Our Stakeholder Committees

The QIC is made up of about two dozen clinician leaders from major medical groups, hospitals and health plans from around the state. The QIC meets bi-monthly and oversees the Alliance’s quality reporting, including clinical and patient experience measures. Beginning with the first report, the QIC has been front and center in selecting the quality measures included in the Community Checkup and developing the reporting methods used by the Alliance (e.g., provider attribution methods, as well as methods to ensure statistical reliability of results and thresholds for public reporting). Having clinician leaders lead this process through countless discussions and meetings over the years has been key in building provider support and trust in the public reporting conducted by the Alliance.

Membership:

Here’s the plain text list with the first two words of each line bolded:

• Mary Anderson, MD, FACP – Chief Clinical Integration and Quality Officer, Optum WA (includes Polyclinic and Everett Clinic)
• Geoffrey Ankeney, MD – Clinical Faculty, University of Washington, Kaiser Permanente Olympia Medical Center
• Romilla Batra, MD, MBA – Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Premera Blue Cross
• Kavita Chawla, MD, MHA, FACP, CRC – Chair, EBM Education Committee, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health
• Devin Dufenhorst – Abbott Diabetes Care
• Alice Ferguson, DNP, RN – Quality, Safety, and Clinical Integration, Multicare
• Frances Gough, MD – Chief Medical Officer, Molina Healthcare of Washington, Inc.
• Rick Hourigan, MD, MHA (Chair) – Market Medical Executive, Pacific Northwest, Cigna
• Kendra Johnson Blachley, MPH, CPHQ, CPPS – Manager, Clinic Patient Safety & Quality, Overlake Hospital Medical Center & Clinics
• Sarah Levy, MD – Interim Leader Program Chief for Pediatrics, Kaiser Permanente
• Demetria Malloy, MD, MSHS  – Chief Medical Officer, Community Health Plan of Washington
• Katie Peterson, MD – Medical Director of Population Health and Value Based Care, Confluence Health
• Kristina Petsas, MD – Chief Medical Officer, UnitedHealthcare Pacific Northwest (Commercial)
• Komal Patil-Sisodia, MD – Ambulatory Quality Officer, Evergreen Health
• James Rael, MD – Medical Director, Aetna
• Wayne Rawlins, MD, MBA – Community Representative
• Jeanne Robinson – Quality Vice President, Northwest Permanente
• Nicole Saint Clair, MD, FACOG – Executive Medical Director, Regence BlueShield
• Heather Schultz, MD – ERB Associate Medical Director, Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA)
• Michael Shannon, MD (Vice Chair) – Medical Director, Ventegra
• Hugh Straley, MD – Chair, Dr. Robert Bree Collaborative
• Emily Transue, MD, FACP – Chief Clinical Officer, CoImagine Health
• Dayna Weatherly-Wilson, RN – Community Member
• Tracy Wellington, MN, RN – Senior Director, Clinical Excellence and Rural Programs, WSHA
• Ashby Wolfe, MD, MPH, MPP – Regional Chief Medical Officer, Regional Chief Medical Officer CMS San Francisco, Seattle and Denver Offices, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
• Judy Zerzan-Thul, MD – Chief Medical Officer, Clinical Quality and Care Transformation, Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA)

The Purchaser Affinity Group (PAG) was formed to give employers and union trusts the opportunity to meet regularly to discuss value-based benefit design, value-based purchasing and other ways to reduce the medical cost trend. All purchaser members of the Alliance are encouraged to attend the PAG’s quarterly meetings. Among the group’s areas of interest are: sharing best practices regarding communication and engagement of consumers about their health decisions; learning about value-based purchasing and benefit design; working together to give a consistent message to health plans regarding expectations for network adequacy, payment and contracting to drive value and improving quality and member experience in the market. Every two years the PAG also sponsors eValue8™, a nationally developed tool and process used to evaluate the performance of commercial health plans.

The Purchaser Affinity Group is open to all purchaser members of the Washington Health Alliance.

The HEC meets bi-monthly, includes about two dozen members, and is a multi-stakeholder group with representatives from provider organizations, purchasers, brokers, health plans, researchers, consumers and Milliman. This committee led the initial effort to select a data vendor for the Alliance, managing the RFP process that led to the selection of Milliman. The focus of the HEC is on improving transparency of utilization and price variation to reduce unwarranted variation and the overall cost trend.

Membership:

• David DiGiuseppe – Vice President, Healthcare Economics, Community Health Plan of Washington
• Jim Fitzpatrick – Vice President, Pacific Northwest, Cigna
• Adam Furman – Associate Director, Medical Value and Outcomes, Sanofi
• Will Fox – Principal and Consulting Actuary, Milliman
• Stephanie Garnett – Network Market Head, Aetna
• Tina Girardi – Director of Value Based Care & Clinical Network Development, Proliance Surgeons
• Jim Gregson – Vice President, Parker, Smith & Feek
• Jeremy Chrisman, DO – Chief Transformation Officer, The Vancouver Clinic
• Jutta Joesch – Healthcare Economist, King County
• John Nelson, MD – Medical Director, Eastside Health Network
• Shawna Lang – Section Manager, ERB Portfolio Management and Monitoring, HCA
• Ross Laursen – Consumer Representative
• Cheryl Neslusan – Group Director, Access and Policy Research, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Christine Palermo, MD – System Director, Denials Management & Prevention, CommonSpirit Health
• Brian Ritchie – Assistant Director Actuarial, Strategic Provider Analytics, Regence BlueShield
• John Robinson, MD – Consumer Representative
• Steve Schramm – Vice President and CFO, MultiCare Connected Care, LLC
• Walter Sive – Consumer Representative
• Ashlen Strong – Vice President, Government Affairs, Washington State Hospital Association