Executive Oversight Board

Care Connect Executive Oversight Board (EOB)

Michael Steinberg, MD

Chairman, CareConnect Executive Oversight Board (EOB)
Professor and chairman, radiation oncology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
MSteinberg@mednet.ucla.edu

The role of the CareConnect Executive Oversight Board is to provide direction and oversight for all CareConnect activities and financial performance. Michael Steinberg, MD, is a professor and chairman of the department of radiation oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. His professional career spans private, corporate, and academic practice, and he is known for the development of multi-site radiation oncology care networks that are characterized by clinical excellence and community-based clinical research. His work with the UCLA Radiation Oncology Network includes the department at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the Children's Hospital Los Angeles, and academically oriented community practices. Dr. Steinberg graduated from Occidental College Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in chemistry, and was elected to AOA at the University Of Southern California Keck School Of Medicine. He completed his radiation oncology residency and fellowship at UCLA. Dr. Steinberg publishes and regularly speaks on issues related to health policy including quality of care, technology assessment, healthcare economics and disparity. He served as the principal investigator for a National Cancer Institute Cancer Disparity Research grant and as a health services research investigator and manuscript author at the RAND Corp. Presently, he serves as chairman of the Executive Oversight Board for CareConnect, UCLA's innovative electronic health record (EHR) program. He is also the founding chairman of the Health Policy Council of American Society for Radiation Oncology and currently serves as president of that organization. He has also served two terms on the Medicare Evidence and Coverage Advisory Committee.

Marti Arvin, JD

Chief compliance officer, UCLA Health System and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Marti Arvin has more than 22 years of health care experience with a focus on academic medicine. As the chief compliance officer for the UCLA Health System and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Arvin oversees the compliance program for the hospitals, the UCLA Faculty Practice Group and the school of medicine. Arvin previously worked as the privacy officer at the University of Louisville and holds CHC-F, CCEP-F, CHRC, CHPC and the CPC certifications. She has written and lectured extensively on compliance and privacy issues. She is a former board member of the Health Care Compliance Association and served on the Compliance Certification Advisory Board for the association. She also sat on the certification committees for the CHC, CHC-F, CCEP, CCEP-F, CHRC and CHPC and served on the faculty for the Health Care Compliance Assn.'s Basic, Research, and Privacy Academies and the Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics Academy.

David B. Baron, MD

Executive director, UCLA Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center
Former chief of staff, UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica (2006-2010)
Assistant clinical professor, family medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

David B. Baron, MD, is a board-certified family physician and former chief of staff of UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica. He has been practicing in Malibu since 1991 and started a solo family medicine practice called Primary Caring of Malibu in 2004. Dr. Baron regularly appears on KNX 1070 NewsRadio as a health and medicine consultant, and previously served as vice chief of staff, secretary treasurer, and chairman of the department of family medicine at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica. He was recently elected to the hospital's Board of Advisors. He lives in Malibu with his wife Emily, daughters Bela and Ady, one dog, two cats, and a rather large tortoise.

Scott W. Binder, MD

Professor and senior vice chairperson, pathology and laboratory medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Scott W. Binder, MD, is an internationally known dermatopathologist with interests in pigmented and lymphoid lesions of the skin. He is a speaker at international conferences, most notably in Korea, Greece, Austria, and China, where he was inducted as an honorary member into the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Dr. Binder holds dual appointments in the departments of pathology and dermatology, and is the founder/director of the Dermatopathology Fellowship Program. Dr. Binder is the director of pathology outreach services and the director of pathology clinical services, which includes the anatomic and clinical labs, as well as the many clinical labs for esoteric testing at UCLA.

Molly Joel Coye, MD, MPH

Chief innovation officer, Institute for Innovation in Health, UCLA Health System

Dr. Molly Joel Coye is the chief innovation officer of the UCLA Health System at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the Institute for Innovation in Health at UCLA. The Institute for Innovation in Health leads the health system in identifying new strategies, technologies, products and services that will support large-scale transformation of health care delivery and population health management. The UCLA Health System is a national leader in research and health care delivery for both highly specialized tertiary and quaternary clinical care as well as managed care services for large populations. Dr. Coye was the founder and CEO of the Health Technology Center (HealthTech), a non-profit education and research organization established in 2000 that became the premier forecasting organization for emerging technologies in health care. Dr. Coye has also served as commissioner of health for The State of New Jersey, director of the California Department of Health Services, and head of the division of public health practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Dr. Coye is a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, and chair of the Board of Directors of PATH, a large nonprofit organization in international health. She is also a member of the board of directors of Aetna, Inc., Prosetta, Inc., and the American Telemedicine Association, and a past member of the boards of the American Hospital Association, the American Public Health Association, The California Endowment, and the China Medical Board, as well as the advisory boards of healthcare information technology and services investment firms. Dr. Coye holds MD and MPH degrees from Johns Hopkins University and an MA in Chinese history from Stanford University and is the author of two books on China.

Heidi Crooks

Chief nursing officer, senior associate director, operations and patient care services, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
Assistant dean, UCLA School of Nursing

David Feinberg, MD, MBA

President, UCLA Health System
Clinical professor, psychiatry, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

As the president of the UCLA Health System, David Feinberg, MD, MBA, is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the UCLA Health System, which is comprised of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica, Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA, Mattel Children’s Hospital, and UCLA clinics throughout Southern California. He was named chief executive officer of the UCLA Hospital System and associate vice chancellor of UCLA Health Sciences in 2007, after serving as medical director of the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital. Dr. Feinberg also serves as a clinical professor of psychiatry on the faculty of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is triple-board certified in child and adolescent psychiatry and addiction psychiatry.

Jody Gaspar

Chief operating officer, UCLA Faculty Practice Group

As chief operating officer of the UCLA Faculty Practice Group, Jody Gaspar oversees the physicians billing office, managed care operations, ambulatory operations, community physician network, billing service quality development, contracting management, finance, and decision support units. Gaspar joined the UCLA Faculty Practice Group in 1999 and was responsible for development of all accounting records, reporting, and budgeting for the management service organization, community physician network and the faculty practice group, and the UCLA Medical Group. She has directed the development and maintenance of a data warehouse-based business intelligence system capable of monitoring professional billing, ambulatory operations, and managed care operations in achieving the strategic business initiatives of the physician faculty practice group. She earned her bachelor's degree in business with a concentration in accounting from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

Mark Grossman, MD, MBA

Chief medical officer, UCLA Community Physicians Network
Associate clinical professor, medicine and pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Mark Grossman, MD, is the chief medical officer of the UCLA Community Physicians Network, a group of primary care offices throughout the West Los Angeles area. He has a faculty appointment as a health sciences associate clinical professor of medicine and pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. His clinical interests include general primary care of adults and children, newborn care, geriatric medicine, and preventive medicine. He is actively involved in teaching medical students and residents, patient safety, quality improvement, and e-health information technology. Dr. Grossman also serves as the chairman of CareConnect’s Ambulatory Operations Advisory Group. Dr. Grossman has received several awards throughout his career, including the Golden Apple teaching award as a UCLA medicine and pediatrics attending physician; the Leo Rigler MD Outstanding House Officer Award at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; and the Loyola University Chicago School of Medicine President's Medallion, awarded for outstanding scholarship, community service, and leadership as a medical student. He is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honors Society, and a fellow of both the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics. He has received a certificate of appreciation for his volunteer work at the Venice Family Clinic. Dr. Grossman earned his MBA from the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management.

Rick Harrison, MD

Medical director, Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA
Professor, pediatric critical care, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Rick Harrison, MD, is the medical director of Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA and specializes in the care of critically ill children. He has been actively involved in the planning of the replacement hospital, from initial site selection through his ongoing leadership to the actual move into the new facility. He has been involved in the leadership of the medical staff of UCLA Medical Center, culminating in service as chief of the medical staff. In addition to his administrative roles, Dr. Harrison remains an active clinician in the pediatric intensive care unit, and he is a National Institutes of Health-funded clinical researcher. He is a nationally recognized teacher, directs the Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA Pediatric Board Review Course, and participates in the Society of Critical Care Medicine's Pediatric Critical Care Board Review Course. Dr. Harrison is a three-time winner of the Robert Neerhout Teaching Award for excellence in teaching of pediatric house officers. He received the 2011 Sherman M. Mellinkoff Faculty Award, the highest award given by the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, for demonstrating an ongoing commitment to patients and medical education. Dr. Harrison received his MD from the University of Washington School of Medicine, and his postgraduate medical training in Phoenix and at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. He joined the faculty of the UCLA School of Medicine in 1985 and is currently a professor of clinical pediatrics.

Jonathan R. Hiatt, MD

Professor of surgery and vice dean for faculty, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Patricia Kapur, MD

Professor and Ronald L. Katz MD Chair, department of anesthesiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Chief Executive Officer, UCLA Faculty Practice Group
Executive Vice President, UCLA Health System

As chief executive officer of the UCLA Faculty Practice Group, Patricia Kapur, MD, provides oversight of all internal FPG activities. Dr. Kapur also serves as chairperson of the FPG Budget & Finance Committee, as well as the FPG Managed Care & Contracting Committee. Dr. Kapur earned her MD from the University of Pennsylvania, and joined the UCLA faculty in 1981 following a research fellowship here in anesthesiology. She has been chairperson of the department of anesthesiology in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA since 1996, and director of perioperative services for UCLA Health System since 1997. Dr. Kapur also serves on the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center Medical Staff Executive Committee and on the vice chancellor's Clinical Strategy & Services Council. She has served as president of the American Board of Anesthesiology, president of the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research, a member of the editorial board and section editor of Anesthesia & Analgesia, and chairperson of the board of trustees of the International Anesthesia Research Society. Dr. Kapur currently serves on the board of directors and the executive committee of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation.

Mark S. Litwin, MD, MPH

Professor and chair, department of urology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Professor of health services, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

Mark S. Litwin, MD, MPH, is professor and chair of the department of urology and professor of health services at the UCLA School of Public Health. He holds a degree in economics from Duke University, an MD from Emory University, and an MPH from UCLA, where he was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. He served his residency in urologic surgery at Harvard Medical School's Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Litwin practices urologic oncology at UCLA, where his research focuses on quality of care and health care outcomes, costs, and access. He directs an $89 million project that provides prostate cancer care to low-income, uninsured men in California, as well as a $23 million National Institutes of Health project exploring the epidemiological burden of urological diseases in America.

Bernadette Lodge-Lemon

Director, patient business services, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center

Edith Matesic, MSN, RN

Chief nursing officer, nursing, UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica

Edith Matesic is the chief nursing officer at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica. She comes to us from the Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, IL, where she helped establish a stroke center and cardiovascular institute, participated in magnet-status preparations, and led performance-improvement efforts for nursing. She was also involved in implementing the hospital's electronic medical record.

Virginia A. McFerran, MS

Chief information officer, UCLA Health System and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

As the chief information officer for the UCLA Health System, Virginia McFerran is responsible for guiding the development of information systems and balancing related resources across the medical sciences, including the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the UCLA Faculty Practice Group, and the UCLA Hospital System. Along with the implementation of CareConnect for UCLA hospitals and clinics, McFerran's other priorities are initiatives to improve operational efficiencies and information security. As a key leader in the medical sciences organization, she plays a vital role in gaining support for the overall IT strategic plan and operationalizing the plan with successful implementation policies and procedures. Prior to joining UCLA, she served as the chief information officer and department head at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, where she and her team led the technical vision to support multiple growth initiatives. Prior to Cornell, she held leadership positions at The Salk Institute and the University of Washington.

Shannon O' Kelley

Chief operating officer, UCLA Hospital System

Shannon O'Kelley serves as the chief operating officer of the UCLA Hospital System. O'Kelley has served as executive director of operations for clinical services for the UCLA Hospital System since 2006. O'Kelley came to Los Angeles from the East Coast, where he worked at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the University Hospital of Columbia, and Cornell medical schools in the role of executive director for international and corporate health. Prior to his role at New York Presbyterian, O'Kelley worked for Johns Hopkins Health System, where he held positions in international services, department of psychiatry administration, and strategic planning and business development.

Janet P. Pregler, MD

Professor of clinical medicine, general internal medicine & health services research, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Janet P. Pregler, MD, is a nationally recognized educator and advocate in women's health who is board certified in internal medicine. She completed medical school at Northwestern University and her residency in primary care internal medicine at George Washington University. A faculty member of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA since 1992, Dr. Pregler was named director of the Iris Cantor-UCLA Women's Health in 1997. She is also director of the UCLA National Center of Excellence in Women's Health. At UCLA, Dr. Pregler has worked to advance women's health in the community, collaborating with faculty and trainees to establish an adult women's health clinic at the Westside Women's Health Center, for which she received its Outstanding Service to the Community Award in 1999. Also in 1999, Dr. Pregler was named to the Women's Health Policy Council, and the Los Angeles Department of Health Services, which advises the Los Angeles County Office of Women's Health on priorities and programs, with a particular focus on prevention and public-private partnerships.

J. Thomas Rosenthal, MD

Chief medical officer, UCLA Hospital System
Professor, urology, associate vice chancellor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Rosenthal is the chief medical officer of the UCLA Hospital System and associate vice chancellor in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Rosenthal has led UCLA’s efforts to improve quality, safety, and cost since 1999. UCLA has been awarded the Pacific Business Group on Health’s Blue Ribbon quality award and has been designated a Leapfrog Group Top Hospital. Dr. Rosenthal graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Duke University School of Medicine. He trained in urology at the Lahey Clinic, a teaching hospital of Tufts University School of Medicine, and was a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to becoming chief medical officer, he had been the surgical director of the renal transplant program, executive vice chairman of the department of surgery, and the director of the Faculty Practice Group, all at UCLA. He has served as president of the Los Angeles Transplant Society, president of the Urologic Society for Transplantation and Vascular Surgery of the AUA, and secretary of the United Network for Organ Sharing. He was a member of HHS Commission on Transplantation and co-chaired the first National Quality Forum task force on efficiency measures. He leads a University of California-wide initiative on reducing variation in clinical practice.

Samuel Skootsky, MD

Chief medical officer, UCLA Faculty Practice Group
Adjunct professor, department of medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Samuel A. Skootsky, MD, is the chief medical officer of the UCLA Faculty Practice Group as well as an adjunct professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is involved in enhancing practice-based care redesign and research, and examines patient experiences and clinical performance metrics by UCLA primary care, and specialist physicians in an effort to improve the quality of patient care through the use of advanced patient reporting measures. He specializes in internal medicine and completed his fellowship, residency, and internships at the UCLA School of Medicine in the 1980's. Dr. Skootsky received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in 1979.

Paul A. Staton

Chief financial officer, UCLA Hospital System

Paul Staton is a certified public accountant and has worked at UCLA since 1996. Mr. Staton has been serving as the chief financial officer for the hospital system since July 2004. He previously served as controller for the hospital system. Staton has more than 28 years of experience in healthcare finance working for various hospital organizations in Southern California. In his role as chief financial officer, Staton oversees the following areas: general accounting, patient business services, financial planning & budgeting, business planning & development, decision support, purchasing, cashiering, charge master, third-party cost reporting, managed care, and real estate.

Randolph Steadman, MD

Chief of the medical staff, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
Vice chairperson, anesthesiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Randolph Steadman, MD, took over the duties of the chief of the medical staff of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in September. Dr. Steadman, who serves as the vice chairman of the department of anesthesiology, had served in several roles within the hospital system including as chairman of the sedation committee, on which he served 13 years; co-chairman of the medication event committee for eight years; and the medical staff executive committee. Steadman is working to ensure the health system addresses the challenges of a changing health care system that is changing both at the local and national levels.

Thomas Strouse, MD

Maddie Katz Professor
Medical director, Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital
Vice-chair for clinical affairs, department of psychiatry, David School of Medicine at UCLA

Thomas Strouse, MD, is a Maddie Katz Professor, the medical director of the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA, and vice-chair for clinical affairs for the UCLA Department of Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Strouse has maintained a faculty appointment at UCLA since he completed his residency training at UCLA in 1991. Immediately thereafter, he became director of the UCLA Consultation / Liaison Psychiatry Service and worked closely with the UCLA Liver Transplant Program for more than a decade. He served from 1994 to 2007 as director of cancer pain management and psychosocial services at the outpatient cancer center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Strouse continues to attend on the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center Palliative Care Consultation Service, and has recently joined UCLA's Operation Mend program to help develop a suicide-prevention program at Brooke Army Medical Center. He has been honored with the Robert T. Angarola Award and by psychiatry residents with a Top Course Director Award. He has also been repeatedly named in Castle and Connolly's America's Top Doctors for Cancer and Southern California Super Doctors listings. Dr. Strouse is a fellow of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine and a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Assn. He is a graduate of the UCLA Physician Acupuncture Training Program and actively practices acupuncture as a pain physician.

Arthur W. Toga, PhD

Director, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging
Professor, neurology, associate dean, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Since 1993, Arthur Toga has been a professor in the department of neurology and co-director of the division of brain mapping at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is also an associate dean of informatics at the school of medicine, associate vice provost for informatics, and director of the laboratory of neuro imaging in the department of neurology at UCLA. His laboratory has created brain image and meta-information databases that are some of the largest in the world, used in multisite studies of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Specific programs include the development of local deformation techniques to equate brain data sets from different modalities, and different subjects and the development of electronic databases for the archival, interaction, and distribution of brain data.

Cathy Rodgers Ward, RN, DNSc, NEA-BC

Director, nursing, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
Assistant clinical professor, UCLA School of Nursing  

Cathy Rodgers Ward is the director of nursing at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and holds the appointment of assistant clinical professor in the UCLA School of Nursing. Ward is responsible for nursing care in the inpatient and observation areas in the medical center, which is composed of 24 nursing units, 455 licensed beds, and more than 2,500 employees, which includes an estimated 1,800 registered nurses. Ward received her doctorate in nursing science from UCLA, a MS from Boston College and a BS in nursing from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Ward has provided leadership and direction at UCLA for the past 26 years in various management roles. Prior to her appointment at UCLA, Ward was an assistant professor at Boston University School of Nursing, a clinical nurse specialist at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, and a cardiovascular nurse clinician in cardiac surgery at the University of Alabama. Ward also served as a member of the executive transition team in the planning and opening of the new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in June of 2008. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has been designated as a magnet hospital since 2005.

Neil S. Wenger, MD, MPH

Professor, general internal medicine and health services research, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Director, UCLA Health System Ethics Center

Neil S. Wenger, MD, MPH is professor of medicine in the UCLA division of general internal medicine and health services research. He directs the UCLA Health System Ethics Center and serves as chairman of the ethics committee at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. He also is director of the NRSA Primary Care Research Fellowship in the UCLA Division of GIM&HSR. Dr. Wenger is an active general internist and carries out research in the empirical study of clinical ethics, care of and decision-making for the older patient, and quality of health care. He directs the Assessing Care of the Vulnerable Elders Project at RAND, which develops quality-of-care assessments for vulnerable older persons and interventions to improve care for this group. Other areas of interest include medication adherence, teaching clinical ethics, and measuring the quality of end-of-life care.