Dr. David Nash

Dr. David Nash is the newly appointed Founding Dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health on the campus of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. David Nash is also the Dr. Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon Professor of Health Policy and this endowed professorship is one of a handful of such chairs in the nation. The appointment as the Founding Dean culminates a nearly twenty-year tenure at Jefferson.

Dr. Nash, a Board Certified Internist, founded the original Office of Health Policy in 1990.  Thirteen years later, the Office evolved into one of the first Departments of Health Policy in an American medical college.  In 2008, the Board of Jefferson University approved the creation of the new school.  The Jefferson School of Population Health represents the first time a health-sciences university has placed four Masters Programs under one roof, namely a Masters in Public Health, Health Policy, Healthcare Quality and Safety and Chronic Care Management.  The goal of this innovative school is to produce a new type of healthcare leader for the future.

Dr. Nash is internationally recognized for his work in outcomes management, medical staff development and quality-of-care improvement; his publications have appeared in more than 100 articles in major journals.  He has edited nineteen books, including A Systems Approach to Disease Management by Jossey-Bass, Connecting with the New Healthcare Consumer by Aspen, The Quality Solution by Jones and Bartlett, Practicing Medicine in the 21^st Century by ACPE, and most recently, Governance for Healthcare Providers by Performance Press.  In 1995, he was awarded the Latiolais (“Lay-shee-o-lay”) Prize by the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy for his leadership in disease management and pharmacoeconomics.  He also received the Philadelphia Business Journal Healthcare Heroes Award in October 1997 and was named an honorary distinguished fellow of the American College of Physician Executives in 1998.  In 2006, he received the Elliot Stone Award for leadership in public accountability for health data from NAHDO.  In 2009, Dr. Nash received the Wharton Healthcare Alumni Achievement Award.

Dr. Nash received his BA in economics (Phi Beta Kappa) from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York; his MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, where he was recently named to the Alumni Council, and his MBA in Health Administration (with honors) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  While at Penn, he was a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar and Medical Director of a nine physician faculty group practice in general internal medicine. 

Dr. Nash lives in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Esther J. Nash, MD, fraternal twin twenty-one-year old daughters, and eighteen-year old son.  He is an avid tennis player.  Please visit:  http://jefferson.edu/population_health/ and his new blog at. http://www.nashhealthpolicy.blogspot.com.

Dr. Steven Udvarhelyi

Dr. Udvarhelyi is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Independence Blue Cross (IBC).  In this role, Dr. Udvarhelyi has overall responsibility for medical management programs and policies, provider contracting and provider relations, pharmacy services, and informatics.  Informatics comprises analytic and reporting support for all functional areas, and includes customer reporting.  Pharmacy services include IBC’s pharmacy benefit management subsidiaries, FutureScripts and FutureScripts Secure. 

Dr. Udvarhelyi is a board certified internist and has over 15 years of experience in the managed care industry.  He received an A.B. degree from Harvard College, an M.D. degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a Master of Science degree in Health Services Administration from the Harvard School of Public Health. 

Prior to his career in the managed care and insurance industry, Dr. Udvarhelyi was a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and has published numerous articles on quality in health care.   

He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA); the National Council of Physician Executives of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and on the Chief Medical Officers Committee of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).  He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine and IOM Committee on Comparative Effectiveness Research Priorities; and he has served on other IOM committees in the past.

DAVID WILDERMAN

David Wilderman is the Acting Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Cost Containment Council (PCH4), is an independent state agency responsible for addressing the problem of escalating health costs, ensuring the quality of health care, and increasing access for all citizens regardless of ability to pay. The Council’s primary goals are to collect, analyze and make available to the public data about the cost and quality of health care in Pennsylvania; to study, upon request, the issue of access to care for those Pennsylvanians who are uninsured; and to review and make recommendations about proposed or existing mandated health insurance benefits upon request of the legislative or executive branches of the Commonwealth. Prior to his work at PCHR, Mr. Wilderman was the Director of Legislation for the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, researching, lobbying, and handling public relations for the State Federation. The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO represents the interests of over 800,000 union members.

Mr. Wilderman is a graduate of Tufts University and Boston University’s School of Law.

Jane Von bergen

Jane M. Von Bergen covers workplace issues, health insurance and organized labor for the Philadelphia Inquirer. A longtime business writer, she is now covering her second recession. Von Bergen began her reporting career in fourth grade and then married into it, falling in love with a photographer she met working while working for her college newspaper. They have two college-age sons, neither of whom is studying journalism.

Honoree

SHARON E. KAZARAS

Sharon E. Kazaras has a benefits consulting practice in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, which provides a wide range of services to clients of all sizes, including compliance consulting, plan management and administration, communication, training, and litigation research and support. 

She has more than 25 years of experience consulting on all aspects of retirement and welfare plans.  Prior to opening her own practice, Ms. Kazaras held management positions at various major consulting and professional services firms in which she was responsible for the ERISA compliance services provided to the firm’s clients.  Ms. Kazaras was an adjunct faculty member in the Graduate Human Resource Development Program at Villanova University and served as Vice President of PEBA.

She received her B.A., cum laude, and M.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and is a licensed life and health agent.

When not working, she enjoys spending time with her family (husband Paul, daughters Meredith, 26 and Allison, 24, and dogs Austin and Doodle), traveling, and Broadway shows.