed, and Series A firm in NYC. There, she helps with fundraising, deal sourcing, diligence, and portfolio company support. When evaluating pre-seed and seed-stage deals, she draws on her experience building at this stage in Human’s venture studio. From 2020-2022, she led the Humans in the Wild program. In this capacity, she worked with Human’s Entrepreneurs In Residence to launch their companies and, on an operational level, helped design the entrepreneurs’ journey through the program. Prior to Human, Elise spent 5 years at Oxeon Partners both in its healthcare tech and services venture studio and in its executive search arm. Elise graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College, Columbia University, where she was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow.

Susan Conover is the Cofounder and CEO of Piction Health. Prior to starting Piction Health, she trained as a mechanical engineer at the University of Texas at Austin, and worked in management consulting at Oliver Wyman, before returning to school for two Master’s degrees at MIT and the Singapore University of Technology and Design focused on product development. She was diagnosed with melanoma 3 times, which sparked her passion for ensuring every person with a skin issue gets the right care at the right time.

Dr. Brad Diephuis, MD, MBA, is a primary care physician and Chief Business Officer at Thyme Care, a value-based oncology management platform.  In this role, he focuses on the company’s go-to-market strategies including commercial growth, corporate development and new strategic initiatives. Before joining Thyme Care, Brad served as a Senior Advisor at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), where he helped lead the development of Medicare’s vision for future total cost of care alternative payment models.  Previously, Brad served as Co-Founder and CEO of Herald Health, an early stage health IT startup developing customizable clinical alerting solutions, and later as Associate Vice President for Healthcare and Life Sciences at Persistent Systems, a large IT vendor that acquired Herald Health.

Dr. Diephuis is clinically trained in internal medicine from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and has received an BA/MS in electrical engineering and computer science, and an MD/MBA degree from Harvard University. Brad maintains a small primary care practice in Boston, MA.

Stuart is the Co-Founder/COO of Hone Health, one of the largest DTC virtual care companies for men’s health in the US. They enable men with low testosterone to receive care and treatment right from home. Prior to Hone, he was the Chief Business Officer at 7SBio, which transformed how blood is collected. They are the makers of TAP, the world’s first push-button blood collection device. It makes the process simple, convenient, and painless. Stuart was also the first employee at AgaMatrix, a blood glucose monitoring company that made the first medical device connecting directly to the iPhone. He helped grow the company from a startup to one with over 15 FDA-cleared products and 750 employees, forging partnerships with Apple, Sanofi, CVS, and Target.

Stuart holds a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University and an M.S. in Investment Management from Boston University.