2023 State Healthcare IT Connect Annual Summit: Full Schedule

13th Annual 2023 State Healthcare IT Connect Summit | March 06-08 Hilton Baltimore, MD.

5:00pm EST

Early Fly-in Networking

Mixer in the lobby bar

Sunday March 5, 2023 5:00pm - 7:00pm EST
Lobby Bar

Networking

9:00am EST

Registration Opens

Registration Kiosks open

Monday March 6, 2023 9:00am - 10:00am EST
Lobby

Registration

11:00am EST

Opening Keynote: CMS Update, PHE Unwinding

Unwinding is here! In this session, CMS will highlight best practices learned from CMS and states during the planning period. Now that Unwinding is here, we will also focus on CMS engagement with state systems teams during the unwinding period, as well as key areas for systems improvements/enhancements going forward.

Speakers

Kia Banton

Deputy Director, Division of State Systems/CMCS Unwinding Team, CMCS/CMS

Kia Banton has almost 20 years’ experience in health care IT systems and policy currently serving as both a Deputy Director within the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Data and Systems Group (DSG), and as the State Systems Lead for the Center for Medicaid and CIHP... Read More →

Monday March 6, 2023 11:00am - 12:00pm EST
TBA

General Session

12:00pm EST

Break: Refreshments Served in East Foyer

Monday March 6, 2023 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
East Foyer

Break

1:00pm EST

State Only - CMS feedback session - PHE Unwinding

Speakers

Kia Banton

Deputy Director, Division of State Systems/CMCS Unwinding Team, CMCS/CMS

Monday March 6, 2023 1:00pm - 2:30pm EST
Key Ballroom 1

Track 1

1:00pm EST

Vendor Only - CMS feedback session – PHE Unwinding

Community Connect Workshop

Speakers

Edward Dolly

Director, Division of State Systems, CMCS/CMS

Monday March 6, 2023 1:00pm - 2:30pm EST
Key Ballroom 4

Track 1

1:00pm EST

T-MSIS (session details awaiting CMS clearance)

Community Connect Workshop

Monday March 6, 2023 1:00pm - 2:30pm EST
Key Ballroom 2

Track 2

1:00pm EST

Accelerating Modernization: Multi-Cloud Engagements

Four years ago, Washington State migrated its MMIS to the cloud. Now the cloudscape is much more diverse. Rather than settling for a single cloud, a thoughtful approach enhances operating across and between clouds. Join us to explore factors like making shared tenancies work for agencies with different data security needs, cost and performance related to moving data between clouds, and more.

Speakers

Heidi Robbins Brown

Vice President of Medicaid Policy and Programs, CNSI

Heidi Robbins Brown is an attorney and nationally recognized expert in Medicaid policy, operations and information systems – who joined CNSI as Vice President of Medicaid Policy and Programs in October 2019. At CNSI, Heidi leads the company’s Client Focus Group and works with... Read More →

Jerry Britcher

CIO, Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA)

Jerry Britcher serves the Washington State Health Care Authority as Chief Information Officer andAssistant Director. He has served over 36 years in Washington state service, holding previous positionsincluding Enterprise Architect, Deputy Chief Information Officer, and Chief Operations... Read More →

John Harding

Senior Vice President, Managed Services, CNSI

John Harding serves as CNSI’s Senior Vice President of Managed Services with responsibility for delivery of operations, maintenance and technical services for state and federal healthcare programs. He has been with CNSI since 2009 and has played a key role in leading large-scale... Read More →

Monday March 6, 2023 1:00pm - 2:30pm EST
Key Ballroom 6

Track 6

1:00pm EST

Community Connect Workshops

Community Connect Workshop

Monday March 6, 2023 1:00pm - 2:30pm EST
TBA

Workshop

2:30pm EST

Break: Refreshments Served in East Foyer

Monday March 6, 2023 2:30pm - 3:00pm EST
East Foyer

Break

3:00pm EST

Managing Medicaid Transformation and Modularity through Strategic Governance

Managing Medicaid programs through business and technological change has never been more complex. The North Carolina Division of Health Benefits, NC Medicaid, is leading Medicaid Transformation, successfully moving to Medicaid Managed Care delivery, while undertaking technological innovation in support of operational excellence. Legacy MMIS has been leveraged to support Medicaid Transformation while embarking on a parallel effort to replace the monolithic legacy platform with a modular system.

This session discusses the Medicaid governance structure that is enabling NC Medicaid’s alignment of business goals while advancing MITA maturity and ensuring continuity of CMS enhanced federal funding through Streamlined Modular Certification (SMC). SMC presents unique challenges due, in part, to the integration of modular solutions as well as the complexity associated with adopting and supporting governance structure and policy development.

Session facilitators will illustrate how the existing Medicaid strategic governance model has been enhanced to support a business-driven Medicaid Enterprise System (MES) project. The Medicaid governance model is a hybrid-agile structure that builds upon eight business units (Finance, Member, Provider, Analytics, Compliance, Managed Care, Benefits, and Care and Quality) whose members participate in cross-functional teams responsible for vetting operations and program changes. Further, each business unit is supported by six capability teams (Program Design and Actuarial Services, Technology, Procurement and Contracting, Legal, Communications and Engagement, and Staff Training and Staff Readiness) in order to ensure business needs are met within each technology product.

Speakers

Joe Crawford

Managing Director, Accenture

Joe is a Managing Director in Accenture’s Public Service Practice and is responsible for Accenture’s Strategy and Consulting work with Public Sector, Education, and Non-Profit entities in North Carolina. Over his two decades with Accenture, Joe has focused on helping public and... Read More →

Sylvia Mitchem

Director Technology Consulting, Public Consulting Group

Sylvia Mitchem is a Director with PCG and has 14 years of public health, human, and social services project management and consulting experience. Sylvia has led numerous public health IT projects, providing project management, IV&V, and QA services for Alabama, Connecticut, North... Read More →

Jay Ludlam

Assistant Secretary for Medicaid, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services

Jay Ludlam joined the NC Department of Health and Human Services’ Medicaid programin August 2017. Mr. Ludlam lead the statewide NC DHHS Medicaid Transformation project and helped launchthe biggest change in NC Medicaid’s historywith its move to managed care. North Carolina’s... Read More →

Monday March 6, 2023 3:00pm - 4:30pm EST
Key Ballroom 1

Track 1

3:00pm EST

Building a Resilient Public Health Infrastructure

The Covid-19 pandemic stressed public health infrastructure across the country. Historical infrastructure deficits hindered public health departments’ ability to respond to the health emergency in a nimble manner. Specifically, hospitals and public health agencies had limited capacity for interoperability, relying on manually entered data with data lag and error potential.

As opposed to being mired by the challenges, the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) targeted needs, prioritized actions, and turned deficiencies into opportunities. Iowa’s public health leaders are committed to collaboratively protecting and improving the health of their citizens through innovation and partnership. They serve as the backbone for the public health infrastructure and their guiding principles of accountability, equity, and quality inform and drive data-driven and evidence-based priorities.

As part of their pandemic response, IDPH partnered closely with CyncHealth Iowa, the statewide designated health information exchange (HIE) and a health data utility to forge a unique relationship focused on advancing public health infrastructure and promoting health equity in both the private and public sectors. This ability to collaboratively implement cohesive and comprehensive solutions with sustainability was crucial to long term solutions. The partnership offered a cost-effective, efficient path to interoperability by using existing data pipelines, reducing duplicated data entry, and visualizing data for rapid application.

We will discuss how establishing this foundational relationship has allowed the partners to address infrastructure issues quickly and effectively such as the inadequacy of the previous state HIE infrastructure, engage healthcare providers across an individual’s health journey, and streamline public health reporting with a focus on completeness and quality, and access to real-time data.

Speakers

Ken Sharp

Operations Deputy, Div Public Health, Department of Public Health at Iowa HHS

Sarah Reisetter

Chief Compliance Officer, Iowa HHS

Sarah earned her law degree from the University of Iowa College of Law and joined the Iowa bar in 2006. She worked in a local county government role before moving to state government in 2008. She served as the state’s director of elections until 2015, when she joined the Department... Read More →

Jeff Van Engelenhoven

CIO, Iowa Public Health

Jeff Van Engelenhoven is the Chief Information Officer for the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. Jeff came to the Iowa Department of Public Health as the CIO in the spring of 2021 after serving 23 years at the Iowa Legislative Services Agency. Over the course of the last... Read More →

Angela Greene

Chief of Staff, CyncHealth

Angela Greene is Chief of Staff at CyncHealth where she serves as a strategic partner to the CEO, responsible for driving strategic initiatives while building and maintaining effective relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.Angela came to CyncHealth as a consultant... Read More →

Monday March 6, 2023 3:00pm - 4:30pm EST
Key Ballroom 5

Track 2

3:00pm EST

Health Equity Under the Microscope

Inequalities in health prevention, care, and outcomes are common issues in our society and remain significant problems. To improve health outcomes and quality of life for all citizens, we need to understand the true scope of disparity in data, service delivery, and outcomes in order to bring health equity to those most in need. This
session will focus on how agencies and counties are using data and insights to understand health disparities and their drivers more fully, and how those insights can help inform strategies for improvement across the health ecosystem. Our discussion will focus on our data-driven framework to data analysis for health equity: Identify targets and metrics that are tied to program goals and impact targets, tie those measures to available data, consult key stakeholders, and use statistical methods to analyze and communicate results. We will describe how this method has been used to address disparities in teleservice utilization and uptake during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, and how we have brought our equity evaluation experience to bear using the Health Insights Platform for Public Health.

Speakers

Sam Thompson

Deputy Director – Program Evaluation, NC Medicaid

Sam Thompson is the Deputy Director – Program Evaluation for North Carolina Medicaid. Sam’s team oversees quality measurement, federal monitoring, surveys, and internal and external program evaluation at NC Medicaid. In the past year their work has focused on:• Demographic disparities... Read More →

Kristin Thorn

Senior Management Consulting Executive, Public Service/Public Health Practice, Accenture

Erin Drucker

Data Science Senior Manager, Accenture

Monday March 6, 2023 3:00pm - 4:30pm EST
Key Ballroom 2

Track 2

3:00pm EST

Managing Indiana's Long-term Care/Home & Community Based Services Data Roadmap for Managed Care

Indiana is driving an ambitious plan to reimagine its Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) -- including launching a managed program -- to ensure that all residents can age where they choose and receive high-quality care while maintaining long-term cost sustainability for the state. To achieve these results, the state must closely monitor the program’s implementation, operations, and performance and shift from reactive reporting to proactive data-driven decision-making. Indiana and its partner, McKinsey, developed a plan for (and currently are building) an integrated data platform with sophisticated analytics capabilities and curated visualizations. This session will cover the approach for developing the data transformation roadmap, the short- and long-term target states, and lessons learned along the way.

Speakers

Timothy McFarlane

Chief Data Officer, Indiana Family and Social Services

Tim is committed to transformational improvement in data exchange and meaningful use of data to improve health and human services for Hoosiers. Tim has focused on connecting data technologies to critical business needs through development and implementation of a cloud-based analytics... Read More →

Connor Norwood

CEO and founder, Delineate Consulting

Dr. Connor Norwood is the Founder and CEO of Delineate, a consulting firm focused on transforming data into action. Prior to this, Dr. Norwood served as the Chief Data Officer for the Indiana Family & Social Services Administration. Due to his experience as well has subject matter... Read More →

Merih Bennett

Deputy Data Officer, Indiana Family and Social Services

Merih is committed the FSSA mission: to compassionately serve our diverse community of Hoosiers bydismantling long-standing, persistent inequity through deliberate human services system improvement. FSSA Data and Analytics works with the rest of the state to enhance meaningful use... Read More →

Jessica Kahn

Partner, McKinsey & Company

Jess Kahn is a Partner in McKinsey’s Washington D.C. office who specializes in state Medicaid and human services programs, public sector data, and technology. At McKinsey, Jess helps USstates prepare for HHS systems modernization, assesses readiness for Medicaid expansion, and improves... Read More →

Brian Latko

Partner, McKinsey & Company

Brian is one of the leaders of McKinsey & Company's Medicaid and state health and human services work. He leads their work with state Medicaid agencies on managed care strategy, procurement, contracting and performance management. He has also served states on Medicaid budget resiliency... Read More →

Monday March 6, 2023 3:00pm - 4:30pm EST
Key Ballroom 6

Track 2

3:00pm EST

Improving Information Sharing in Arkansas for Children in Foster Care

To improve data sharing while advancing health equity the Arkansas statewide health information exchange, (SHARE), Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), Arkansas Children’s Care Network (ACCN), a statewide pediatric clinically integrated network, Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) came together to solve a statewide problem of data exchange of children taken into custody and put in foster care. There are ∼443 000 children in child protective custody (i.e., foster care) in the United States. According to the Arkansas Division of Children and Families (DCFS) monthly reports, as of August 2021 there were 4,842 children in the Arkansas foster care system. Children in protective custody have more medical, behavioral, and developmental problems that require health care services than the general population. These health problems are compounded by poor information exchange impeding care coordination and continuity of care. Health care providers often do not know which of their patients are in protective custody and are not privy to the critical social history collected by child protective services, including placement history and maltreatment history.

Speakers

Justin Villines

Health Information Technology Policy Director, Arkansas Department of Health

Justin Villines is an Arkansas native and currently serves as the Health Information Technology (HIT) Policy Director for the Office of Health Information Technology that oversees the State Health Alliance for Records Exchange (SHARE), Arkansas’ only statewide Health Information... Read More →

Anne Santifer

Director, Arkansas Department of Health

Anne Santifer is Director of the Office of Health Information Technology. Anne has nearly 13 years of experience in the operations, development, and policy supporting Medicaid quality improvement programs. She is experienced in program management, value-based programs and data and... Read More →

Monday March 6, 2023 3:00pm - 4:30pm EST
Key Ballroom 3

Track 3

3:00pm EST

Whole Person Care and the Search for the “Golden Profile”

The health and social data for an individual – the services they receive, their housing records, local public hospital data – hold the key to providing coordinated care and providing caseworkers with information they need to provide holistic care and build trust. Unfortunately, this “golden profile” is difficult to build – the pieces of information that make up an individual’s care profile are often locked away in disparate siloes, making true whole person care unattainable – and deepening social disparities and health inequities in the process.

When coupled with MarkLogic’s Data Hub and its built-in Master Person Index, the Merative Integrated Care case management service creates this 360 view of those in need of coordinated health and social services. The pairing of these capabilities enables the rapid onboarding of new data and for connections between this data to be realized more quickly. In the hands of caseworkers, this enables communities across the country to better support their vulnerable and at-risk populations by providing this higher-fidelity data upon which better person-based decisions can be made.

When Sonoma County, California, declared a crisis among its unhoused population, it utilized Merative's solution to provide their caseworkers access to integrated care management data across agencies – and directly from mobile devices. As a result, participants connected with primary care providers, 85% received needed social services, and 72% found permanent housing.

Join this session to learn more about how health and human services agencies can bring whole person care to their own communities and strengthen social supports for the most vulnerable.

Speakers

Liz Schnitter

Product Lead, Social Programs, Merative

Liz Schnitter is the Product Lead for Merative’s Integrated Care Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, a collaborative case management solution used by governments and healthcare providers to improve outcomes for vulnerable and at-risk individuals and families. Liz has worked... Read More →

Gary Katz

Senior Account Executive, MarkLogic

Gary Katz has a successful track record in leadership, technology, and management in severalorganizations. He has a deep understanding across technology domains including enterprisedata management, databases, data integration, master data management, languagetechnologies, and the... Read More →

Monday March 6, 2023 3:00pm - 4:30pm EST
Key Ballroom 4

Track 3

3:00pm EST

Community Connect Workshops

Community Connect Workshop

Monday March 6, 2023 3:00pm - 4:30pm EST
TBA

Workshop

4:30pm EST

Break: Refreshments Served in East Foyer

Monday March 6, 2023 4:30pm - 5:00pm EST
East Foyer

Break

5:00pm EST

Opening Networking Reception - Sponsored by Deloitte

Monday March 6, 2023 5:00pm - 6:30pm EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Networking

5:00pm EST

Exhibit Hall Open

Monday March 6, 2023 5:00pm - 7:00pm EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Exhibitor

7:30am EST

Breakfast

Registration Kiosks open

Tuesday March 7, 2023 7:30am - 8:30am EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Registration

7:30am EST

Registration Opens

Registration Kiosks open

Tuesday March 7, 2023 7:30am - 8:30am EST
Registration Kiosks

Registration

8:25am EST

Opening Remarks

Tuesday March 7, 2023 8:25am - 8:30am EST
Holiday Ballroom 4-6

Presentation

8:30am EST

Medicaid Director's Panel: Medicaid Enterprise Transformation

The case for modernization is clear. Medicaid IT has a critical role in improving the consumer experiences of Medicaid providers and members. The modernization of Medicaid Enterprise Systems (MES) and other Medicaid IT solutions offer an opportunity for state Medicaid Agencies to be strategic and intentional about their product roadmaps in ways that improve health outcomes and reduce administrative burdens experienced by providers, beneficiaries & their families, and other participants in the system. Our esteemed panel of State Medicaid Directors will discuss their strategies for modernizing business processes and the supporting technologies that truly transform and innovate Medicaid to achieve its program goals and objectives.

Moderators

Fadesola Adetosoye

Expert Associate Partner, McKinsey & Company

Speakers

Tara A. LeBlanc

Medicaid Executive Director, Louisiana Department of Health

Martin Ciccocioppo MBA MHA

Director, Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Program, Pennsylvania Department of Human Services

Martin Ciccocioppo (pronounced Chick-E-chop), Director, Pennsylvania eHealth PartnershipProgram (PA eHealth), in the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, is passionate aboutimproving health care. Mr. Ciccocioppo has been in this role for more than five years and isresponsible... Read More →

Kristen Challacombe

Deputy Director for Business Operations, Office of the Director, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS)

Kristen Challacombe serves as the Deputy Director for Business Operations for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), providing administrative oversight and guidance in the daily operations of Arizona’s Medicaid and CHIP programs, including the provision of acute... Read More →

Feyella Toney

Chief Portfolio Officer, Maryland Department of Health

Elle Toney is responsible for the Medicaid Enterprise Systems Modular Transformation (MMT) Program, which is a multi-year, $500M program funded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). MMT is the largest technology-driven program managed by the Maryland Department of... Read More →

Melisa Byrd

Senior Deputy Director / Medicaid Director, D.C. Department of Health Care Finance

Melisa Byrd is the Senior Deputy Director / Medicaid Director of the Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF). In this role, Ms. Byrd serves as the principal manager for the District’s Medicaid, CHIP, Alliance and Immigrant Children’s programs. Melisa directs the day-to-day organization... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 8:30am - 9:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom 4-6

General Session

9:45am EST

Exhibit Hall Open

Tuesday March 7, 2023 9:45am - 10:45am EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Exhibitor

9:45am EST

Networking Break in the Exhibit Hall

Networking Break

Tuesday March 7, 2023 9:45am - 10:45am EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Networking

10:45am EST

Plenary Sessions

Tuesday March 7, 2023 10:45am - 11:45am EST
TBA

Plenary Session

10:45am EST

Organizational Development, Operational Readiness for Streamlined Modular Certification, Outcomes Based Transformation

The plenary will focus on organizational development, and operational readiness to establish OBC, SMC processes as a strategic enterprise function. State and federal presenters will share insights on best practices, lessons learned, and updates on guidance.

Speakers

Grant Christie

SVP, NTT DATA Services

Grant Christie has 25+ years in Information Technology as well as 15+ years in State Medicaid and related platforms. A senior leader in Medicaid IT Technology, Grant has worked with over 30 states on their Medicaid procurement and modernization journeys. Grant leads NTT DATA’s State... Read More →

Tobi Daniels

MES Certification Manager, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services

David D. Chen

Principal, Coverage, Payment, and Equity, MITRE

David D. Chen - Health Program Analysis and Transformation Principal at MITRE. David is a Health Program, Technology, Systems, and Cyber enterprise and solution architect. He supports CMS Medicaid program owners on the MES by strengthening oversight and accountability for the... Read More →

Brandon Lewis

Medicaid Enterprise Systems Office Director (Bureau for Medical Services), WV DHHR

Brandon Lewis is the Director of the Office of Medicaid & CHIP Enterprise Systems housed within the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR), Bureau for Medical Services (BMS). Brandon has spent the past 5 years managing a multitude of Medicaid & CHIP Enterprise... Read More →

Eugene Gabriyelov

Deputy Director, Division of State Systems, CMCS/CMS

Tuesday March 7, 2023 10:45am - 11:45am EST
Key Ballroom 1

Track 1

10:45am EST

Leveraging Interoperability, SDoH, to build a Sustainable Social Care Ecosystem, Improve Program Outcomes

Several states are leading the way in implementing person-centered care models and piloting interventions for Medicaid enrollees using SDoH data, and coordinating services through their MCO (Managed Care Organization) partners and CBOs (Community Based Organizations). At the same time, states are implementing the information-blocking rule and payer-to-payer data exchange models in order to be compliant with CMS rule-making. The convergence of these efforts, and the maturation of services being provided through HIEs, which are emerging as critical public health utility partners, promise to provide a trusted HHS data exchange framework that will not only improve the coordination of beneficiary services but address the needs of communities, as a long term strategic imperative.

Join our panel of Federal, State, and HIE partners to discuss interoperability, data exchange models and opportunities for program improvement.

Moderators

Scott Dunn

Senior Director, Health and Human Services, Optum

Speakers

Rachel Heinz, MPH, BSN, RN

Program Manager, Public Health & Social Care, CyncHealth

Rachel Heinz is a nurse and public health professional passionate about improving health care at a systems level. As a Program Manager for the Social Determinants of Health and Public Health teams at CyncHealth, Rachel is working to improve how we address social care and public health... Read More →

Ryan Howells

Principal, Leavitt Partners

Ryan Howells is a Principal at Leavitt Partners based out of the Washington, D.C. office. Ryan works with the White House, Congress, HHS, and VHA on health care policy and interoperability issues. He currently helps lead the CARIN Alliance, a multi-sector, public-private alliance... Read More →

Jocelyn Keegan

Program Manager, HL7 Da Vinci Project, and Payer Practice Lead, Point of Care Partners

Jocelyn Reardon Keegan is a senior health information technology consultant and Payer/Practice Lead with Point-of-Care Partners (POCP) with 25 years of extensive product management and software development lifecycle experience across multiple industries. She has expertise in payer/provider... Read More →

Julia Skapik

Medical Director for Informatics, NACHC (national Association of Community Health Centers)

Julia Skapik is a board-certified Internist and Clinical Informaticist and the Chief Medical Information Officer for NACHC. At NACHC she heads the development of next-generation HIT data infrastructure and warehouse, a unified data dictionary for community health, public health projects... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 10:45am - 11:45am EST
Key Ballroom 2

Track 2

10:45am EST

Enterprise Data, Technology Re-Use, Delivering Person-Centered Care

The plenary will focus on cross-program data sharing, integrated service delivery, and exploring with state, and federal representatives opportunities, and challenges for technology/data re-use across the HHS enterprise.

Moderators

Nick Connolly

Customer Engagement Director, Equifax Enterprise Government Solutions

Speakers

Tresa Young TBC

ACF/HHS

Keith Raboin

Data Warehouse Director, Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services

Edward Dolly

Director, Division of State Systems, CMCS/CMS

Ian Morris

Interoperability Project Manager, Mississippi Division of Medicaid

Ian Morris manages clinical data interoperability between the Mississippi Division of Medicaid and providers. Prior to his work in Mississippi, he managed projects at United HealthCare and McKesson.

Tuesday March 7, 2023 10:45am - 11:45am EST
Key Ballroom 3

Track 3

10:45am EST

TPL/COB - What does the future hold for a modern, integrated cost avoidance function?

As states move to a more modular approach to modernizing state systems, TPL/COB as a critical function is also seeing opportunities to implement process/system enhancements through accessing real-time data, leveraging automation in a way that both reduces cost and improves outcomes.

Hear from CA, MA, and WI, who will share briefly how TPL is handled in their state. Each will present the current systems being utilized to perform various TPL functions and how vendors assist in the process. Each will also share the future enhancements they would like to see.

Key learning takeaways include:

Exploring 3rd party data sources
Process improvements for carrier coordination, engagement
Modernizing traditional claims retrieval
Accessing enhanced funding for modernization
Explore opportunities for automation in a ‘future state’
Assess opportunities for TPL/COB to be an integrated function for care coordination, maximizing coverage in a ‘future state’.

Speakers

Rose Klaben

ISBA Specialist Lead - Third Party Liability, Wisconsin

Valerie Berger

Director of Third Party Liability and Premium Assistance Operations, MassHealth

Lindsey Wilson

Assistant Division Chief, Third Party Liability and Recovery Division, CA DHCS

Lindsey Wilson is the Assistant Division Chief of the Third Party Liability and Recovery Division at the California Department of Health Care Services. She oversees the Coordination of Benefits and Administration Branch, which is responsible for coordination of benefit policies for... Read More →

Patrick Tighe

Bureau Chief, Ohio Department of Medicaid

Patrick A. Tighe is the Bureau Chief of Claims Operations with the Ohio Department of Medicaid. He is responsible for the Claims Processing, Claims Reconciliation, Medicare Buy-In unit, Third Party Liability and the Cost Avoidance areas as well as the Contract Manager for Third... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 10:45am - 11:45am EST
Key Ballroom 4

Track 4

10:45am EST

Improving MCO, program performance through clinical, SDoH Data Integration

California Medicaid, under the umbrella of CalAIM, is embarking on multiple aligned initiatives to enhance care management by addressing health-related social needs and integrating community-based organizations into the continuum of care. Data exchange and interoperability are key tenants for this ambitious transformation program. Significant incentives, legal agreements policies, and procedures through the Data Exchange Framework (DeF) have laid the foundation for stakeholder commitment and participation.
Join this multi-stakeholder conversation that will introduce the policy, data, and infrastructure considerations, as well as the challenges and opportunities that must be met, in order to ensure clinical, and SDoH data is captured, integrated, and made actionable between agencies, with MCO partners, and with CBOs that can be most impactful in improving the lives of beneficiaries, and for all Californians.

Moderators

Paul Repper

Senior Director Medicaid Account Management, Availity

Speakers

Erica Galvez

CEO, Manifest Medex

Erica Galvez has extensive experience in health information exchange and interoperability and hasbeen with Manifest MedEx, California’s largest nonprofit health data network, since 2017, previouslyserving as Chief Operations Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, and Chief of Staff. She... Read More →

Linette Scott

Deputy Director of Enterprise Data and Information Management and Chief Data Officer, the California Department of Health Care Services

Linette Scott, MD, MPH, is the Deputy Director of Enterprise Data and Information Management and Chief Data Officer in the California Department of Health Care Services. In this role she works across the Department and with stakeholders to ensure that reliable data and information... Read More →

Gabriela Lopez

Sr. Business Analyst, Blue Shield of California

Gabriela Lopez is an experienced program development and strategy execution leader with over twenty years of experience in the health insurance industry. Demonstrated expertise in Health Data Strategic Planning, Change Management, Program Development, Program and Project Management... Read More →

Paulo Pinho

Vice President & Medical Director of Innovation, Diameter Health

Tuesday March 7, 2023 10:45am - 11:45am EST
Key Ballroom 5

Track 5

10:45am EST

Accelerating HHS Transformation, Embracing Innovation, Optimizing the Beneficiary Experience

Throughout the pandemic, many states have sought to harness the power of data sharing, and analytics to gain visibility on and mitigate some of the most acute impacts of COVID-19. The same population health insights have further highlighted many of the inequities already existing in the system. As we transition to an economically challenging, post-pandemic environment, there is an anticipation of substantial pressure on the public safety net. In order to deliver ongoing services, accommodate an anticipated surge in redetermination activity, all within the constraints of a very tight labor market and potential budget shortfalls.

Join our plenary panel of state representatives who will discuss their approaches to harnessing automation, and new sources of data in order to streamline operations, scale up and pivot innovative solutions that promise to improve access and outcomes for the most vulnerable beneficiaries.

Moderators

Kat Lawence

Medicaid Leader, AWS

Speakers

Mitzi Hochheiser

Medicaid Deputy Director & CIO / CTO, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals

Kelly McPherson

State HIT Coordinator, Washington State Healthcare Authority

Kelly began her career working for the private clinical sector within Internal Medicine/geriatric care. For the past fifteen years, she has worked at Washington States HealthCare authority as a MMIS Business Analyst where she assisted in the implementation of Washington’s MMIS... Read More →

Matthew Kiehnle

Medicaid Systems Director, State of Rhode Island

Tuesday March 7, 2023 10:45am - 11:45am EST
Key Ballroom 6

Track 6

11:50am EST

Lunch

Tuesday March 7, 2023 11:50am - 12:30pm EST
General Session Hall

Lunch

12:30pm EST

Lunch Keynote: ONC Update (session details awaiting clearance)

Join National Coordinator Micky Tripathi to learn about why our nation’s potential to innovate and use information to deliver value in health care has never been greater. He’ll touch on ONC-led efforts and key provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act including improving information sharing through the information blocking regulations, API standardization, and the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA). Join us as we explore efforts to unlock the full potential of what a truly digital health care system can do to improve the lives of patients.

Speakers

Micky Tripathi

National Coordinator for Health IT, ONC

Tuesday March 7, 2023 12:30pm - 1:15pm EST
Holiday Ballroom 4-6

General Session

1:15pm EST

Short Break

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:15pm - 1:30pm EST
Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor

Break

1:30pm EST

Vendor Networking in Exhibit Hall

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:15pm EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Networking

1:30pm EST

MTI Roundtable 10 for Non Vendors Only: Reimagine the Medicaid Enterprise with a Platform for Outcomes

As State Medicaid agencies look to modernize their MES solutions, they require a platform that can both provide user-friendly digital engagement channels and provide a 360 degree view of Member, Provider, and Program data. Medicaid agencies need a Single Source of Truth for a complete and cross-functional view into the State’s Medicaid program.

This holistic platform approach enables states to improve member experience, drive competition amongst health plans, and drive targeted health equity goals. Learn how the State of Colorado and Indiana are using the Salesforce's MuleSoft API-Led integration approach to modernize their Medicaid enterprise by seamlessly integrating existing systems with new modules and 3rd party systems, to advance an all-encompassing view of their Members. Join this Innovator's Roundtable discussion to hear how Salesforce shifts the narrative around the goal and desired outcome delivery for the Medicaid program to ultimately drive better health outcomes.

Speakers

Feyella Toney

Chief Portfolio Officer, Maryland Department of Health

Amit Sehrawat

Salesforce Lead, Sales Engineer - State and Local, Salesforce MuleSoft Public Sector Unit

Amit Sehrawat is the Lead Solution Engineer for Salesforce MuleSoft Public Sector unit, where he is responsible for helping public sector agencies in modernizing their application integration architectures. Amit has 11+ years of government experience with State and Local, Federal... Read More →

Tiffany Blair

Principal, Digital Strategy - Medicaid, Salesforce

Tiffany Blair is the Principal of State and Local Government Digital Strategy for Salesforce's Public Sector business unit, where she is responsible for working with health and human services government customers to develop their strategic vision and strategy for transforming their... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Paca

Roundtable

1:30pm EST

MTI Roundtable 1 for Non Vendors Only: Public Health Emergency Waiver Unwinding – Lessons Learned From Early Adoption

As an early adopter of unwinding from a public health emergency, Arizona has a unique perspective on the execution and project management of unwinding. In this session, the state along with CNSI, will share complexities, its overall experience, lessons learned, considerations, and strategy behind unwinding from a pandemic.

Moderators

Verlon Johnson

Chief Strategy Officer, CNSI

Speakers

Dan Lippert

CIO, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS)

Dan Lippert serves as the CIO and assistant director for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) —the state Medicaid program covering over two million citizens of Arizona. Dan has held multiple Medicaid enterprise leadership positions over the last 18 years and... Read More →

Nilay Patel

SVP, Implementations, CNSI

Marshall Wilmot

Deputy Assistant Director, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS)

Marshall Wilmot is the Deputy Assistant Director of Systems Support for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), Arizona’s Medicaid agency. After starting his career in 1990 as a Long Term Care eligibility worker, Marshall was hired by a Medicare Advantage plan... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Douglas

Track 1

1:30pm EST

MTI Roundtable 3 for Non Vendors Only: Making the Best Modernization Choice

You know the old saying 'if you know one Medicaid program, you know one Medicaid program'. With programs designed to meet the unique needs of a state's population, each state has its own distinctive needs when it comes to its Medicaid Enterprise technology. Join this panel discussion of state speakers to learn how they each began their unique modular MMIS modernization journey and the lessons learned along the way. States will walk us through how they assessed their legacy system, researched feasible modernization solutions, and decided on their modernization approach. Learn about the steps they took to execute their approach and their experiences so far with implementation. States will share their planning strategies, their approach to CMS requirements, how they developed their roadmaps, and how they prepared their organizations for managing a large, complex, and long-term project. By learning from those who have gone before, we hope to inform states that are embarking on this effort, as well as provide lessons learned for states with in-flight modernization projects.

Speakers

Kristin Sparks

HHS Client Executive, CSG Government Solutions

Kristin is a Client Executive in CSG’s Healthcare and Human Services practice. She is a PMI-certified Project Management Professional with over 20 years of experience in government IT consulting. Kristin has performed as an IV&V and PMO project manager on several large, multi-module... Read More →

Rick Washabaugh

Medicaid IT Portfolio Manager, Department for Medicaid Services, Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services

Rick Washabaugh officially joined the Kentucky Department for Medicaid Services in 2021; however, has been engaged with the Medicaid Related IT Systems and Advanced Planning Documents for the last 8 years under the Cabinet’s IT Office. Rick’s service to the Commonwealth of Kentucky... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Chase

Track 1

1:30pm EST

MTI Roundtable 4 for Non Vendors Only: Leveraging Human-Centered Design for a Path Forward

Consumer needs and expectations of government services have significantly increased, largely due to the rippling effects of the pandemic. People expect the same kind of engagement from their government as they receive from leading consumer brands — fast, seamless, and personalized.

By applying human-centered design, the consumer is the focus of the development process. It uses collaborative and interactive methods to help understand the consumer’s challenges and pain points in order to identify an actionable path forward for program improvements. Human-centered design asks two important questions: “Who are our customers?” and “What are we trying to achieve?” By truly understanding the consumer, government programs can successfully deliver services that meet consumer’s access and engagement needs. Ultimately achieving better outcomes.

This session will highlight how some states leveraged human-centered design to identify and address social needs as well as advocate for a customer-centric journey that evolves the way stakeholders support their communities. Exposure and access to human-centered design can help inspire pragmatic and innovative changes at all levels
of government.

Speakers

Taylor Linke

Director of IT Innovation & Customer Experience, Washington State Health Care Authority

Taylor Linke, MBA, LSSBB, serves as the inaugural Director of the IT Innovation and Customer Experience Administration at the Washington State Health Care Authority. In this role Taylor is responsible for leveraging technology and person-centered design principles to enhance internal... Read More →

Michael Sampson

Vice President, Digital Solutions, Maximus

Michael Sampson has 20 years leading design, implementation strategy, and process improvement fortransformative solutions in health and human services operations. He currently serves as the Vice President of Maximus Digital Solutions, responsible for working with customers and internal... Read More →

Suzanne Schlattman

Deputy Director for Development, Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative Education Fund, Inc.

Since joining MCHI in 2006, Ms. Schlattman has raised over $6 million for the organization, and led successful public education campaigns targeting various Maryland audiences, including small businesses, young adults and low-income working families. These efforts have resulted in... Read More →

John MacMillan

Vice President, Future Market Development, Maximus

John MacMillan is an award-winning, former State CIO. He has over 36 years of experience in the informationtechnology industry in the United States and Canada. He has managed highly motivated teams through programs and projects related to consulting, management and operations in government... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Hopkins

Track 1

1:30pm EST

MTI Roundtable 6 for Non Vendors Only: Learning from Leaders: State Perspectives Along the MES Transformation Journey

State leaders find themselves in varying phases of their Medicaid Enterprise System (MES) transformation journey. Those farther along have helped pave the way, learning from mistakes, and celebrating hard-fought successes. Experienced states have evolved their strategies to adapt to changing business needs.

State leaders now entering the planning phase of their MES transformation have the great benefit of learning from the leaders before them. Moreover, given the rapidly evolving nature of transformation in a multi-vendor environment, state leaders at any phase of their MES journey will benefit to learn from and connect with the others successfully pioneering change at all stages of transformation.

Please join us for a collaborative roundtable discussion where you will have the opportunity to interact with leaders from Florida, Alabama, North Highland, and other states to discuss key learnings from MES transformation efforts and share innovative ideas.

Speakers

Mark Heuschkel

Director, Connecticut Medicaid Enterprise Technology System

Mark Heuschkel serves as Director of the Connecticut Medicaid Enterprise Technology System (CT METS) Program. CT METS is Connecticut’s multi-year Medicaid system modernization/modularization effort. Prior to his work with CT METS, Mark served in different roles within the Connecticut... Read More →

Rick Zelznak

Vice President, Health & Human Services Industry Lead, North Highland

Rick has more than 25 years of experience in Public Sector Health & Human Service (HHS) policy, financial management, strategy and advisory services, quality assurance and technology oversight. Most recently, Rick has led North Highland’s work supporting five states in their MES... Read More →

Michael Magnuson

Director, Florida Health Care Connections

Michael Magnuson is the program director of Florida Healthcare Connections, which is charged with implementing the Module Modernization initiative of the Florida Medicaid Enterprise. He has over 25 years project and program management experience and has led multiple large scale transformation... Read More →

Mason L. Tanaka

Chief Information Officer, Alabama Medicaid Agency

Mason Tanaka has over 40 years of IT experience ranging from computer operations to executive leadership. His diverse background includes 20 years with the US Air Force, 12 years with the commercial IT industry, and 9 years with the State of Alabama. He currently serves as a Deputy... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Tilghman

Track 1

1:30pm EST

MTI Roundtable 9 for Non Vendors Only: IBM Garage: Accelerating Digital Transformation with Human-Centered Design

IBM Garage™ is an end-to-end delivery model for accelerating digital transformation. It guides how you work by bringing together an open, seamless set of practices with a human-centric, outcome-first approach. It helps you generate innovative ideas and equips you with the practices, technologies and expertise to turn those ideas into business value in weeks.

At the heart of the IBM Garage is Enterprise Design Thinking: a framework to innovate and solve our users’ problems at the speed and scale of the modern enterprise. We think the systems of the world should work in service of people. Enterprise Design Thinking aligns our teams on ideas and actions. It helps our teams not only form intent, but deliver outcomes - outcomes that advance the state of the art and improve the lives of our team members and the people we serve.

When you work with IBM Garage you bring human experiences and outcomes into focus. You empower your teams with thought-leadership and the authority to turn ideas into outcomes. You adopt leading technologies, speed up solution development and measure the value of everything you do.

Speakers

John Thompson

Director, Office of Compliance and Program Integrity, Division of Health Benefits, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services

Nick Behrends

Associate Partner, Data & Technology Transformation, Public Markets, IBM

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Marshall

Track 1

1:30pm EST

MTI Roundtable 8 for Non Vendors Only: After the FHIR®: Reimagining Prior Authorization Business Processes to Support Patients, Reduce Provider Attrition, and Provide Oversight and Control for State Agencies

During this engaging session, we’ll discuss the current state of prior authorization, existing technologies and standards, and proposed rules. Then, rather than starting with compliance and incremental improvements, we’ll take a service design approach to envision an ideal future where prior authorization works for patients, providers, and state agencies. Working backwards from the ideal future state, we’ll co-create strategies to enable business processes with interoperable tools and standards that also meet emerging mandates.

Speakers

Brian Poteet

Product Manager, Edifecs

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Carroll B

Track 2

1:30pm EST

MTI Roundtable 2 for Non Vendors Only: How COVID Showed Us Now is the Time for HHS Integration

During this session, we will discuss some of the hard (and ongoing) lessons learned from COVID and how the needs of the workforce, integrated care, and CMS’ vision, have all been altered in this new endemic era. While COVID has not been a learning experience, observations have been made on the best path forward for both your workers and the clients you serve. Please join us to hear more on the following 5 Lessons Learned:

1. Cloud is Best – States that were early adopters of cloud-based solutions fared better when
forced to work from home and access remote business functionality with COVID. Remote work
is not going away, having integrated HHS operations (and services) supports this.
2. Engage from Anywhere – Individuals we serve are seeing more digital availability as the world
has turned to virtual engagement…food, retail, real estate, all support one-door delivery.
3. Workforce of the Future – The Great Resignation has encouraged smart technology and
integrated solutions to peak workforce interest and adaptability for State service
4. CMS’ Lens on Certification – CMS is looking to enhance the Client Experience from a certification
point of view and how to consider clients in the conversation
5. Whole Person Service Delivery – CMS is looking at “Whole Person” delivery as one of their top-3
priorities.

Speakers

Mike Wirth

Managing Director, Medicaid Transformation Lead, KPMG

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Brent

Track 3

1:30pm EST

MTI Roundtable 7 for Non Vendors Only: Establishing People Focused Care: Identity Transformation Across the Broader HHS and Medicaid Enterprise

Attend our session for unique insights into how your agency can:

Gain a comprehensive and consistent understanding of each person’s identity across all modules to combat inefficiencies and costs plus improve quality and speed to care
Decrease wasted dollars from module-directed, identity-related data touches, returned mail and ineffective contact methodologies
Improve your risk defense and program integrity across all modules to drive better outcomes
Leverage integrated intelligence for a seamless identity understanding across your Medicaid enterprise strategy and related Human Services programs
Transform your Medicaid program by establishing a consolidated, comprehensive authority resource for member and provider information

Speakers

Doug Tomlin

Director, Business Development Civilian Markets, LexisNexis Risk Solutions

Doug Tomlin leads Business Development for the Civilian Government Market at LexisNexis Risk Solutions where he’s responsible for healthcare, public health, and all other government services business development across Federal, State, and Local government agencies. Doug has committed... Read More →

Trey Harrison

Director of Government Capture, LexisNexis Risk Solutions

Trey Harrison has worked with government healthcare agencies for the past 25 years. During that time, his career has focused on utilizing data and IT systems to extend health benefits, improve whole-person care, and secure the financial integrity of the agencies with which he has... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Carroll A

Track 3

1:30pm EST

MTI Roundtable 5 for Non Vendors Only: Avoid Losing Money by Improving Your TPL Practices

Join us for a discussion on how to better use the other health insurance (OHI) information you identify to reduce improper claims payments, money lost on post-payment recoveries and vendor fees. The discussion will walk you through best practices to use at the point-of-sale, with vendors, and with the data itself to help maximize money saved before paying claims while reducing patient complaints.

Speakers

Rose Klaben

ISBA Specialist Lead - Third Party Liability, Wisconsin

Valerie Berger

Director of Third Party Liability and Premium Assistance Operations, MassHealth

Krista Ward

Chief Operating Officer, Syrtis Solutions

Krista Ward currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for Syrtis Solutions, ahealthcare company focused on cost avoidance for payors of last resort. Most of her 25years in healthcare has been focused on working with Medicaid programs – whether forlarge MCOs or a PBM. Experienced... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Stone

Track 4

2:30pm EST

Break: Refreshments Served in East Foyer

Tuesday March 7, 2023 2:30pm - 2:45pm EST
East Foyer

Break

2:45pm EST

Industry Sessions

Tuesday March 7, 2023 2:45pm - 3:45pm EST
TBA

Industry Session

2:45pm EST

Engaging your Business Partners for a successful Modular Medicaid Enterprise Modernization

The challenge of transforming the Medicaid Enterprise System (MES) to achieve better business outcomes in a multi-vendor environment is highly complex. It consists of a collection of teams comprised of diverse groups of humans, applying their experience, processes, and technical tools towards a common goal. In this roundtable, states (Alabama, and Tennessee) will share their approach to successfully engaging their business partners. Each state will discuss the importance of the concept of “Begin with the End in Mind” was to MES Modernization. Organizational culture, project traditions and other factors that create hurdles to their project success along with what strategies can be deployed to overcome these hurdles will be discussed. Of particular interest is how our traditional approach to vendor management may need to evolve in this Multi-Vendor environment. While these challenges cannot be eliminated altogether, they can be mitigated through effective Planning, Governance and Organizational Change Management strategies.

Key Takeaways:
At the end of the session, the panel members and the participants will be able to take away the following

• Planning considerations and activities that can guide improving business partner engagement
throughout MES Multi-Vendor Modernizations
• Examples of MES Modernization Pit Falls That Can Be Avoided – State Examples
• Examples Of Best Practice and Lessons Learned from MES Multi-Vendor Modernization Projects

Speakers

Mason L. Tanaka

Chief Information Officer, Alabama Medicaid Agency

Melissa Kamiecik

Director of Business Relationship Management, Division of TennCare

Eva Taylor

Senior Business Director, NTT Data

Tuesday March 7, 2023 2:45pm - 3:45pm EST
Key Ballroom 1

Track 1

2:45pm EST

Paving the Way to Better Provider/MCO collaboration – Fewer Denials, Improved Transparency

Illinois has implemented an innovative solution leveraging the standard EDI workflow to process and analyze their MCOs’ pre-adjudicated claims. Integrating pre-adjudicated claims, claims edits, and remittance advice data into the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) allows visibility, transparency, and analytical opportunities to help improve better care coordination services. By streamlining the processes established with each MCO, we can enhance claims
processing and payment efficiency. In parallel, the providers will receive consistent messages and advanced support. The overall goal is to minimize the claim denials rates – enabling positive outcomes for the Medicaid providers and MCOs.

With the partnership and coordination with the MCOs, the solution loads MCO data into the EDW system for reporting on paid claims, denials, rejects, pending process/finalization, and reversals. The State can see reasons and root causes for claim rejects/denials and work with the providers and MCOs to support and improve the claim and payment efficiencies – optimizing the MCO program. Moreover, the data analytics provide critical insights in identifying trends over time, timely claim submissions, and payments. Bottom line: The solution will help decrease the administrative cost for the providers, MCOs, and the state, and increasing the recipient’s quality of care.

Speakers

Maureen Lindberg

Illinois Advanced Communication Engine (ACE), Program Manager, Optum Government Solutions

Tuesday March 7, 2023 2:45pm - 3:45pm EST
Key Ballroom 2

Track 2

2:45pm EST

Monitoring for Life Changes to Reduce Churn and Promote Continuity of Care

Medicaid churn causes significant increases in caseworker time and cost to re-process a new application for an applicant that previously qualified. More importantly, churn can cause critical gaps in benefits and care for Medicaid members. These gaps can result from:

● Changes in address or other life circumstances
● Failure to respond to mid-year reporting requests
● Incarceration facilities or the justice-system involved population not notifying Medicaid
● Month-to-month or seasonal variation in pay or hours worked

Monitoring for relevant beneficiary life changes offers advantages to both beneficiaries and agencies by providing access to timely data alerts based on program and policy rules that can affect benefit eligibility and delivery. In this session, Equifax and social service leaders will discuss how using real-time data based on agency and program rules for changes in income & employment, address, phone, email, as well as deceased status and incarceration tip-and-lead data, can help an individual or family receive the right benefits while the state is cost-effectively administering its programs.

Speakers

Leo Ribas

Senior Vice President, Change & Innovation Agency (C!A)

Leo Ribas has a personal and professional passion for human services and an immense appreciation for the people of government. Working side-by-side with dedicated staff, agency leaders, and stakeholders, Leo has designed and implemented service delivery reforms that have allowed... Read More →

Juan Cole

Vice President of Strategy and Solutions Consulting, Equifax

Juan Cole leads a service architect team that supports clients in state and federal government agencies to implement solutions that help mitigate risk, reduce fraud and improve program integrity. Juan has over 22 years of experience deploying complex technical data driven solutions... Read More →

Melissa D. Wolf

Deputy Director State of Missouri, Missouri Department of Social Services

Melissa D. Wolf, Deputy Division Director for Income Maintenance Policy oversees policy for all programs that Income Maintenance administers (SNAP, TANF and Medicaid), working closely with field operations and our federal partners. She also oversees the Income Maintenance Training... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 2:45pm - 3:45pm EST
Key Ballroom 3

Track 3

2:45pm EST

Mitigating Modularization Risk: Critical Factors for MES Implementation Success

As states transition from monolithic MMIS to modular MES, there are many risks to consider. The greatest area of vulnerability along the modularization journey is the integration of the core claims/financial module with the system integration platform and other MES modules. This integration is the core of the MES. If it doesn’t work, it can disrupt vital services to Medicaid recipients and derail the entire MES program.

The typical modular MES journey is 4-7 years, requiring a comprehensive and long-term approach that mitigates risk throughout. This session will lay out practical strategies for ensuring a smooth and successful MES implementation based on one state’s modularization journey.

Speakers

Rajesh Sharma

Vice President & General Manager of Systems Integration, Data Analytics & Interoperability Product Offerings, Gainwell Technologies

Rajesh Sharma is a vice president and general manager overseeing Gainwell Technologies’ systems integration, interoperability and data analytics product offerings. He is a techno-functional leader helping public sector healthcare clients achieve health outcomes and equity using... Read More →

Dinesh Laxman

Senior Manager, Product Development, Gainwell Technologies

Dinesh Laxman has 25 years of IT experience spanning application and product development, business planning, program management and PMO operations. He has extensive experience working with state agencies on Medicaid projects as well as other critical social service programs. Prior... Read More →

Shawn Knox

Technical Director, MMIS Modernization / New Jersey Medicaid Modernization Program Executive, Trigyn Technologies

Tuesday March 7, 2023 2:45pm - 3:45pm EST
Key Ballroom 4

Track 4

2:45pm EST

Managed Care Contract Evaluation – A Data-Driven Approach'

Comprehensive evaluation of contract requirements can be a challenge due to communicating value, understanding a Managed Care Organization’s (MCO) place in the market, and lack of a centralized repository to manage contracts and requirements. The goal of a managed care system is to keep the cost of health care low without forfeiting the quality of care that is given. This session will focus on leveraging preexisting data and contract requirements to identify gaps and measure Managed Care Organizations’ performance over time. Our discussion will focus on our tool/solution on the Health Insights Platform (HIP). Key solutions from our tool include: Centralizing MCO contract requirements while monitoring against non-compliance, comparison of all applicable contract requirements across MCOs, integrating MCO and internal reporting sources and providing a cloud-based secure user interface. We will describe how the method we have used helps States describe compliance over time, identify gaps and opportunities, and can help with future procurement processes.

Speakers

Jay Ludlam

Assistant Secretary for Medicaid, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services

Tuesday March 7, 2023 2:45pm - 3:45pm EST
Key Ballroom 5

Track 5

2:45pm EST

Understanding Data to Help Prevent and End Homelessness

California’s Homeless Data Integration System (HDIS) is a statewide data warehouse that combines and processes data from the 44 local homelessness response systems across the state. HDIS enables the state to provide technical assistance for its local partners, to inform planning decisions, and to coordinate resources to more effectively prevent and end homelessness.

Speakers

Michael Anderson

Chief Strategist, Public Sector, Informatica

Michael R. Anderson serves as the Chief Strategist, Public Sector at Informatica, LLC. In this role he leads strategic activities supporting the U.S. public sector - across federal, state, local government, higher education, and national defense - and focuses on assisting organizations... Read More →

Jessie Metcalf

Housing as Health Initiatives Leader, Amazon Web Services

Jessie Metcalf leads the housing as health initiatives for Amazon Web Services’ (AWS’) state and local government team. In this role she helps state and local governments and nonprofits leverage technology to further their efforts to prevent and combat housing instability. Working... Read More →

Mark Richards

Analytics Partner, Plante Moran

Mark has been a data professional for almost 30 years. He brings a combination of creative thinking and logical methodology to problem solving and works well both within a team and independently. Mark is an excellent communicator, equally adept at interacting with technical customers... Read More →

Dhakshike Wickrema

Deputy Secretary, Homelessness, California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency

Dhakshike Wickrema serves as the Deputy Secretary of Homelessness at the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. Before joining the State of California, she served as the Senior Deputy for Homelessness and Housing for Los Angeles City Council District 10, and as... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 2:45pm - 3:45pm EST
Key Ballroom 6

Track 6

3:45pm EST

Short Break in the Exhibit Hall

15 minute Break

Tuesday March 7, 2023 3:45pm - 4:00pm EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Break

3:45pm EST

Exhibit Hall Open

Tuesday March 7, 2023 3:45pm - 4:00pm EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Exhibitor

4:00pm EST

Breakout Sessions

The Alabama Medicaid Agency (AMA) realized early in their modularization/modernization planning that they needed to establish the organizational structure to lead and manage their Alabama Medicaid Enterprise Systems Modernization Program (AMMP). This realization resulted in the creation of the Medicaid Enterprise Systems Division in 2019. Moreover, staffing projections for this new division necessitated the need to augment the team with skill sets that were not readily available in the state personnel system. As a result, the agency awarded a contract in April 2020 to NTT DATA for Project Management Office (PMO) consulting and support.

In this session, you will first hear from AMA on how they built and staffed the organizational structure that also defines the roles and responsibilities of agency staff and how they have and will incorporate vendor teams into this structure. AMA and their vendor partner, NTT DATA will also describe how they established the program governance, methodologies and approach to procurements, leveraged productivity tools, as well as lessons learned throughout the entire process.

Tuesday March 7, 2023 4:00pm - 5:00pm EST
TBA

Breakout Session

4:00pm EST

Establishing the Organization to Lead and Manage Your MES Modernization Program

Speakers

Shannon Crane

Medicaid Enterprise Systems Director, Alabama Medicaid

Shannon Crane is the Medicaid Enterprise Systems Director for the Alabama Medicaid Agencyand leads the Alabama Medicaid Enterprise Systems Modernization Program (AMMP). Themodernization effort will replace the current Medicaid Management Information System with amodern suite of systems... Read More →

Srinivas Javangula

Medicaid Enterprise Systems Associate Director, Alabama Medicaid

As Medicaid Enterprise Systems (MES) – Associate Director, Srinivas Javangula has a diverse andevolving role leading with the implementation of MES first module. Prior to this, he directed theCentralized Alabama Recipient Eligibility System (CARES) and successfully got CARES MAGI... Read More →

David Skillman

Information Technology Mng. Consultant, NTT DATA Government Consulting and Advisory

David Skillman currently leads NTT DATA’s Program Management Office for the Alabama MedicaidEnterprise Systems (MES) Modernization Program (AMMP). He has over 25 years of InformationTechnology experience with a primary focus on State Medicaid, including Procurements, DDIs, andOperational... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 4:00pm - 5:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 1

Track 1

4:00pm EST

Using Health Information Exchange to Support Public Health Agencies

Three HIE leaders interviewed 52 states and territories, to understand how state governments have promoted HIE within their jurisdictions and to learn how the state departments of health are engaging HIEs for public health purposes and to advance health equity. They categorized states by their general approach and captured the number of states in which various types of engagement is happening. They will discuss the research findings and next steps.

Results show how HIEs can support departments of health as they strive to promote health equity, providing tools which help leaders and policy makers ascertain their current state and which make new interventions possible.

This presentation sheds light on the relationships between states and their HIEs, with a focus on the interaction between state leaders, public health agencies, and the HIEs. They will share how state government is promoting or enabling this exchange work. Explore the differences between governance of the exchange organizations, and especially levers state government used to influence or regulate the HIEs. In some states, HIEs are becoming infrastructure on which public health agencies rely. They examine the extent to which this is happening and when state authority to mandate health data reporting is being applied.

Speakers

David Horrocks

CEO, New York eHealth Collaborative

David Horrocks is the CEO of New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) which helps lead HealthInformation Exchange across New York State. Horrocks was previously the President & CEO of CRISP, Maryland’s designated Health Information Exchange, from its formation in 2009 until 2022, and... Read More →

Laura Young

HIE Consultant, CRISP Shared Services/Converge Health Information Solutions

Laura Young is an information technology expert with over 25 years working within the IT industry witha focus on government, non-profit, education and healthcare. Most recently she served as theExecutive Director for Alaska’s statewide HIE, healtheConnect Alaska and continues to... Read More →

Lisa Bari

CEO, Civitas Networks for Health

Lisa Bari is the CEO of Civitas Networks for Health, the national nonprofit organization that stands forcommunity and data-led health improvement and information exchange to tackle the most challenginghealth care issues. Civitas launched in October 2021 after the formal affiliation... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 4:00pm - 5:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 2

Track 2

4:00pm EST

Anarchy is not a Strategy: The Path to Statewide Data Governance

Massive amounts of data types and sources are required for states to develop policies to lower healthcare costs, improve outcomes, and advance health equity. Is your state’s health data in a state of anarchy or managed as a governed asset? This panel will explore three unique paths toward mobilizing statewide data transformations to acquire, combine, normalize, and scale health data.

State agencies and divisions, managed care organizations, health information exchanges, and others hold a variety of payment, clinical, social, and behavioral data. Each data set has historically lived within its own domain due to the technical, political, legal, and business limitations of real or perceived barriers to data sharing. This has resulted in a “whack-a-mole” approach to managing data initiatives and the rise of shadow systems with duplicative data sets.

As the push for interoperability continues, states are moving to shared enterprise cloud environments, unifying data sets, and increasing self-service. Join our panelists from Texas, Indiana, and the District of Columbia as we come together to explore collaborative ways to maximize the value and use of data while protecting its quality and security.

Panelists will share effective strategies to overcome challenges and implement best practices to:
Gain sponsors and champions
Align goals among diverse stakeholders
Create awareness and a culture of data literacy
Select a governance framework
Design the ideal state for architecture, compliance, and management
Understand data use agreements and management
Remove roadblocks to the ideal state
Navigate politics, competing interests, and shifting priorities

Through their unique experiences transitioning to a data governance program, panelists will discuss lessons learned and firsthand insights related to resource structure and capacity, communications, goal setting, navigating relationships, and funding.

Speakers

Susan Clark

Principal Health IT Consultant, Briljent

Cassandra Jordan

Deputy Chief Information Officer, Texas Health and Human Services

Joshua Martin

Chief Data Officer, State of Indiana

Deniz Soyer

Digital Health Division Director, District of Columbia Department of Health Care Finance

Tuesday March 7, 2023 4:00pm - 5:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 3

Track 3

4:00pm EST

Securing the Distributed Enterprise with Digital Identities

As government strives to engage key stakeholders that support citizen-facing services and position itself to securely verify and validate citizen identities, the digital identity is foundational to serving at speed and in a responsible manner. Digital identities support rapid service delivery and help promote good stewardship of Medicaid funds, putting much needed services in the right hands.

Speakers

Danielle Alvarez

Security Executive, Accenture

Danielle Alvarez is an experienced security executive and strong IT leader with a professional track record of successfully establishing Cyber Security Programs and helping stakeholders secure critical assets in a constantly evolving cyber threat landscape. She leads Accenture’s... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 4:00pm - 5:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 4

Track 4

4:00pm EST

Turning Out of Sight into Oversight: A Managed Care Program Integrity Oversight Framework

This session will provide best practices and actionable take-aways for implementing and maintaining a robust MCO oversight framework. The presentation will detail how to conduct and incorporate Risk Assessments to be sure you remain focused on the right priorities. We will share examples of the kinds of documentation necessary, such as MOUs, Annual Plans, and Annual Reporting. Discussion will include how to harness the insights provided through MCO analytics. And finally, no session on this topic would be complete without covering best practices for collaboration across the MCOs and MFCU. Join us for an engaging conversation on how you can turn “out of sight” into oversight.

Speakers

Julia Twaddle

Sr. Director, FraudCapture Product Manager, Gainwell Technologies

Julia is product manager of the Gainwell Technologies FraudCapture solution,where she setsthe vision for the anti-fraud platform, bringingthe latest technology and capabilities into thesolution. With a passion for uncovering fraud, shealsooversees the end-to-end investigations and... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 4:00pm - 5:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 5

Track 5

4:00pm EST

Think Differently: The Case for Incremental Modernization

Today, there is an expectation that all systems should be simple, elegant and easy to use—including state government systems. Think Google, Amazon or TurboTax where there is simplicity from a usability perspective without being simple solutions. Too often, States are told that transforming the user experience requires a complete system replacement. Unfortunately, when these systems are finally completed years later, the results may fall short of true experience modernization.

How can States address outdated legacy systems while containing cost, effort and disruption? States may be surprised to learn that experience modernization and innovation do not require a complete system rebuild or replacement. It’s time to think differently. States can absolutely improve end-user engagement while decreasing total cost of ownership by modernizing their existing product ecosystem rather than replacing it.

This session will explore incremental modernization, the process of innovating piece by piece without disrupting the key stakeholders relying on the legacy system. Incremental modernization:

Eliminates the time and expense of a full system replacement
Provides a modern and intuitive experience for internal and external users
Enhances productivity
Boosts system performance
Harnesses automation and advanced analytics
Allows you to work within your State’s own timeline

Session attendees will learn:

How advanced technologies can facilitate innovation without disruption
To develop an incremental modernization plan customized to the State’s needs and priorities
Important elements to consider when rolling out a modernization strategy

Speakers

Jason Hetherington

HIX Program Director, Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services

Since 2019 Jason has served as the Program Director for the MA HIX/IES Program, a joint systems implementation between MassHealth and the Health Connector. Prior to becoming the Program Director, he was the CIO and Security Officer with the Health Connector, a role he served in since... Read More →

Howard Dryver

Vice President Product Management, Optum

Howard Dryver has 25 years of experience within the state and local government solutions market. He has held management positions with Optum, CGI and American Management Systems. Howard has a diversified leadership background encompassing many aspects of information technology, including... Read More →

Tuesday March 7, 2023 4:00pm - 5:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 6

Track 6

5:00pm EST

Exhibit Hall Open

Tuesday March 7, 2023 5:00pm - 6:30pm EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Exhibitor

5:00pm EST

Networking Cocktail Reception - RSVP Required - Sponsored by Equifax

Tuesday March 7, 2023 5:00pm - 6:30pm EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Networking

7:30am EST

Breakfast near the West Foyer

Wednesday March 8, 2023 7:30am - 8:00am EST
Outside of the Holiday Ballroom

Registration

7:30am EST

Registration Opens

Registration Kiosks open

Wednesday March 8, 2023 7:30am - 8:00am EST
Registration Kiosks

Registration

8:00am EST

SOI Roundtable 3: A Case Study for HIE Certification

As the role of health information exchanges (HIE) continues to evolve, so do strategies for funding and sustainability. Federal funding remains critical to support development and ongoing operations. However, as the requirements for federal funding change, the importance of collaboration between states and HIEs has never been more essential. Many states and HIEs are learning as they go, and in many cases, gaining inspiration from other states’ efforts to sustain and/or grow funding for new and operational HIE efforts under Medicaid Enterprise Systems (MES).

In FFY 2020 and 2021, New Mexico’s state-designated HIE, SYNCRONYS, received federal funding under the HITECH Act and SUPPORT Act Advanced Planning Documents (APD) process to build infrastructure and capacity for data exchange, added value services, and support for provider integration.

This roundtable will map New Mexico’s journey for HIE certification, which began in early FFY 2023. Terri Stewart, Chief President and Chief Executive Officer of SYNCRONYS, will discuss collaborative efforts with the state Medicaid agency with important lessons learned related to requirements, documentation, and timing. Participate in and contribute to our conversation as we learn about and share methods used for developing state-specified outcomes-based measures and cost allocation strategies with practical tips for working with CMS and MITRE during the certification process.

Speakers

Paul Brannan

Health IT Consultant, Briljent

Paul Brannan is a health technology executive with over 25 years of experience. He is known as achampion in the Medicaid arena and health information exchange (HIE) with expertise in projectmanagement, business processes, analytical skills, government, and IT strategy.Before joining... Read More →

Terri Stewart

President and Chief Executive Officer, SYNCRONYS

Terri Stewart, MS HCA, MT (ASCP), is the President and Chief Executive Officer of SYNCRONYS, which operates the New Mexico state-designated health information exchange (HIE). Shehas over 30 years of experience working in diverse healthcare settingswith 25 of these years dedicated... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:00am - 8:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom

Track 1

8:00am EST

SOI Roundtable 4: Strategies and Tips for PHE Unwinding

With the impending expiration of the Public Health Emergency (PHE), states have begun planning to reverse the changes made to state eligibility and enrollment systems to respond to the pandemic, including policy, programmatic, and systems changes that must be unwound.

Resuming normal operations is no small feat given the number of disaster relief efforts implemented, and key processes that states need to bring back into pre-PHE statutory and regulatory compliance. This includes processing applications and redetermining eligibility for beneficiaries enrolled as of or after March 2020, completing verification of self-attested information provided during the PHE, ensuring accurate and timely notices are sent to beneficiaries regarding changes in coverage, mitigating coverage termination impacts and burden on their most vulnerable populations by transitioning individuals between coverage programs and/or State and Federal Marketplace QHPs, and the list goes on. Flexibilities have also been implemented through waivers and other disaster relief state plan amendments and necessary technology and process improvements applied to E&E programs that many states may wish to carry forward in the post-pandemic environment.

With the expiration of the PHE, states will share the actions they have taken to prepare and begin the unwinding process. A panel of state leaders will discuss their experience and lessons learned from their unwinding planning efforts, focusing on positive outcomes achieved through the pandemic response and ways their systems and programs have changed for the better.

Speakers

Jeff Toborg

HHS Client Executive, CSG Government Solutions

Jeff Toborg is a Client Executive in CSG’s Healthcare and Human Services practice. He has more than 25 years of experience in healthcare and human services programs, with a focus on IT project management and oversight for Medicaid and Eligibility systems modernization as well as... Read More →

Jason Hetherington

HIX Program Director, Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services

Gary Smith

Director, US Virgin Islands Medicaid

Gary has been a champion of healthcare initiatives within the US Virgin Islands for over ten years, currently serving as Medicaid Director. Over the course of his career, he used his passion, energy and expertise to lead several key efforts, including Medicaid, HIV Prevention, Ryan... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:00am - 8:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom

Track 1

8:00am EST

SOI Roundtable 10: Extending Statewide HIE Collaboration with ADT Notifications

The Arkansas SHARE health information exchange (HIE) and the integrated services they provide helps advance interoperability between providers and health plans, ensuring providers and care teams are informed on the status of their patients, while also advancing clinical data exchange processes that reduce the burden of tedious, time-consuming tasks. The State Health Alliance for Records Exchange (SHARE) operated by the Office of Health Information Technology, partnered with a leading clinical data exchange provider to inform providers of care gaps and streamline care management by facilitating focus on data integration into health plan use cases to aid HEDIS and MRA (Medicare Risk Adjustment) and (ADT) notifications. As COVID-19 patients continue to impact healthcare, providers and health plans must enlist HIEs to aggregate data to help create a complete medical history while reducing provider burden.

Speakers

Justin Villines

Health Information Technology Policy Director, Arkansas Department of Health

Anne Santifer

Director, Arkansas Department of Health

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:00am - 8:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom

Track 2

8:00am EST

SOI Roundtable 1: Helping People and Changing Lives through Technology: Delaware Treatment and Referral Network

The State of Delaware has fewer than one million people and ranks just 45th in population. The opioid epidemic, however, has hit Delaware harder than its more populous neighboring states.

To mitigate the barriers to referring patients to adequate level of treatment, Delaware’s Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health (DSAMH) launched the Delaware Treatment and Referral Network (DTRN), powered by the OpenBeds platform, in October 2018. Substance use treatment and mental health service providers statewide use DTRN to send, receive and respond to referrals to services electronically. In addition to bidirectional e-referrals, DTRN also provides as bed management function for the state. This January, DTRN surpassed a milestone of 100,000 referrals to connect Delawareans to get the help they need when they need it.

DTRN is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. With approximately 70 (and growing) service providers as active users, the platform provides a comprehensive referral network that expedites placement for patients and thus eliminate the need for calling multiple providers while finding appropriate care for a patient. Today, 55% of referrals are responded to in under 30 minutes and 75% are responded to in under 2 hours. The platform identifies and tracks behavioral health and social determinants of health resources throughout the state, giving providers immediate visibility into resource availability across a shared network. Such electronic referral and bed management platform has increased transparency and access to care. It also represents the first step by the State in leveraging technology to improve care coordination for Delawareans struggling with behavioral health conditions.

In this session, we will share Delaware’s four-year journey in implementing this statewide e-referral and bed management system, including the success stories and lessons learned. Using utilization data from the DTRN, we will present how the platform enhanced client referrals to inpatient and residential behavioral health programs, increased referral requests, and improved rapid acknowledgement of referrals. We will also present our expansion plan around crisis response and care coordination.

Speakers

Nishi Rawat

Chief Clinical Innovation Officer, Bamboo Health

Nishi Rawat, MD, is a critical care physician and health leader working at the intersection of medicine, public health and technology. She has dedicated her career to improving healthcare access and outcomes with a focus on behavioral health within the lens of whole person care.As... Read More →

Sean Miller

Deputy Chief of Health Informatics, Delaware Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health

Sean Miller has information technology experience in both the public and private sectors. He manages health challenges on a population level with a focus on goals, policy, and prevention. His expertise in healthcare emerging technology assists DSAMH, as the Chief of Health Informatics... Read More →

Lisa Johnson

Principal, HEALTHe Insights Consulting

Lisa Johnson is a Principal and founder of HEALTHe Insights with over 25 years of healthcare experience connecting people, processes, and technology to transform business performance. Lisa has partnered with healthcare organizations around the country optimizing operations and assisting... Read More →

Claire Wang

Associate Deputy Director, Delaware Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health

Dr. Claire Wang is trained as a physician epidemiologist with a career that spans academia, federal and state governments, and the non-profit sector. She currently serves as the Associate Deputy Director in the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, Division of Substance... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:00am - 8:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom

Track 2

8:00am EST

SOI Roundtable 6: Electronic Consent Management Implementation

Barriers exist for health information exchange, especially privacy laws for clients receiving substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. Standard physical health information can be shared between covered entities under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Treatment, Payment and Health Care Operations (TPO) provisions to support care coordination and value-based care. However, the Code of Federal Regulations chapter 42 subpart A Part 2 (CFR 42 Part 2) requires explicit consent from a patient for disclosure of many SUD services to other medical professionals. In addition, several other types of data require additional special handling or patient consent due to provisions in the Washington State Uniform Health Care Information Act (UHCIA).

Currently, consent management for the sharing of information related to these services is handled through disparate processes which have developed at individual organizations across the state. These processes often rely on cumbersome manual solutions requiring both the originating provider and receiving provider to spend time and resources to manage faxes and phone calls to exchange consent. The lack of uniformity in process and lack of an available technical solution has inhibited the integration of substance use disorder treatment in Washington and created barriers that both endanger patients and make tackling opioid use disorder (OUD) extremely difficult for providers.

Crisis MH services stabilize a person in crisis to prevent further deterioration, provide immediate treatment and intervention, and provide treatment services in the least restrictive environment available. An ECM solution will greatly contribute to the success of this system by promoting access and availability to data electronically, making the data accurate and easier to access by providers in times of crisis.

HCA has laid significant groundwork for this solution in collaboration with behavioral health providers and community advocates to ensure safe, secure, and effective management of patient consent. The solution will leverage the state designated Health Information Exchange (HIE) to ensure lower cost and sustainability and to support Medicaid Transformation.

Speakers

Kelly McPherson

State HIT Coordinator, Washington State Healthcare Authority

Vishal Chaudhry

Chief Data Officer, WA State Health Care Authority

Vishal Chaudhry is the Chief Data Officer (CDO) at the Washington State Health Care Authority - the state’s Medicaid and public employee benefits agency. Vishal became the first Chief Data Officer at a Washington state government agency in 2019. He is an experienced leader in data... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:00am - 8:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom

Track 2

8:00am EST

SOI Roundtable 7: Why MPI? A Master Person Index is the Key to Making Data Usable Across Data Sources

Racial/Ethnic disparities in healthcare? Vulnerability of Individuals in the Homeless population? Person-Centric Care? Improved service to children in Foster Care? Fraud identification? Data Quality Improvement? Process Automation? Impact of PHE Unwinding?

What do all these issues have in common? The need to link data from multiple unrelated data sources to create a holistic view of individuals and populations. A Master Person Index (MPI) is the key to creating that link. Michigan’s long-standing MPI has enabled their success in integrating data to improve health outcomes, increase analytic ability, and advance the value of their data. Michigan will share their experience in developing and applying MPI to achieve exciting results and looks forward to hearing your experiences and questions!

Speakers

Jim Bowen

Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS)

Cynthia Green-Edwards

Chief Compliance Officer, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services

Cynthia is the director of Compliance and Data Governance and is the designated Privacy Officer, Security Officer and Chief Data Steward. Over the past 27 years with MDHHS, Cynthia has played major roles in data warehousing and analytics, as well as the establishment of a health information... Read More →

Jeanne McNeil

Director, MI Data Warehousing and Analytics, Optum

Jeanne manages the development and implementation of data warehousing and analytics projects for Optum government clients in the state of Michigan. Specifically, she directs teams of technical and analytic staff who provide innovative business data warehousing and analytics solutions... Read More →

Christina Engman

Departmental Analyst in Compliance and Data Governance Bureau, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS)

Christina is a Departmental Analyst in Compliance and Data Governance Bureau with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. She has worked in Health Information Technology for 10 years, including 7 years in lead roles in Identity and Access Management operations.

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:00am - 8:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom

Track 2

8:00am EST

SOI Roundtable 9: Leveraging HIE-powered Interstate Data Exchange to further Interoperability

Civitas’ national Patient Centered Data Home® (PCDH) network advancement with Velatura builds on the early success and vision of the PCDH members and is a critical step toward leveraging HIE-powered interstate data exchange at national scale to further interoperability, impact national public health efforts, and harness the true scalability of the cloud. Through this new partnership there is enormous potential in using ADT data at a national level to advance national interoperability, inform critical public health efforts, support emergency response efforts, and more. The new relationship will provide a national opportunity for all Civitas member HIEs, regional health improvement collaboratives, community information exchanges, and aspiring health data utilities to solidify the integral role that these entities play in interstate health data exchange, health improvement activities, with the opportunity to onboard to a new “National ADT Hub."

The PCDH Network will become a segment of the National ADT Hub that Velatura and USQHIN are creating. Civitas-designated participants will be uniquely eligible for geographic-jurisdictional routing in the National ADT Hub per PCDH. Velatura will bring together ADTs from nonprofit HIE/HDUs and private sector players to improve care coordination across the country, and will offer an HIE friendly single connection and contracting point for multi-state payers and ACOs/risk-bearing entities based on a revenue share model.

National ADT Hub participation will be an dynamic opportunity for the HIE’s to expand their reach and breadth of services to better share their patient’s data. The National ADT Hub is a full data contribution whereas only a subset of ADT data is sent through the PCDH network. Once National ADT Hub is active, Velatura envisions other valuable collaborations with Civitas members through this work.

Speakers

Timothy Pletcher

President & CEO, Velatura Public Benefit Corporation

Dr Pletcher leads a family of organizationsthat offer a comprehensive interoperability strategy,product and services portfolio that continues to transform healthcare and health information exchange regionally and across the nation. He and his teams have a growing focus on cross sector... Read More →

Lisa Bari

CEO, Civitas Networks for Health

Alexandra Hryciuk

Business Development & Proposal Manager, Velatura

Aly Hryciuk, MPH serves as the Business Development and Proposals Manager of Velatura Public Benefit Corporation, Michigan Health Information Network, and Interoperability Institute. In this role, Hryciuk is responsible for the successful promotion and sales of a wide variety of health... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:00am - 8:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom

Track 2

8:00am EST

SOI Roundtable 2: 1099 Workers & The PHE Unwinding: Lessons Learned from the Pandemic and Implications for Addressing Systems Change Today

1099 workers comprise one third of the labor force today. Without guaranteed employer-provided health coverage, these workers are most likely to rely on government-sponsored healthcare. Unfortunately, without a W2 pay stub to verify their income, they are also most likely to face barriers in accessing it. This issue came front and center during the pandemic, when 1099 workers became eligible for unemployment benefits for the first time under PUA and
MEUC, but state agencies had never verified their income before, and workers, similarly, were ill-equipped to provide the necessary documentation to do so. The result was that state agencies had up to month-long backlogs to make benefit determinations, fraud was rampant, and eligible workers were without benefits during a critical pandemic crisis point.

The coming PHE unwinding represents a similar crisis point, and there is reason to believe that verifying 1099 income will be a significant part of the redetermination process. As full-time, W2 workers lost their jobs in the pandemic, many picked up 1099 income as a stopgap - and since then, some have turned to non-traditional work full-time, while others continue to rely on it as a stopgap. e. We draw lessons learned from pandemic-era programs to highlight the need to
proactively address systems for verifying 1099 workers. With SteadyIQ, states can replace a manual and administratively taxing process with a simplified and automated process, allowing for the efficient and accurate verification of this workforce, while dramatically reducing fraud and promoting program integrity.

Speakers

James Haberlen

Chief Commercial Officer, SteadyIQ

James is a go-to-market technology executive with 20+ years of experience leading data and SaaS businesses. As SteadyIQ’s Chief Commercial Officer, James is responsible for leading the expansion of the company’s income data, intelligence and impact analysis capabilities into the... Read More →

Lexi Gervis, PhD

VP of Impact, SteadyIQ

Lexi Gervis, PhD is an economic sociologist who has conducted extensive research on benefits for non-standard workers, low-wage work, income volatility, and the institutional transmission of inequality. Since completing her doctoral work on portable benefits, Lexi has turned her attention... Read More →

Marcel Crudele

VP of Strategy, SteadyIQ

Marcel Crudele is a seasoned tech entrepreneur with a background in product, business, data, data science, and engineering. With experience taking ideas from 0 to 1, Marcel founded two of his own companies and is now contributing his start-up mindset to both established and emerging... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:00am - 8:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom

Track 3

8:00am EST

SOI Roundtable 5: Creating a Collaborative Environment to Reduce Friction in the Modular Enterprise

This roundtable discusses enablers for state and vendor collaboration that reduce the friction commonly encountered in developing and operating modular enterprise systems.

The modular evolution of the Medicaid enterprise seeks to reshape and improve the traditional monolithic MMIS model. At the same time, it has created the need to integrate loosely coupled modules, provided by multiple vendors with their own priorities, SDLCs, tools and release schedules. System validation goes beyond traditional user interface testing and requires technical expertise. Change management becomes even more important due to the increased number of dependencies and downstream impacts. More partners are involved in End-to-end testing and all need to pull in the same direction to ensure successful deployment. This roundtable discussion focuses on mechanisms to enable and strengthen collaboration in the following areas:

Resource Planning – staffing, technology, state and vendor resources, overlapping and shifting project timelines.
Funding and Procurement – availability of enhanced FMAP, analysis of current contracts and SLAs, and new procurement considerations.
Release Planning and Test Collaboration – module/vendor/interface coordination, SDLC alignment, release scoping and timing, and end-to-end test orchestration.
Common Language – goals, standards, metrics, reports, sources of truth, project status, technical specifications, and user stories.
Communication – channels, stakeholder management, governance, processes and controls, knowledge retention.

Participants will have the opportunity to share their experience, exchange ideas and learn from each other.

Speakers

Tom Kapusta

Associate Manager, PCG

Dana Long

Senior IT Project Manager, PCG

Todd Baustert

Deputy Director, Medicaid and Long-Term Care, Nebraska DHHS

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:00am - 8:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom

Track 3

8:00am EST

SOI Roundtable 8: Ransomware as a Change Agent in Enterprise Resilience

Ransomware is a breaking change moment for healthcare. Breaking change is a software term where the event is so catastrophic effecting multiple components that the only path is forward, often with uncertain outcomes. Healthcare is at a moment of breaking change in its response to ransomware at the enterprise level. Traditional business continuity and disaster response plans focus on the level of the individual information system. Traditional business goals in healthcare are at the information system level as well such as certification for enhanced funding from federal partners. The evolution of ransomware attacks impacting an entire enterprise of multiple, or hundreds, of information systems requires a complete rethink of what a response requires. How do we manage an incident when the entire network was turned off? What are our communication channels? Do we have the inventories of systems with their priorities for immediate restoration and does that priority change over time? How do we engage the correct resources? Do we have the expertise to manage the incident effectively?

Breaking change in response to ransomware will be reviewed not in what happened with a security incident in Maryland but how the Maryland Department of Health was able to accelerate three years of change.

Speakers

Leo Yakutis

Information Technology Management Sr Consultant, NTT Data Services

Matthew Otwell

CISO, Maryland Department of Health

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:00am - 8:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom

Track 4

8:45am EST

Opening Remarks

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:45am - 8:50am EST
Holiday Ballroom 4-6

Presentation

8:50am EST

General Session: New CMS Interoperability Rule: Advancing Interoperability and Improving Prior Authorization

In December, CMS continued to advance the goals of interoperability, through a new proposed rule, that will tackle process challenges related to the inefficiencies of prior authorization. This new proposed rule would place new requirements on Medicare Advantage (MA) organizations, state Medicaid and CHIP Fee-for-Service (FFS) programs, Medicaid managed care plans and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) managed care entities, and Qualified Health Plan (QHP) issuers on the Federally Facilitated Exchanges (FFEs), (collectively “impacted payers”), to improve the electronic exchange of health care data and streamline processes related to prior authorization. Come learn more about the new CMS interoperability rule and the FHIR implementation guides that support it in advance of the proposed January 1, 2026 implementation date.

Speakers

Ryan Howells

Principal, Leavitt Partners

Mark Scrimshire

Chief Interoperability Officer, Onyx Health

Amol Vyas

Chief Architect, Cambia Health Solutions

Rajesh Godavarthi

AVP of Technology and Interoperability, MCG, part of the Hearst Health Network

Mr. Godavarthi is MCG’s primary representative in the HL7 Da Vinci Project. In September 2021, Mr. Godavarthi was named the co-lead for the HL7 Da Vinci Project’s burden reduction use cases in prior auth support (PAS), coverage requirement discovery (CRD), and documentation templates... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 8:50am - 9:45am EST
Holiday Ballroom 4-6

General Session

9:45am EST

Break

15 minute Break

Wednesday March 8, 2023 9:45am - 10:00am EST
Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor

Break

10:00am EST

Industry Sessions

Wednesday March 8, 2023 10:00am - 11:00am EST
TBA

Industry Session

10:00am EST

Transforming the current state for States: Delivering better outcomes with MES Procurement, Modularity, and Streamlined Modular Certification

Learn from real-world experiences how State Medicaid leaders are planning and transforming critical infrastructure and systems through orchestrated management of procurement, modularity, and certification processes linked to achieving key outcomes for constituents and program administrators.

State leaders and Conduent’s experts share their insights, challenges, and victories as they discuss how using an organizational-change approach that includes not just a focus on systems and technology but also the people, processes, funding and specific outcomes. This agile approach creates a holistic, goal-driven transformation that considers optimally structuring procurement, to determine the best modular IT architecture and achieving streamlined modular certification that ensures Federal funding.

Key takeaways:

MES Procurement
Modularity

Outcomes-based Transformation

Speakers

Shanker Balakrishnan

Vice President and Technology General Manager, Conduent Government Healthcare Solutions

State Medicaid Director TBA

Wednesday March 8, 2023 10:00am - 11:00am EST
Key Ballroom 1

Track 1

10:00am EST

988 – Almost a Year Later. Lessons Learned & Best Practices from Early Adopters

The launch of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in July 2022 came at a time when many were in dire need of help. Statistics show that 1 in 4 people in the US has a mental health or substance use disorder. While many states took this opportunity to revamp their behavioral health crisis response, others were solely focused on making sure they could answer the phone when someone called, texted or chatted the lifeline. Since then, call volumes across
the country have exploded with more and more people seeking help for behavioral health conditions. During this session, you will hear from states about how they have planned, implemented and are fine-tuning their behavioral health crisis response based on the individual needs of their local communities. Learn first-hand how your state can help expedite care for people experiencing behavioral health crisies and help curb our country’s epidemic.

Speakers

Brad Bauer

Senior Vice President, Bamboo Health

Brad Bauer brings over 30 years of professional experience working within commercial and government healthcare and strategic partner markets. Brad’s background also includes over 23 years of experience working within Healthcare Information Technology solutions to help access and... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 10:00am - 11:00am EST
Key Ballroom 2

Track 2

10:00am EST

Harnessing innovation to minimize vendor risk in your modernization programs

Attendees will explore how agencies can move from traditional logs and infrastructure metrics to high quality integrated telemetry data. Traditional siloed logs and infrastructure metrics are insufficient to understand multi-layered architectures. Agencies need a modern approach where observability tools to generate, collect, and aggregate high quality telemetry data, which can be used to observe and determine the state of our system.

We will also discuss how moving from siloed monitoring tools that weren’t built to handle the frequency of changes, or the failure scenarios found with modern software are being complemented. Emerging technologies like containers, serverless constructs, and microservices are not visible to traditional approaches to monitoring. New integrated visibility will enable superior performance levels and drive predictive analytics. Lastly, we will explore how using a holistic view of your security, application, network and business process data leveraging open telemetry, traces and metrics can help achieve greater business continuity and resilience.

Speakers

Frank Myers

Strategic Advisor for SLED, Splunk

Frank Myers has been working in strategic technology planning for the last 30 years most recently at Oracle and Splunk. His decades long experience as a project manager, strategic consultant, enterprise architect and specifically as Global Director of IT at Red Hat have all provided... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 10:00am - 11:00am EST
Key Ballroom 3

Track 3

10:00am EST

Data Empowerment through Interoperability & Ethical Analytics Platforms to Improve Care, Ensure Outcomes and Raise Accountability

The role of data in a Public Health (PH) ecosystem is paramount, and the flow and ability to utilize this data is vital between connected public and commercial Health systems. With approximately 30% of the world’s data volume is being generated by the healthcare industry, it’s important that resilient, nimble data platforms are established to manage large volume and diverse data sets. These data sets allow Public Programs to address health disparity, quality, improve care access, and to reduce per capita cost of care. Modern technologies such as Data Lakehouses, Interoperability frameworks (FHIR), Data science utilizing AI/ML and amplified fusion data sets provide the ability to integrate large data sets, scale, and leverage data for use across multiple tools. The ability to cleanly integrate large data sets and enable that data to be utilized in multiple systems will promote optimized care delivery and patient care. Knowledge driven, from these systems through healthcare data is essential for informed decision making to drive outcomes.

Join us to see how GDIT manages healthcare big data and utilizes it to improve quality of care, combat fraud, waste, abuse and publish healthcare data to researchers. The value of raw data including structured and unstructured data should not be understated, see how we leverage modern data management techniques, warehousing platform(s), advance analytics using ethical AI/ML and amplifying data to establish fusion data sets and analyze them for actionable insights.

Speakers

Nena Sanchez

Program Sr Director, State Local Health Fed Civ, GDIT

Nena Sanchez has 26 years’ experience in project management and 24 years’ experience in contractadministration with Medicaid contracts, CMS contracts and special studies, and private analytic contracts. Over her career she has led over 100 projects offering an analytic solution... Read More →

Krishnaraj Kannan

Chief Technology Officer Health and Human Services, GDIT

Krish has over 24 years of global IT experience in commercial and in public sector. Krish drove large scale growth, high impact digital transformations in Healthcare and is an inspirational, diversely talented leader of diverse professional experience in mission critical engagements... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 10:00am - 11:00am EST
Key Ballroom 4

Track 4

10:00am EST

Enabling Informed Program Delivery with Analytics for All

From tracking the last pandemic related testing results, to ensuring that women and children are fully enrolled in the programs they qualify for to rebuilding an economic support system in a time of critical needs, State and Local Public Health, Medicaid and Social Services agencies besides being versed in program and policy, need to have access to and the ability to harness insights from data.

And while programs like Medicaid, public health and social services are built on the value of helping people, their ability of these programs to do that just that is incumbent on analytics or more specifically on the get the power data into the hands of the program specialists, case workers, and all who have to make decisions on how to best serve people. This move towards more data informed social services is being enabled by a capability built around Analytics for All.

Speakers

Andy MacIssac

Alteryx

Wednesday March 8, 2023 10:00am - 11:00am EST
Key Ballroom 5

Track 5

10:00am EST

Modernizing Data Management in State Government

In the era of digital transformation, data plays a crucial role in shaping the future of healthcare. Texas Health and Human Services (HHSC) is at the forefront of this revolution, leveraging the latest technologies to advance its State Health Analytics & Reporting Platform (SHARP).

The session will highlight the key challenges faced by HHSC, emerging technologies that HHSC is exploring to further optimize its data analytics and reporting capabilities, and a comprehensive overview of the technology landscape in the healthcare sector and its impact on data management and analytics.

Speakers

Cassandra Jordan

Deputy Chief Information Officer, Texas Health and Human Services

Winston Chang

CTO, Global Public Sector, Snowflake

Winston Chang serves as Snowflakes’ CTO for Global Public Sector. He supports client’s strategic ideation in areas covering data, business value, and impact. His primary focus is helping government and educational institutions leverage the da... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 10:00am - 11:00am EST
Key Ballroom 6

Track 6

11:00am EST

Exhibit Hall Open

Wednesday March 8, 2023 11:00am - 12:00pm EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Exhibitor

11:00am EST

Lunch

Wednesday March 8, 2023 11:00am - 12:00pm EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Lunch

11:00am EST

Networking Break in Exhibit Hall

Networking Break

Wednesday March 8, 2023 11:00am - 12:00pm EST
Exhibit Hall (Key Ballroom 7-12)

Networking

12:00pm EST

Breakout Sessions

Wednesday March 8, 2023 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
TBA

Breakout Session

12:00pm EST

From Ideation to Certification

What challenges does your Agency face? Improving service delivery for citizens? More work/home life balance for your HHS staff? Less heartache for Providers? Outcomes that show CMS your SMC progress?

The MES path ahead should be guided by a detailed roadmap that connects your outcomes and goals to target workflows, an IT architecture, and an integration approach that are tuned to deliver your outcomes. The roadmap identifies the path to implementing the identified improvements in your MES business processes. This can include process-only changes, interim changes to your IT systems that move the needle on desired outcomes short of full module replacement, and the plan for acquiring the modules you need and their deployment order. The details of roadmap, architecture and integration approach should define your module procurements and APDs, reducing the burden on your staff. Finally, those details empower your Certification Plan, starting on Day 1. Does your MES roadmap have this?

These questions and goals drive the “Integration Imperative” Medicaid Agencies face today. To get to these Program and Policy Outcomes, you’ll need an integrated team, integrated governance for both people and data, comprehensive program workflows to deliver the outcomes, and underneath it, a MES that provides seamless end-to-end business services.

In this session, KPMG and its clients will share lessons learned from multiple MES modernization projects – business and IT challenges, how they resolved them, and their recommendations going forward.

Speakers

Mark Calem

Managing Director, State and Local Government Innovation Lead, KPMG

Mary Arcenas

Manager, MMIS Modernization, New Jersey Division of Medical Assistance and Health Services

Terry Leahy

Director, Project Management Office, Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services

Wednesday March 8, 2023 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 1

Track 1

12:00pm EST

How States Can leverage Federal Funding to Advance SDOH IT Infrastructure Investments

The COVID-19 pandemic, by exacerbating inequities and highlighting the prevalence of unmet basic needs, has accelerated efforts to address social determinants of health (SDoH). State Medicaid agencies, payers, providers, vendors, community-based organizations (CBOs), and other stakeholders have taken up the torch and are laying the foundations for long-term SDoH programs.

Despite the momentum, however, many stakeholders across the ecosystem are still in the early stages of addressing patients’ SDoH sustainably and at scale. Stakeholders largely cite funding as the largest barrier to real progress. Many stakeholders know of available funding for delivering services such as food assistance, housing support, and transportation. However, options for funding data, analytics, and technology infrastructure that can optimize efforts to deliver services are less well-known. But this funding does indeed exist. And it can be used to support data integration (collating social-needs data alongside clinical and other data) and screening and referral capabilities (business processes and capabilities that include SDoH data sets to drive enrollment into targeted case management profiles for patients’ risk profile).

This breakout will focus on federal financing mechanisms that are available to support SDoH data and analytics efforts (e.g., waivers and authorities, federal agencies and programs, emerging opportunities resulting from recent legislation, and managed-care standards and support) and considerations for accessing them.

Moderators

Alex Mandel

Associate Partner, McKinsey & Company

Alex Mandel is an expert associate partner in McKinsey's Social, Healthcare and Public Entities (SHaPE) practice and co-leads client service and research on social determinants of health and health equity. She serves primarily private sector payers, providers, and technology companies... Read More →

Speakers

Sarah Miller

Expert Associate Partner, McKinsey & Company

Sarah is an Expert Associate Partner with deep expertise in planning, developing, and delivering health and human services information technology systems. She is a subject matter expert in project management, information technology, change management for system implementations, cross-agency... Read More →

Christine Nolan, PMP, CPM

Deputy Chief Information Officer – Medicaid Services, Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA)

Christine has been a Washington State employee for over 29 years. She currently works at the Washington State HCA as the Deputy Chief Information Officer - Medicaid Services. She oversees MMISoperations, the MITA program, Enterprise Data Warehouse, and the Health & Human ServicesEnterprise... Read More →

Joshua Slen

CEO, Beyond HIE

Wednesday March 8, 2023 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 2

Track 2

12:00pm EST

Connecting People in Crisis to Life-Saving Services Driven by Data and Insights – State and Vendor Perspective

Amidst the growing mental health crisis in the United States, our current behavioral health system is fragmented and difficult to navigate. People experiencing mental health issues may not know who they can talk to for help and what services are available to them. Addressing behavioral health challenges continues to be a top priority for public service leaders, especially as highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this session, our cross-sectoral panel experts will highlight the transformative approach States and vendors are taking to strengthen access to and quality of timely behavioral health, crisis, and suicide prevention services. Attendees will hear from Accenture’s Pawel Walczuk how the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is strengthening access to behavioral health services, including interoperability with Medicaid data to provide a whole person view, lessons learned, and next steps.
Pawel Walczuk will also touch on the 988 National Strategy in responding to mental health crises, 988 implementation, and new pathways in harm reduction. Kelly McPherson, Heath Care Authority Director and Jennie Harvell, Sr. Federal Advisor of the State of Washington will provide further information on their transformative roadmap for a platform to connect individuals in need to the services best fit.

Speakers

Pawel Walczuk

Behavioral Health Industry Lead, Accenture

Pawel Walczuk is a Senior Manager in Accenture’s Digital practice based in the New York office. He brings experience and expertise in harnessing digital capabilities across industries to help companies reshape their business models, modernize their organizations, and unlock sustainable... Read More →

Kelly McPherson

State HIT Coordinator, Washington State Healthcare Authority

Jennie Harvell

Senior Advisor, Office of Health Information Technology,, Washington State Healthcare Authority

Jennie Harvell works at the Health Care Authority (HCA), the Washington State Medicaid Agency, as a Senior Advisor in the Office of Health Information Technology.Jennie works with leaders and staff across HCA, other state agencies, and the private sector to advance health IT and information... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 3

Track 3

12:00pm EST

Strengthening Kentucky’s Workforce for Unwinding PHE

As states work toward finalizing their PHE Unwinding plans, many states have identified a workforce shortage. The Commonwealth of Kentucky understood what was on the horizon, planning their PHE Unwinding efforts for months. Their strategy? Ensure successful implementation and seamless integration across three categories: policy, technology and workforce. A representative from CMS will join the conversation to answer questions attendees may have. Take part in this session and learn about their creative solutions to meet Kentucky’s workforce needs for both
short and long term.

Speakers

Edward Dolly

Director, Division of State Systems, CMCS/CMS

Jennifer Harp

Technology Lead/Executive Advisory to the Secretary, Commonwealth of Kentucky

Bobbi Frye

Executive Advisor, Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) Commissioner’s Office, Commonwealth of Kentucky

Tim Heid

National Account Director – SLED HHS, TEKsystems

Wednesday March 8, 2023 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 5

Track 3

12:00pm EST

Have You Found a Comfortable Cybersecurity Posture?

We spoke last year about how to develop an effective cyber security posture and strategies for securing your SDLC. We’re back to check in with you on how you’re doing, discuss the challenges you’ve faced and overcome, and brainstorm what steps you should be taking in 2023 to respond to the ever-evolving threat environment. As states across the country deploy web-based, modular, and interoperable solutions, state system boundaries and attackable applications are expanding. The increase in vulnerabilities being discovered parallels both the growth and diversity of enterprise software being deployed, and the potential profitability of cybercrime activities. The Healthcare sector, in particular, is consistently a top target for bad actors and ransomware attacks. This session focuses on lessons learned and best practices for developing and maintaining an effective cyber security posture and continuously securing your SDLC. A panel of experts from multiple states will discuss the flexibility needed to adapt to an ever-changing threat environment, including the evolution of their continuous monitoring programs to discover and correct potential vulnerabilities as early as possible in the SDLC, methods to maintain and maximize the value of security assessment activities, and approaches to assess the effectiveness of safeguards.

Speakers

Jason Hetherington

HIX Program Director, Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services

Sean Kasten

Client Executive, CSG Government Solutions

Sean is a Client Executive in CSG Government Solutions' Healthcare and Human Services practice. He has more than 13 years of experience providing consulting services and subject matter expertise for HHS projects in eight states. He brings expertise in procurement and contracting... Read More →

Anthony Flot

Chief Information Security Officer, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System

Anthony is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), the Arizona state Medicaid agency. In addition to security responsibilities, he also oversees the infrastructure, support, and engineer teams. He has more than 25 years... Read More →

Bobby Malhotra

Cybersecurity Subject Matter Expert, CSG Government Solutions

Bobby is a Senior Security Lead in CSG’s Healthcare and Human Services Practice. He has 14 years of IT experience in the healthcare, banking, and e-commerce industries. He has spent more than eight years providing IV&V and security services for Rhode Island’s Unified Health Infrastructure... Read More →

Wednesday March 8, 2023 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
Key Ballroom 4

Track 4

1:00pm EST

Break: Refreshments Served in East Foyer

Wednesday March 8, 2023 1:00pm - 1:15pm EST
East Foyer

Break

1:15pm EST

Closing Federal Panel: Public Health Data Modernization and the Helios FHIR Accelerator Program

The Helios FHIR Accelerator for Public Health is an alliance of Government, Private Sector, and Philanthropic partners that commits to develop, test, and support the widespread implementation of FHIR APIs and FHIR applications that are compatible with US Core Profiles for the advancement of public health with a focus on exchanges with healthcare, other sectors, & the public as part of the CDC Data Modernization Initiative (DMI). The Accelerator focuses on extending and adopting existing HL7 specifications in ways that are scalable, adaptable, sustainable, and suitable for public health. Come learn more from industry experts, ONC, CDC, and public health experts about the progress that is being made and how state, county, tribal, and territorial public health agencies can participate. Implementation areas include scalable exchanges with healthcare, the public, and other sectors beyond public health for high-priority, cross-cutting use cases such as breakthrough cases of COVID or prenatal, birth, and postpartum health outcomes.

Speakers

Ryan Howells

Principal, Leavitt Partners

Chris Baumgartner

Deputy Chief Informatics Officer, Washington State Department of Health

Chris Baumgartner is the Deputy Chief Informatics Officer for the Washington State Department of Health. His role includes leading the coordination of the exchange of data through the state health information exchange, overseeing funding requests for interoperability projects, coordinating... Read More →

Mary Beth Kurilo

American Immunizations Registry Association (AIRA)

Michelle Barber, MS

Informatics Manager, Oregon Health Authority, Public Health Division

Michelle Barber, MS is the Informatics Manager with the Oregon Health Authority’s Public Health Division. In her role, Michelle oversees and guides staff to meet informatics needs for acute and communicable disease surveillance, response, and prevention. She also guides informatics... Read More →

Rachel L. Abbey, MPH

Public Health Analyst, Office of National Coordinator for Health IT, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Wednesday March 8, 2023 1:15pm - 2:00pm EST
TBA

General Session

2:00pm EST

MITA Governance Board (MGB) Meeting (closed meeting/invitation only event)

The Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) initiative sponsored by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and governed by the MITA Governance Board (MGB) is intended to foster integrated business and information technology (IT) transformation across the Medicaid enterprise to improve the administration of the Medicaid program. The MITA initiative is a national framework to support improved systems development and healthcare management for the Medicaid enterprise. MITA has several goals, including the development of seamless and integrated systems that communicate effectively through interoperability and common standards and processes.

In order to provide strategic direction and tactical oversight for the MITA initiative, CMS established the MGB which is being revitalized in 2023 with a new focus on updating the MITA framework to reflect current business and technical best practices in Medicaid. The Board is a cohesive, effective group that will ensure MITA continues evolving to support a common Medicaid business and information technology framework for states and vendors. The MGB is a non-Federal Advisory Committee Act (non-FACA) organization.

This session serves as the first in-person board meeting of 2023.

Wednesday March 8, 2023 2:00pm - 3:00pm EST
TBA

Track 1