Making the US a Telehealth Ready Nation

Authors

  • David Gruber (Moderator) Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group (HIG), Managing Director and Director of Research
  • Iris Berman Northwell Health, VP and AVP, Telehealth Services and Member, NYS Regulatory Modernizatioin Workgroup for Telehealth
  • Andrew B. Wilson Morris James LLP, Attorney and Legislative Specialist

Abstract

Session Description: Efficiency is widely recognized as one of the most important concepts in economics and business, a generic definition from Knapp (1984) coins it as 'the allocation of scarce resources that maximizes the achievement of aims'. Organizations, hospitals, and health systems across the world have been implementing telehealth for their patients and employees with efficiency in mind. A variety of benefits and motivations for telehealth exist, this session explores the efficiencies realized (financial, clinical, operational, technical). Leading experts and senior leaders from UnitedHealth Group, Kaiser Permanente, and Cloudbreak Health join this exciting panel to discuss how telehealth has become a strategic asset and made breakthrough efficiency impacts and results in their own and partner/client organizations.

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Author Biographies

David Gruber (Moderator), Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group (HIG), Managing Director and Director of Research

David Gruber, MBA is a Managing Director and Director of Research with Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group (HIG) in New York, specializing in strategy, business development, consumer engagement, innovation, new ventures, technology, analytics and health benefits.

He is currently responsible for thought leadership and model development within HIG, co-leads A&M health benefit activities and is involved in a wide range of consulting projects.
Dr. Gruber brings 30 years of diversified healthcare experience as a consultant, corporate executive, Wall Street analyst and physician.

Before A&M, he spent three years as the Founder of Healthcare Convergence Associates, a consulting firm focused on the convergence of healthcare, technology and the consumer. Assignments included working with a multinational to explore tele-health opportunities; a medical device maker to assess the feasibility of a proposed asthma and COPD technology; a pharmacy benefit manager to define innovative approaches to medication adherence in diabetes; a national retailer exploring health and wellness; a Canadian company interested in preventing nosocomial infections; and a major Wireless Health Institute to develop its strategic plan. He was also involved in three healthcare-related IT start-ups.

Until 2008, Dr. Gruber was VP of Corporate Development and New Ventures with the Johnson & Johnson Consumer Group of Companies, focusing on dermatology / aesthetics, consumer engagement and wireless health. In 1995-2004, he worked on Wall Street as a top-ten rated medical supplies and devices analyst at Lehman Brothers, Piper Jaffray and Sanford Bernstein. He was also the lead analyst for the initial public offering of Intuitive Surgical (robotics) and Given Imaging, and a merchant banking investment in Therasense.

Before entering Wall Street, Dr. Gruber was VP of Planning and Business Development for the $1.6 billion healthcare group at Bristol-Myers that included Zimmer, ConvaTec, Linvatec and Xomed-Treace. There, he represented the company on the Health Industry Manufacturing Association (HIMA) as it deliberated the merits of the Hillary Clinton healthcare reform proposals.

He recently appeared on NPR and C-Span; was quoted in the Washington Post, LA Times, The Deal, Healthcare Finance News, Managed Care Executive, Managed Care Outlook, Becker’s Hospital Review, Inside Health Policy; and published in the Journal of Diabetes Science & Technology, Turnaround Management Association Newsletter of Corporate Renewal and American Bankruptcy Institute Journal.

Dr. Gruber is a magna cum laude graduate of a six-year BS-MD program, having received a bachelor’s degree from Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, CCNY in 1981 and a medical degree from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in 1983. He also has an MBA from Columbia University and was a Kellogg Foundation National Fellow. He is currently a Senior Fellow, Healthcare Innovation and Technology Lab (HITLAB) at Columbia Presbyterian and an elected Trustee to the Teaneck Board of Education. 

Iris Berman, Northwell Health, VP and AVP, Telehealth Services and Member, NYS Regulatory Modernizatioin Workgroup for Telehealth

Iris Berman, RN, MSN, CCRN-K, is the VP of telehealth services at Northwell Health. Having been a nurse for more than 30 years, she has experience in a variety of care settings that has given her a unique understanding of the needs of at-risk patient populations and the critical nature of patient access.  She started her career as a per diem nurse, which gave her the opportunity to work in a variety of environments, but it was Critical Care that called to her. After moving into a position in critical care, she became interested in at risk populations and volunteered to work on joint programs with her hospital and the American Heart Association. The health system supported her interest and the program continued to grow. She and her team developed a support program for patients with a variety of cardiac diseases.  While attending school for her MSN in nursing administration, she became the critical care educator for Glen Cove hospital, now a part of Northwell Health. This roll enabled her to work not only on site but to collaborate on system-wide task forces for things like stroke, CV disease and other best practice programs. While in this position, Berman wrote and successfully was awarded a grant to expand stroke education. Being an educator allowed her to use her years of nursing knowledge to help others both on the patient front and in nursing.

With a successful career as a health educator, Berman moved into hospital management. Through her involvement in the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, she had been increasingly aware of tele-ICUs (eICU®). She became the director of this program at what is now Northwell Health. Berman is now VP for telehealth services at Northwell, where she leads efforts to ensure Northwell is a progressive, agile, and welcoming healthcare organization.

Andrew B. Wilson, Morris James LLP, Attorney and Legislative Specialist

Drew Wilson is an attorney at Morris James LLP, a full service law firm offering everything from estate planning to personal injury with offices around the state. He specializes in healthcare law and policy, working with practitioners and the changing landscape they face in the modern era of care delivery. He sits on Delaware's Telehealth Coalition Steering Committee and was instrumental in the drafting and passing of Delaware's telemedicine statute.

He began his career as counsel in the New York State Senate where, along with staffing members, he staffed the Alcoholism and Drug Abuse committee, combating the ongoing addiction epidemic. More recently, he spent several years in-house at the Medical Society of Delaware, the second oldest physician member organization in the United States. Through the Medical Society and his position on the Delaware Telehealth Coalition, he drafted and lobbied House Bill 69, the law which put Delaware at the national forefront of telemedicine.

When Drew is not practicing law, he is active on a number of nonprofit boards and in politics. He lives with his wife Mary Nash in Wilmington, Delaware.

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Published

2018-11-20

How to Cite

Gruber (Moderator), D., Berman, I., & Wilson, A. B. (2018). Making the US a Telehealth Ready Nation. Telehealth and Medicine Today, 3. Retrieved from https://telehealthandmedicinetoday.com/index.php/journal/article/view/107

Issue

Converge2Xcelerate (ConV2X) Special Podcast Edition

Section

Track: Telehealth

License

Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to  Telehealth and Medicine Today (THMT).

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