Janis A. Bartholomew, MSBA, is the Senior Director, Financial and Clinical Decision Support for Geisinger Health System.  Ms. Bartholomew is responsible for planning, implementing and supporting the organization’s preferred Financial and Clinical Decision Support Systems to further Geisinger’s mission.  Through her direction and leadership, she ensures that Geisinger’s strategic business objectives are supported throughout the system.  Among her many accomplishments, Ms. Bartholomew operated a $500,000+ department below budget for ten consecutive years and identified and implemented enhancements to improve the accuracy of Decision Support Systems' costs and estimated net revenue calculations.  

Ms. Bartholomew has been a member of the Healthcare Financial Management Association from 2001 to present and a Fellow since 2010. She has also led the Sunrise Decision Support Mainframe Share Group since 2006, and previously participated on  the Eclipsys User Network Conference Advisory Board, the Eclipsys ClientConnect Advisory Group and the Eclipsys Enhancement Advisory Group.   Ms. Bartholomew has been with Geisinger Health System since 1986, serving in multiple roles throughout her tenure in the finance department.  She earned a Masters of Business Administration from Bucknell University and is actively involved in her community. 

Frederick J. Bloom, Jr. MD, MMM, is the Chief, Care Continuum of the Geisinger Health System and Medical Director, Quality and Performance for Geisinger Health Plan. He is responsible for designing reliable, value based systems of care for chronic disease and prevention in the Geisinger Clinic which serve as the foundation for the Geisinger Patient Centered Medical Home, ProvenHealth Navigator.  Dr. Bloom is co-author of numerous peer reviewed articles that show the improved quality, reduced cost and positive return on investment of these systems of care and ProvenHealth Navigator.  Dr. Bloom has taken 37 Geisinger sites to Level 3 NCQA PCC-PCMH recognition and currently serves on the NCQA PCMH Recognition Review Oversight Committee.  As Chief, Care Continuum he is responsible for strategic alignment and operational success of the elements of Geisinger's care continuum - including nursing homes, home health agency, and Careworks retail walk-in clinics.  In his role as Medical Director, Quality and Performance of the Geisinger Health Plan, he develops pay for performance partnership relationships for all providers, including thousands of non-Geisinger primary care and specialty providers.  Dr. Bloom most recently has helped lead the CMS demonstrations for Geisinger involving accountable care and is the Chief Medical Officer for the Keystone Accountable Care Organization.

John B. Bulger, DO, is the Chief Quality Officer for the Geisinger Health System.  In this role he leads Geisinger’s Division of Quality and Safety and is responsible for leading and disseminating Geisinger Quality. 

Dr. Bulger also served until the spring of 2012 as Director of Geisinger’s Hospital Medicine Service Line. He founded Geisinger Medical Center’s hospitalist model in 1999 and lead the program’s development.  This included innovations in resident and student education, participation in nationally recognized research and performance improvement projects and growth of the Geisinger hospitalist model.  The Geisinger Health System’s hospitalist program grew to employ over 60 physicians and a large number of advanced practitioners in six Pennsylvania hospitals (including both Geisinger owned and non-Geisinger owned facilities).

Dr. Bulger serves on the Society of Hospital Medicine’s (SHM) Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety.  Over the last several months he has helped lead SHM’s participation in the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s Choosing Wisely Campaign.

Dr. Bulger is a 2003 graduate of the Osteopathic Heritage Health Policy Fellowship.  He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) and the American College of Osteopathic Internists (ACOI) and a past-president of the Association of Osteopathic Program Directors and Medical Educators (AODME).  He is a past member of the Pennsylvania Medical Society’s Board of Trustees.

Dr. Bulger is a recognized leader in osteopathic graduate medical education.  He serves as the chair of the ACOI’s Council of Education and Evaluation and the American Osteopathic Association’s (AOA) Program and Trainee Review Council - the national accrediting body for osteopathic graduate medical education.  He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine and Regional Assistant Dean at PCOM and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Temple University School of Medicine. 

Dr. Bulger is a fellow of the ACOI, American College of Physicians, AODME and a senior fellow of the Society of Hospital Medicine. He is a recipient of the 2003 American Osteopathic Foundation Emerging Leader Award and the 2001 American Medical Association Emerging Leader Award.  He also received the ACOI’s Teacher of the Year award in 2005.  He received Juniata College’s 2009 Health Professions Alumni Appreciation Award.

His wife, Michele is a pediatrician and member of Geisinger’s faculty.  They reside in Danville with their children Ethan, Ben, and Ava.

Alfred Casale, MD, is Chairman of Surgery for the Geisinger Heart Institute, Co-Director of its Cardiovascular Service Line, Associate Chief Medical Officer for Geisinger Health System and a member of the Board of Directors of Geisinger’s Insurance Operations.

Dr. Casale graduated from an accelerated program at the Johns Hopkins University with a BA in human biology and his MD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He did postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University in general, thoracic and cardiac surgery, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in thoracic surgical oncology and at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in Health Care Policy. He has held faculty positions at Johns Hopkins, UMDNJ, Misericordia University, King’s College and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

While on the faculty at Johns Hopkins, Dr Casale attended on the Heart and Lung transplant service, establishing its lung transplant program, directed the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit and participated in many basic and clinical research projects while maintaining a busy clinical practice.

He joined Atlantic Health System in New Jersey in 1990 and grew its Cardiac Surgery practice into the busiest in the state.  As a consultant to the NJ DOH and President of the NJ Society of Thoracic Surgeons, he was instrumental in creating New Jersey’s Cardiac Surgery Outcomes Reports. 

While on the faculty of New Jersey’s University of Medicine and Dentistry, as Chairman of Cardiothoracic Surgery at University Hospital, he continued his work on outcomes research and system optimization.

Casale joined the Geisinger Health System in 2001 to establish the Cardiothoracic Surgery program at the new Richard and Marion Pearsall Heart Hospital at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center.  The Heart Hospital and its services have grown remarkably and its surgery program was named one of the nation’s 50 best by Consumer Reports.

In 2004 Casale was named Co-Director of the Geisinger Heart Institute (Geisinger’s cardiac service line) and gathered its cardio-thoracic practitioners from throughout the system into a cohesive, quality focused, efficient team.  Casale’s seminal work in establishing Geisinger’s ProvenCare^®  program as a model for effective redesign of complex acute surgical care, using comparative effectiveness principles to generate value and reduced unwarranted variation, has been widely acclaimed in professional and popular media.  The innovative bundled payment scheme, created in ProvenCare^®, presaged national events.

He was named Associate Chief Medical Officer in 2009 and has been responsible for the hospital based and interventional practices in Geisinger’s rapidly growing Northeast.  He continues to evolve and create innovative care and reimbursement models as part of Geisinger’s Innovation team and disseminate them as part of its Consulting Group.

In 2012 he was named to the Board of Directors of Geisinger’s Health Plans.

Casale is active in local, regional and national surgical societies within which he has held leadership posts and serves on many committees, focused on effectiveness research, quality, safety and bundled payments.  He speaks often on clinical and policy topics. 

He maintains an active clinical practice in complex adult cardiac surgery in addition to his administrative activities.  Casale and his wife Mary live in Shavertown, Pennsylvania and are active in many community organizations and boards.  

Hans P. Cassagnol, MD, MMM, FACOG, is the Associate Chief Quality Officer of Geisinger Health System, Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Geisinger Medical Center Northeast, Chairman of the Performance Improvement and Ethics Committees.  Dr Cassagnol received his medical degree from University of Connecticut School of Medicine in 1998.  He completed his residency at Flushing Hospital Medical Center, NY, NY, in 2002.  He also holds the degree of Masters of Medical Management from University of Southern California.  Dr Cassagnol joined Geisinger Health System in 2002.  In 2010, Dr Cassagnol became Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Geisinger Medical Center Northeast, and in 2012 became the Associate Chief Quality Officer.  He has served with the Performance Improvement Committee for over 5 years and with the Ethics Committee for over 4 years.  Dr Cassagnol’s primary interest is to improve Women’s Health outcomes and is a physician lead for the ProvenCare Perinatal initiative. 

Janet L. Comrey, RN, MHSA, CCGB is a Senior Consultant for the Population Health Initiatives department at Geisinger Health Systems. She is currently responsible for facilitating the organization's success in realizing a system-wide Proven Health Transitions of Care bundle, identifying opportunities to reduce unplanned system readmission rates and improve cost and care outcomes for the Physician Group Demonstration population.

Ms. Comrey began her nursing training as a diploma-nurse from Geisinger Medical center.  She later acquired her BSN from Bloomsburg University and her Masters in Healthcare Administration from Marywood University in Scranton, PA. She holds ASQ certification as a Six Sigma Green Belt. In addition to Quality Improvement methodology, her experiences include medical-surgical nursing, psychiatric and developmental disabilities nursing, patient advocacy and education.

She facilitated multiple successful quality-chartered teams resulting in significant outcomes including reducing sepsis-related mortality by 50%, raising CHF core measures compliance from 55% to 98%, and reducing medication errors on a medical surgical unit by 75%. In 2008 she co-authored a publication regarding the CHF success and is currently seeking publication on the Sepsis related mortality outcomes.

Diane Francis is a Clinical System/Data Analyst - Lead for the Division of Quality and Safety.  In her role, she is responsible for supporting the data and analytic needs of ProvenCare, including working with ProvenCare team, clinical teams and Epic IT to develop front end data collection tools and processes, developing technical specs for custom data table builds, and building the final end user reports and analytic tools.

She received her Bachelor's of Science in Office Information Systems from Bloomsburg University and is Epic Clarity Data Model Certified.  Her 22 years at Geisinger have included experience in clinical office management, Epic implementation and clinical data reporting and analytics, functioning as both an analyst and director for the system-wide clinical reporting team.

Tim Frymoyer is Director, ProvenCare® Program and Clinical Improvement Strategy in the Division of Quality and Safety. In his current role, he partners with Geisinger Health System clinical teams to develop and implement ProvenCare® acute episodic programs. He is responsible for the coordination of clinical improvement, electronic health record and analytic activities for the program.

Tim received his Bachelor of Science degree in Plastics & Polymer Engineering from Pennsylvania College of Technology and Master of Engineering Management from Case Western Reserve University. He has applied process engineering and Lean principles in both manufacturing and healthcare settings. Prior to joining Geisinger in 2008, he was a project manager at Cleveland Clinic focused on Lean education and implementation. 

Meg Horgan, RN, MSN, has over 30 years experience in the healthcare quality and informatics arena with national experience partnering with executive, physician, nursing and quality leaders in developing and executing reliable clinical processes, facilitating change management and enhancing organizational focus on quality and efficiency.  

Meg is currently a Vice President for the Geisinger Consulting Group where she is focused on disseminating to organizations across the country Geisinger’s innovative models for care delivery which have successfully enhanced clinical quality and efficiency.  Prior to joining Geisinger, Meg was Vice President for Premier overseeing client education and consulting focused on clinical quality and efficiency improvement.  These programs supported healthcare leaders in their approach to today's complex quality issues through strategic planning, developing reliable clinical processes, establishing an effective performance improvement infrastructure, providing education on use of data tools, clinical data mining and analysis, and process redesign skills necessary to transform clinical performance. Ms. Horgan’s expertise in clinical risk models enables healthcare organizations to not only interpret publicly reported quality performance data, but develop solutions to improve their quality measures. Ms. Horgan also led Premier’s QUEST Program which built on the success of the Premier/CMS Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID). QUEST is a program that in partnership with the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, assists in driving healthcare to new levels of performance excellence in quality, efficiency and safety with a focus on transparency.

Prior roles include Vice President of Consulting Services for CareScience, a quality improvement informatics business, and the Administrator of Quality Improvement at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In that role, she directed the organization’s outcomes monitoring program to include the medical staff, and managed the information systems that supported the performance improvement program. Ms. Horgan has additional experience as the Director of Clinical Redesign and Outcomes Management at Graduate Health Systems managing a system-wide clinical and financial outcome improvement program, working in a peer review organization and proving direct healthcare delivery in an urban Emergency Department. She received her Masters of Science in Nursing and undergraduate degree from Gwynedd-Mercy College.

Harry O. Mateer, Jr., MD, FACOG, is the Director of Obstetrics and Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic at Geisinger Medical Center.  He is also on the Geisinger Quality Improvement Committee for the Clinic.  He earned his Bachelor of Biology degree from Washington & Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania in 1977, his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and completed his residency at the Reading Hospital and Medical Center, Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1985.  Dr. Mateer was in private practice before joining Geisinger Health System in 1996.  He is a member of teaching staff for the Geisinger Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Program.  He received the Quality Award in 2011 for patient safety initiatives recognizing his involvement in a Post-partum Hemorrhage Protocol for the System.  He is a physician lead for the ProvenCare Perinatal initiative.

Karen McKinley, RN, MBA, is currently a Vice President in the Division of Quality & Safety in the Geisinger Health System, focused on special projects in the areas of regulatory compliance and clinical improvements, specifically the ProvenCare Program.  From 2002 – 2009 she was  operationally responsible, in collaboration with her physician partners, for the division sections of Performance Improvement, Infection Prevention & Control, Quality Reporting, Patient Safety, Clinical Risk Management, Care Management, Patient Education and quality education (GQI) and improvement activity.

Ms. McKinley is an RN and has an undergraduate degree in Health Administration/Business from Lebanon Valley College and an MBA from Regis University.  In addition, she holds certifications in Access Management, Utilization Management, Group Development and Health Plan Administration.  Her clinical experience was primarily in Women’s Health, mostly NICU.  Ms. McKinley is presently a member of The Clinical Microsystem Resource Group in The Dartmouth Institute, a collaborative of colleagues continuously learning and applying the principles of clinical microsystem thinking in diverse healthcare environments.  Ms. McKinley served a two-year term on the Joint Commission Network Professional & Technical Advisory Committee.  She also held appointments on the Hospital Association of Pennsylvania’s Patient Flow Advisory Committee and the Committee on Quality and Care Management in 2007-2008.

Ms. McKinley is a past national president of The Access Management professional association (NAHAM) and is a member of several additional associations related to quality and office practice management.  She has published several articles and presented workshops nationally on access management, clinical office redesign and Clinical Microsystems.   She led the clinical office redesign efforts at Geisinger Health System for four years through the IHI initiative known as IdCOP and coordinated Geisinger’s multi-year participation in IHI’s IMPACT Network. 

Ruth Nolan, Ph.D.(c), RNC, is the Vice President of Women’s Health Services for the Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania.  She also serves as an adjunct faculty member for Pennsylvania College of Technology and the Thomas Jefferson University.  Honors she has recently received include the 2004 Nightingale Award of Pennsylvania in Nursing Administration and being selected as one of the top 100 people in business in 2005 by Pennsylvania Business Central. 

Ruth holds an Associate and Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, Pennsylvania and a Master of Nursing from the Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA.  She is currently pursuing a Doctorate degree in Nursing from Pennsylvania State University.  She is certified in Inpatient Obstetrics through ANCC. 

Ruth has also been active within several state nursing organizations including:  serving on the Education Committee and Registration Coordinator for the fall conference for the Pennsylvania Organization of Nursing Leaders; member of the Board of Directors, program and awards committee for the Nightingale Association of Pennsylvania; Co-coordinator of the Central Pennsylvania AWHONN chapter; member of the Beta Sigma and Zeta Theta Chapters of Sigma Theta Tau; and recording secretary for the Northcentral chapter of ACHE.   

Experientially, most of Ruth’s practice has been in perinatal and women’s health nursing within acute care settings.  She frequently presents at local, state, and national conferences on a variety of topics including quality and performance improvement and health information application and management.

Christy L. Pehanich, MHSA, FHFMA, CPC, is Associate Vice President of Revenue Management – Revenue Cycle Professional Operations, for Geisinger Health System.  Her primary responsibilities include directing physician billing and insurance collections for Geisinger Clinic, professional revenue enhancement, as well as oversight of system-wide medical assistance eligibility programs, patient services and patient collections.  Christy also has management responsibilities of Revenue Cycle functions for Careworks Convenient Healthcare Retail Clinics. 

She is a member of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), and is a certified member of both the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) and the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC).  Christy also earned the Fellow (FHFMA) designation during 2011.

Ms. Pehanich holds a Bachelor's of Science in Health Care Administration from Towson University and a Masters Degree in Health Services Administration from Marywood University.  
 

Anthony T. Petrick, MD, FACS, FSSO, is the Director of Minimally Invasive and Bariatric Surgery at the Geisinger Medical Center.  He has been with Geisinger since 2001.  Dr. Petrick received his BA in History from College of the Holy Cross and his MS in Physiology from Georgetown University Medical School.  He also received his MD from Georgetown.  Dr. Petrick lives in Danville, PA.

Mark Tombasco, BSN, MSIT, is a Nurse Informatician currently assigned to the EpicCare Ambulatory Team. In this role he has participated in ProvenCare initiatives involving Bariatric and Lung Cancer surgery. Mark's 28 years at Geisinger have included clinical experience in Critical Care and Post-Anesthesia nursing, and previous information technology positions in Supply Chain and Financial Systems.

Mr. Tombasco received a BS in Biology from Scranton University, a BS in Nursing from Creighton University, and a Master’s in Instructional Technology from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.