Geisinger Executives Named to Leadership Roles in NEHI Health Care Without Walls Initiative

DANVILLE, Pa. – Karen Murphy, Ph.D., RN, chief innovation officer, Geisinger, and John Bulger, D.O., MBA, chief medical officer, Geisinger Health Plan, have been appointed to leadership roles in NEHI’s Health Care Without Walls initiative, which is focused on advancing development of a more distributed and accessible health care system through current and future technologies.

Dr. Murphy will co-lead the Technology Work Stream of the initiative. As executive vice president, chief innovation officer and founding director of the Steele Institute for Healthcare Innovation at Geisinger, Dr. Murphy has worked to improve and transform healthcare delivery throughout her career in both the public and private sectors.
  
“I am very excited to work on this initiative to promote innovation in the health care industry,” said Dr. Murphy. “This is a great opportunity to drive meaningful change and to work collaboratively to tackle challenges facing our delivery system today.” 

Dr. Bulger will co-lead the Payment Work Stream. As chief medical officer of Geisinger Health Plan, Dr. Bulger is responsible for working with Geisinger and community providers to improve the quality of the system’s medical care for the patients and members served.

“It is an honor to be a part of such an important initiative to transform the quality, innovation and affordability of patient care,” said Dr. Bulger. “Here at Geisinger, our priority is to provide high-quality care at a low cost to patients. This opportunity will allow us to explore new avenues that will make the payment and delivery system of patient care even better.”  

NEHI’s project is organized into separate work streams that will examine and create strategies that provide solutions to enhance the quality of patient care. The separate work streams will examine technological developments; payment, reimbursement, and financing issues; regulatory concerns; the health care work force, and human factors bearing on use of technology. The work streams will develop policy recommendations and action plans for policy makers, health care organizations and others to help pave the way for a new health care delivery ecosystem.
 
NEHI (The Network for Excellence in Health Innovation) is a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization composed of stakeholders from across all key sectors of health care, and focused on advancing innovations that improve individual and population health, increase the quality and efficiency of health care, and produce better value for the money spent.
 
NEHI’s Health Care Without Walls Initiative is premised on the notion that advances in technology, such as telehealth and remote sensors, could be a more efficient health care system offering expanded access and lower costs. 
 
“NEHI is delighted to collaborate with Dr. Murphy and Dr. Bulger on this initiative, which is designed to build on innovative technologies to stimulate beneficial transformation within health care,” said Susan Dentzer, president and CEO of NEHI. “Dr. Murphy’s experience in health care policy and innovation and Dr. Bulger’s knowledge of health care plan administration will bring enormous value to the Technology and Payment work streams and help us produce truly thought-provoking recipes for public policy and organizational change.” 

Joining Dr. Murphy and Dr. Bulger on their respective committees are:  

Technology: 

• Barbara DeBuono, M.D., MPH, Vice President, Clinical Strategy and Value Based Care, 3M Health Information Systems
• Dusty Majumdar, Ph.D., Vice President/Chief Marketing Officer, IBM Watson Health
• Amit Rastogi, M.D., MHCM, Senior Vice President for Strategy, Growth and Innovation, Inova
• Sara Vaezy, MHA, MPH, Chief Digital Strategy Officer, Providence St. Joseph Health
• Joel Vengco, MS, MA, Chief Information Officer/Senior Vice President, Baystate Health

Payment: 

• Mark Lutes, JD, MA, Chair, Board of Directors, Epstein Becker Green
• Sunny Ramchandani, Ph.D., MPH, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Aetna
• Karen Rheuban, M.D., Director, University of Virginia Center for Telehealth

About Geisinger
Geisinger is among the nation’s leading providers of value-based care, serving 1.2 million people in urban and rural communities across Pennsylvania. Founded in 1915 by philanthropist Abigail Geisinger, the non-profit system generates $10 billion in annual revenues across 134 care sites - including 10 hospital campuses, and Geisinger Health Plan, with 600,000 members in commercial and government plans. The Geisinger College of Health Sciences educates more than 5,000 medical professionals annually and conducts more than 1,400 clinical research studies. With 26,000 employees, including 1,600 employed physicians, Geisinger is among Pennsylvania’s largest employers with an estimated economic impact of $14 billion to the state’s economy. On March 31, 2024, Geisinger became the first member of Risant Health, a new nonprofit charitable organization created to expand and accelerate value-based care across the country.  Learn more at geisinger.org or connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.