Dr. Mari Akre is an expert nursing operations, quality, safety and informatics leader committed to driving clinical excellence through innovative solutions, with a deep focus on patient safety and quality of care. Akre is an expert in applying a systems viewpoint, leveraging technology and integrating data analytics to enhance both clinical and financial outcomes. She creates integrative frameworks to ensure replicable and sustainable processes.

Akre drives operational and clinical informatics excellence through effective initiative execution. She designed and implemented a robust patient-reported outcomes solution; advanced clinical quality by closing gaps in care workflows and analytics; and implemented patient population-focused enhanced pre-visit planning and shared decision-making to strengthen care coordination and patient population.

She’s a leader in digital health transformation strategy specifically for virtual care nursing, virtual consults and remote patient monitoring aligned with substantive operation and clinical and patient outcomes.

Akre received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Viterbo University, Master of Science in child and family studies, Master of Science in Nursing from the School of Nursing Pediatrics and PhD in child and family studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Jessica Aman is the enterprise project coordinator for Cayuga Health. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology and three years of project management experience.

As a Six Sigma Black Belt professional, she assists in running Cayuga Health’s Lean Six Sigma program. Aman is also a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality.

Annie DePugh has served as the United Health Services system director, population health since 2016. Her team focuses on assessing and addressing health-related social needs, health disparities and complex clinical care management. DePugh is also the interim director of the occupational medicine and employee health departments at UHS. She has experience working in a variety of hospital settings, including critical care and discharge planning, and has both hands-on and administrative experience in home care.

DePugh’s most recent health equity work includes developing New York state’s first high risk COVID-19 vaccine clinic for community members, promoting the collection of social determinant data across the UHS system and leading the UHS Health Equity Committee. She is an ASQ Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.

DePugh was awarded the 2019 Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce’s HYPE Award for Healthcare and was also a 2022 Broome County Health Department’s Immunization Champion recipient.

Margaret Grogan is a seasoned and passionate obstetric nurse leader who has led obstetrics at Mount Sinai for over 12 years. Grogan supports the interdisciplinary team in delivering safe quality care to all patients. She has a Master of Public Administration from Long Island University.

Stephanie Guareño is a senior nurse process improvement manager for the Mount Sinai Health System. In this role, she provides coaching and Lean leadership skills to managers and directors as they use daily management in their departments. She also ensures there is alignment and connectivity between nursing professional practice with continuous improvement methodology. Prior to this role, she was a nurse manager for a cardiac telemetry/cardiac surgery unit at Mount Sinai Morningside and was one of the pilot units for the roll out of their daily management boards. Guareño became a nurse in 2012 and earned a Master of Science in nursing administration and Master of Business Administration from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2023.

Joan Guzik leads the United Hospital Fund’s Quality Institute team and initiatives, focusing on building quality capacity in healthcare organizations, engaging patients and families in care and profiling quality. She directs the Clinical Quality Fellowship Program in partnership with the Greater New York Hospital Association and develops and leads projects and learning collaboratives focused on implementing best practices and improving care delivery in healthcare settings.

Before joining UHF in 2017, Guzik was director of quality improvement for Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset, a 300-bed community hospital in New Jersey. There, she managed the quality services department and was responsible for Joint Commission accreditation, CMS/TJC quality reporting, hospital performance improvement initiatives, the medical peer review process, and reporting of serious adverse events and the root cause analysis process. Earlier in her career, she was director of accreditation and standards compliance and program development and planning for NYU Langone Medical Center.

Guzik has a BS in occupational therapy from Tufts University and an MBA in healthcare management from Boston University.

Thomas Hallisey formulates and executes HANYS’ state and federal HIT regulatory and legislative advocacy agenda. This includes working with government agencies, lawmakers and other organizations to advance HANYS’ HIT agenda on behalf of New York’s hospitals and health systems.

Hallisey’s career includes extensive HIT work in the hospital setting, beginning as an application analyst at Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut, and then working at several hospitals in New York state. He served as director of information services at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, and as vice president, information management and chief information officer, at Cortland Regional Medical Center. Next, he joined Menusguide.com, a startup company, as chief technology officer, and served as CIO for United Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Most recently, he was executive IT adviser and CIO at Hartman Executive Advisors, an IT consulting firm.

Hallisey received his undergraduate degree from the University of Connecticut, has an ITIL v.3 Foundation Certification and is an affiliate of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and Healthcare Information Management Systems.

Dr. Julie Hunter is the medical director of addiction medicine at United Health Services Hospitals, Inc. Under her leadership, the department embraces evidence-based practices and harm reduction principles in its low-threshold buprenorphine program, opioid treatment program and 20-bed inpatient unit.

Hunter strives to improve care for people who use substances by transforming evidence and guidelines into sustainable programs. To that end, she started a comprehensive program for pregnant patients with opioid use disorder, a hepatitis C elimination program in the methadone clinic, a program to use buprenorphine in the hospital’s emergency departments and a large and expanding opioid overdose prevention program that provides naloxone to all patients discharged from maternity.

Hunter teaches residents at UHS in psychiatry, family medicine and internal medicine, and is the methadone site director for Geisinger’s Addiction Medicine Fellowship. She participates in the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s board exam study tool subcommittee, the DOH AIDS Institute substance use guidelines committee, the New York State Advisory Group on Hepatitis C Treatment Among People Who Inject Drugs and DOH’s Buprenorphine working group.

Hunter is board-certified in addiction and family medicine. She graduated with honors from Harvard University with a bachelor’s in history and earned a Master’s of Public Health from Dartmouth College. After attending SUNY Upstate Medical University, she completed her family medicine residency at the University of Vermont and her addiction medicine fellowship at Summa Health.

Stephanie Johnson is a registered nurse with 18 years of experience. She currently serves as vice president, quality and risk for St. Peter’s Health Partners in the Capital Region and St. Joseph’s Health in Central New York, both of which are part of Trinity Health, one of the nation’s largest Catholic health systems operating 101 hospitals in 27 states.

Johnson oversees quality, risk, safety, infection control, patient experience and accreditation activities for the New York region. She has worked collaboratively to redesign the quality oversight structure and is responsible for building a new approach to quality management across the organization that seeks to achieve reliable outcomes that are effective, efficient and compliant with regulatory standards. Her goal is to equip those at the bedside with an understanding of quality improvement, tools and strategies to promote and sustain quality.

She is an active member of the National Association for Health Care Quality and the American Nurses Association. She holds a certification in Health Care Project management from Syracuse University Whitman School of Management, is a Certified Healthcare Lean Professional and Certified Provider in Healthcare Quality. Johnson also serves on HILNNY’s leadership team.

Johnson holds a Master of Science in nursing leadership from Grand Canyon University, a Baccalaureate Certificate in nursing from Lemoyne College and a Bachelor of Science in social work from Roberts Wesleyan College.

In her role as senior director, strategic facility planning for UHS, Michelle Karedes concentrates on the Wilson Project — the largest modernization project in UHS history. Karedes began her career at UHS in 1999 in the finance department as a CPA and has held several other positions at UHS over the past 25 years including director, specialty practices and director, oncology services.

Karedes is a board member of ACHIEVE-ARC of New York, where she participates on several committees. She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Scranton.

Dr. Rebecca Kaul is senior vice president and chief of digital innovation and transformation at Northwell Health, where she works with innovators across the institution to develop new strategies to leverage novel technologies and drive transformational change. She is responsible for developing and managing strategic relationships, new product development and the MD Anderson Cancer Center Innovation Center.

Before joining Northwell Health in August 2022, Kaul was MD Anderson Cancer Center’s first-ever chief innovation officer, leading an Innovation Center designed to identify creative and effective approaches for delivering exceptional patient outcomes and bringing new solutions to market. Working closely with MD Anderson clinicians, researchers, patients and operational leaders, her team used observation techniques, stakeholder interviews and market research to understand how to develop the next generation of digital technology solutions and to design groundbreaking user experiences. By collaborating with internal innovators and establishing strategic relationships with startups and industry, Kaul accelerates value generation and commercialization in healthcare.

Kaul has more than 20 years of experience driving transformational change in healthcare through the intersection of strategy, business and digital innovation. Before joining MD Anderson, she served as chief innovation officer and president of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Technology Development Center, where she built their Innovation Center from a conceptual idea to a center nationally recognized for developing an extensive portfolio of partnerships, investments and new companies. Before starting the UPMC Innovation Center, she led their joint venture with A-Life Medical to develop an artificial intelligence-enabled medical coding product suite, which yielded a 100% return on investment in 18 months.

She earned her PhD in public health from University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health, a master’s degree in information systems management from Carnegie Mellon University and a master’s in business administration degree from New York University Stern School of Business.

In 2018, she was selected as one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT by Health Data Management, in 2019 she was named in the Top 30 Chief Innovation Officers in Healthcare by Health Data Management, in 2020 and 2021 she was named as a Woman to Watch in Healthcare IT by Becker’s Hospital Review and in 2022 she was named a Woman Power Player in Healthcare IT by Becker’s Hospital Review.

Preet Kukreja is an accomplished public health leader. Her expertise spans handling public health emergencies, enhancing community health initiatives and addressing health disparities and social determinants of health. Renowned for her pivotal role in the execution of vital public health programs targeting a range of issues from COVID-19 to substance abuse, Kukreja has been instrumental in building impactful partnerships with a myriad of organizations, including the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and various community-based entities. Her dedication lies in serving and uplifting medically underserved, marginalized and vulnerable communities by spearheading initiatives aimed at bridging health equity gaps.

In addition to her direct impact on community health, Kukreja holds influential positions across prestigious boards and committees. Her roles include serving as an Action Board member at the American Public Health Association, a Community Advisory Board member at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, a Board Member with Sisters in Public Health and an Advisory Council Member for the Harvard Business Review. These positions underscore her commitment to shaping policies and strategies that foster a healthier, more equitable society.

The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene acknowledged her efforts in advancing health equity and combating COVID-19, recognizing her as part of the Public Health Corps. Her innovative approaches to healthcare have also led her to be named one of the Top 25 Emerging Leaders by Modern Healthcare, highlighting her influential role in transforming the healthcare landscape. She was honored with the Health Innovator to Watch Award 2023 by the Boston Congress of Public Health.

Jessica Moschella joined The University of Vermont Health Network in January 2023 as senior vice president for high value care. She leads the organization’s work to improve patient outcomes across Vermont and northern New York and advance value within the care delivery system.

Moschella has deep experience in value-based care and population health. Prior to her role with UVM, she served as executive director and vice president, provider network performance at Newton-Wellesley Physician Hospital Organization, executive director, Emerson Physician Hospital Organization and director, population health management at Mass General Brigham (formerly Partners HealthCare). She also served as the administrative director for the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council.

Moschella has an extensive background in public health programming domestically and internationally. This includes serving as the director of HIV community services at the Cambridge Health Alliance, providing consultant services to hospitals, schools and non-government organizations throughout South Africa and serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia.

Moschella completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated from Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine with a master’s degree in public health in international health and development.

Abby Murray is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and board-certified neurologic clinical specialist. She manages the acute inpatient rehabilitation unit, and the acute inpatient physical and occupational therapy departments, at Cayuga Medical Center. Murray is actively involved in Cayuga Health’s Falls and Safe Patient Handling and Mobility Committees.

Dr. Lisa Nelson is associate vice president, IT applications and chief applications officer for the University of Rochester Medical Center and its affiliates. In this role, she is Co-CIO and part of the information systems division leadership, directing a team of over 650 people involved in implementing and supporting all electronic health record functions as well as overseeing over 500+ applications for URMC. Specifically, her teams plan, develop and direct institution-wide activities associated with the implementation of clinical and revenue cycle applications and supporting, enhancing and expanding the Epic EHR, integrated applications, supply chain and IT training. She is an advocate for intent-based leadership models and cross-functional teams. Prior to her CIO role, she was the senior director of core clinical systems, which focused on the direct supervision of the EHR’s clinical aspects.

Previously, Nelson was associate director of pharmacy informatics at URMC. In this role, she was a member of the URMC pharmacy leadership team, project director in the URMC information systems division and was responsible for developing and overseeing the pharmacy IT platform used throughout the health system, EMR development, medication management tools and data analytics for both inpatient and ambulatory pharmacy services.

Prior to her role in pharmacy informatics, Nelson served as associate director, clinical pharmacy services at URMC and was responsible for overseeing all the clinical pharmacy services, the day-to-day activities of the clinical pharmacy specialists, pharmacy and therapeutics committee, and all education, including pharmacy students, pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and other allied healthcare professionals.

Prior to URMC, Nelson worked at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston for over 10 years serving as manager, pharmacy quality assurance and process improvement; director, clinical pharmacy services; manager, operations; and clinical supervisor, infectious disease. Nelson has published several papers and frequently presented on pharmacy informatics, technology, clinical pharmacy initiatives and patient safety.

Nelson received her undergraduate pharmacy degree at the University at Buffalo, her residency at Rhode Island Hospital and her Doctor of Pharmacy from the Albany College of Pharmacy.

As Northwell Health’s senior director, process improvement Dr. Shaghayegh Norouzzadeh leads and executes major transformational initiatives that improve the quality of patient care and achieve organizational strategic goals. In addition, she teaches continuous improvement courses at Northwell’s Center for Learning and Innovation to create a culture of transparency, excellence and performance. Norouzzadeh also serves on HILNNY’s leadership team.

Norouzzadeh holds a PhD in systems sciences from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Chris Payton is director, nursing for the surgical stay unit, inpatient rehabilitation unit and inpatient therapy department at Cayuga Health.

In 2022, she received the Munchmeyer Award honoring her work in excellence in patient outcomes. Shortly after, she became the co-chair of Cayuga Health’s falls committee to apply her knowledge to that initiative.

Payton has a master’s degree in nursing education and has been a practicing registered nurse at Cayuga Health for more than 15 years.

Julie Pearson believes in continuous process improvement, including when it comes to her professional career. Pearson is a registered nurse with a master’s degree in public health from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and is certified in Obstetric and Neonatal Quality and Safety. She is the director of performance improvement and analytics in the department of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine in the Mount Sinai Health System.

Pearson started her career conducting public health and clinical research resulting in several peer-reviewed publications and abstracts. Her love of data and desire to make tangible change led her to quality improvement analytics. Ultimately, Pearson decided to pursue nursing to better understand how quality initiatives and policies impact the clinical workforce before returning to quality and process improvement.

Dr. Sri Poranki currently serves as director, strategy at UHS Chenango Memorial Hospital, responsible for developing and deploying organizational strategy. Prior to that, he served as manager of performance excellence and project management at St. Joseph’s Health, a member of Trinity Health, the nation’s fourth largest healthcare system. Before joining SJH, he served for 12 years in various performance improvement roles at UHS from Lean engineer to director of performance excellence and innovation. He is one of the original founding members of HILNNY and remains part of the leadership team, currently serving as co-chair with HANYS’ director of HIT, Tom Hallisey.

Poranki serves as a faculty member in the department of systems science and industrial engineering at the Watson College of Applied Science and Engineering at Binghamton University. His areas of interest include enterprise transformation, complex systems and organizational behavior. He has authored over 24 publications at conferences and in journals. His other interests include the role of technology in healthcare and coaching and mentoring graduate and undergraduate students and team members.

Faye Reiff-Pasarew is the deputy chief medical officer and associate chief of hospital medicine at Mount Sinai Morningside, where she works as an academic hospitalist. She trained at UCSF for medical school, The Mount Sinai Hospital for her internal medicine residency and completed the Clinical Quality Fellowship Program in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety with the Greater New York Hospital Association and United Hospital Fund. Her academic work focuses on the medical humanities and quality improvement and patient safety.

Shanna Sapienza has worked at NewYork-Presbyterian, Weill Cornell for more than eight years. She started as a new graduate nurse in 2015 and was initially hired as a hybrid high-risk antepartum/labor and delivery nurse and floated between the two units. Since then, she has achieved a master’s in forensic nursing, followed by a Doctorate of Nursing Practice. Since March 2022, she has worked as the obstetrics department’s patient safety coordinator. In this position she has been exposed to working with different technologies and equipment that can be used to improve staff satisfaction, quality care and patient safety.

Sapienza earned her Bachelor of Public Policy from York University and her master’s degree in disaster and emergency management from Royal Roads University. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate of Business Administration at National University.

Lisa Schmutter is a registered nurse with 15 years of clinical and leadership experience in pediatrics. Schmutter is passionate about engaging frontline staff in quality improvement.

After earning a master’s degree in public administration from New York University, she transitioned to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s department of quality and patient safety, where she has held several roles over the past eight years.

Currently, as a director of quality and patient safety, Schmutter leads an interprofessional team to plan, implement and evaluate quality improvement initiatives focused on preventing healthcare-associated infections, learning from significant events and increasing regulatory compliance. She creates interdepartmental partnerships to facilitate sustainable change in complex healthcare environments. Schmutter serves as co-chair of HILNNY’s Program Committee.

Rafaela Spence began her work at UHS in 2017 and has focused on improvement projects centered on infection prevention, quality care, health equity, employee and provider retention, and patient and employee safety ever since.

Prior to healthcare, Spence worked in adult education and workforce development for the SUNY Research Foundation. An active community volunteer, she serves as a treasurer with a local nonprofit organization in the Binghamton area.

Spence has a bachelor’s degree in business and technology management from Clarkson University and a master’s degree in secondary education for the University of New Haven, with a Six Sigma Black Belt certification from the American Society for Quality.

Spence hosted a HANYS/HILNNY webinar, "Applying change management to elicit effective and sustainable improvements," in August 2023 and looks forward to continuing that dialogue during the HILNNY conference.

Carrie Steiner is senior director, operations excellence at UR Medicine in Rochester, NY where she practices, promotes and educates staff on process improvement. She is a certified project management professional and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with 15 years of experience. Steiner also serves on HILNNY’s leadership team. Her passion for continuous improvement is evident in her work, studies and at home. She has a Bachelor of Science in management information systems from the Rochester Institute of Technology and is currently pursuing her MBA at the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School.

Dr. Ann Teng holds many positions at United Health Services. As the chief wellness officer, she prioritizes the holistic well-being of the healthcare system’s team. Simultaneously, she serves as the medical director of the Medical Command Center and the medical director of occupational medicine and employee health.

Before her medical career, Teng spent 14 years in emergency medical services and fire services, earning recognition as the EMS leader of the year in Suffolk County, New York, in 2003. Her emergency services background laid the foundation for her current roles. She combined innovation, her experience with scarcity and her understanding of disaster management to build collaborative teams to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. She attributes many of her successes to her ability to take on multiple perspectives while remaining mission-focused.

As a respected speaker, Teng addresses topics like healthcare burnout and disaster management. She often participates in tabletop simulations on public health emergencies with medical and pharmacy students at Upstate Medical University, Binghamton Clinical Campus, where she holds an appointment as assistant clinical professor. She is a recurrent guest lecturer at Yale University School of Medicine and School of Public Health on topics like operational efficiency in disaster management, pandemic response and risk assessments. Her passion lies in teaching and ensuring that future generations of providers recognize their inherent role in sustaining the healthcare system during times of crisis.

Teng enjoys being a lifelong learner. She holds a Master of Public Health degree from Yale University School of Public Health, an MBA in organizational leadership from Eastern University, a master’s degree concentration in society and medicine from Stony Brook University, and a Doctor of Osteopathy degree from New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. She completed her family residency at UHS and her fellowship in occupational and environmental medicine where she also served as chief fellow. Today, she holds board certification in family medicine, preventive-occupational medicine and obesity medicine, demonstrating her commitment to patient care and ongoing professional growth.