Boston Cluster 2025 Faculty

Karma H. Bass, FACHE

Speaker

<p>For more than 20 years, Karma Bass has been a sought-after speaker, facilitator and consultant with deep knowledge and experience in governance, strategic planning, philanthropy, healthcare policy and board effectiveness. Her experience gives her a unique and valuable perspective as a consultant to hospital and health systems boards.</p> <p>Before co-founding Via Healthcare Consulting, Karma worked as vice president for Accord Limited, a Chicago-based consulting firm. She served two years as president/CEO of Alliance Healthcare Foundation in San Diego, where she reported to an independent, 11-person not-for-profit board. Notably, Karma spent 10 years at The Governance Institute, holding various positions including vice president of membership services and director of research and publications. She also oversaw the prestigious biennial hospital governance practices survey tracking trends in nearly 5,000 U.S. hospitals and health systems. During three years at the Hospital Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties, Karma facilitated the first-ever collaborative community health needs assessment for San Diego’s 32 hospitals. </p> <p>Karma has a master’s degree in public health with a focus in health services administration from San Diego State University. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego.</p>

Sherry Bright, MSN, MPH, ARNP

Speaker

<p>Sherry Bright has long been fascinated by the way things work, especially groups of people and organizations. Bright’s expertise lies in the ability to bring individuals and organizations together from diverse settings and viewpoints to define common challenges and align their efforts to make a difference not only for organizations but for the communities and people they serve. Bright has lived and worked in many areas of the country including small towns and major metropolitan areas, supporting large health care systems, critical access hospitals and physician practices striving for improved performance across multiple areas. As a previous member of the C-suite, leading marketing, strategy and process improvement, she has worked with boards, staff, physicians and community leaders to envision their possibilities and create sustainable results. She has served as team member, lead and judge for Baldrige-based programs at national, state and regional levels in health care, manufacturing and service industries. She is a member of Tulane University’s faculty for its masters in medical management, focusing on strategy and transformational change.</p>

About Sherry Bright, MSN, MPH, ARNP
Principal
Bright Strategies

Anne-Claire I. France, PhD, FACHE

Speaker

<p>Anne-Claire France loves learning. When she achieved her doctoral degree, her advisor wisely noted the primary accomplishment was not that she was an expert in her field but that she could “learn well” and make the most of it to serve communities. Her favorite way of learning is to work with multiple perspectives and areas of expertise to bring innovative ideas to fruition.</p> <p>France serves as principal of Houston Health Innovations, LLC (HHI), an organization specializing in improving performance in healthcare systems and is a member of the Care Collaboratory Guiding Coalition. She has led many organization-wide efforts to optimize a culture of safety and well-being for the workforce as well as patients. Her over 30 years of healthcare service include over twenty years of application, training and education in applied research, process improvement and high reliability science. Her clients have included multi‐hospital health systems, physician organizations and group practices as well as the pharmaceutical industry and small rural hospitals. Before founding Houston Health Innovations LLC in 2001, she served as executive director of the Center for Healthcare Improvement at Memorial Hermann Health System, where she actualized the improvement ideas of front-line clinical staff. She has taught applied research, quality analytics, statistics psychology and trained hundreds of health professionals in Lean Six Sigma. She holds a faculty appointment at Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE), has served for 10 years on the Education Foundation Board of the ACHE Southeast Texas Chapter and was awarded the ACHE Regent’s Leadership Award in 2018 and 2023.</p>

About Anne-Claire I. France, PhD, FACHE
President
Houston Health Innovations, LLC

Tejal Gandhi, MD, CPPS, MPH

Speaker

<p>Dr. Tejal Gandhi is a Certified Professional in Patient Safety. In her current role, Dr. Gandhi is responsible for advancing the Zero Harm movement, improving patient and workforce safety and developing innovative health care transformation strategies. Dr. Gandhi is leading Press Ganey’s equity partnership to advance equity in health care, as well as its Patient Safety Organization, one of the largest in the country, which exchanges insights, shares best practices and jointly confronts safety and inequities in healthcare nationwide. In addition to her work at Press Ganey, Dr. Gandhi is on the Pre-Rulemaking Measure Review committee hospital roster for the Partnership for Quality Measurement and the board of directors of Commonwealth Care Alliance. </p> <p>Before joining Press Ganey, Dr. Gandhi served as chief clinical and safety officer at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), where she led programs focusing on improving patient and workforce safety. Prior to this, Dr. Gandhi was president and chief executive officer of the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) from 2013 until 2017, when NPSF merged with IHI. She has also served as president of the Lucian Leape Institute, a think tank founded by NPSF that now operates within the IHI Safety portfolio. She was a board member of the Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety which administers the Certified Professional in Patient Safety credential. </p> <p>Throughout her career, Dr. Gandhi has been committed to educating other clinicians on the topic of patient safety. She has been an invited speaker for numerous organizations nationally and internationally, has mentored physicians in post-doctoral study and has frequently served on national and committees and boards. </p> <p>In 2019, Dr. Gandhi was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She is a recipient of the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award, given in recognition of her contributions to understanding the epidemiology of medical errors in the outpatient setting and for developing prevention strategies. Dr. Gandhi has been named as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare, Top 25 Women in Healthcare, Top 25 Diversity Leaders in Healthcare and 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives by Modern Healthcare magazine. Most recently, she was named one of Becker’s 90 Patient Safety Experts to Know. </p> <p>An internist by training, Dr. Gandhi previously served as executive director of Quality and Safety at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and as chief quality and safety officer at Partners Healthcare. She received her MD and MPH degrees from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and trained at Duke University Medical Center. </p>

About Tejal Gandhi, MD, CPPS, MPH
Chief Safety and Transformation Officer
Press Ganey Associates LLC

Meredith C. Inniger, FACHE

Author

<div>Meredith Inniger is a manager with Veralon Partners Inc., in Philadelphia, a national healthcare consulting firm with expertise in strategy, mergers and transactions, clinical transformation and network integration and valuation. Ms. Inniger brings over 10 years of experience in academic and community health system operations to provide focused and actionable strategies for her clients. She advises healthcare leaders on strategic planning for service lines and ambulatory care, with an additional emphasis on strategies for population health. She holds a master’s degree in health administration and a bachelor’s degree, both from The Ohio State University.</div><div> </div><div>Ms. Inniger serves as faculty for the following ACHE seminars:</div><div><ul><li>Advanced Strategic Planning to Transform Your Organization </li></ul></div>

About Meredith C. Inniger, FACHE
Principal
VMG Health

Steve Kreiser

Speaker

<div>Steve Kreiser is a senior consultant with Healthcare Performance Improvement in Virginia Beach, Va., a firm specializing in improving human performance in complex systems using evidence-based methods derived from high-risk industries. Mr. Kreiser is a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot with experience improving reliability and safety in naval aviation. His current position includes working on safety culture transformation efforts in dozens of healthcare organizations across the country. Additionally, he has experience in team training and integration.</div><div> </div><div>Mr. Kreiser serves as faculty for the following ACHE seminars:</div><div><ul><li>Effective Leadership for High-Reliability Healthcare </li></ul></div>

Kevin Manemann

Speaker

<p>Kevin Manemann focuses on sustainably and harmonizing his organization through servant leadership on mission-critical initiatives, regionally and enterprise wide. With direct responsibility for the national footprint and the physician organization, Manemann serves as the connective tissue within the organization on integration initiatives including area of operational effectiveness, strategic program development, system integration, experience and patient access to reframe approaches to drive value, seed innovation and shape execution on national strategies.</p><p>Before joining City of Hope, Manemann spent 20 years in progressive leadership positions with Providence St. Joseph Health in Renton, Washington. He most recently served as the chief executive of the southern division, which includes California, overseeing 17 hospitals, a physician organization, surgery centers, immediate care centers, community care agencies and a health plan with 700,000 lives covered with combined revenues in excess of $12 billion. Prior to this role, he served as executive vice president and chief executive for Providence Physician Enterprise across eight states. Earlier, he held senior leadership roles with St. Joseph Heritage Healthcare and was president and chief executive officer for over five years before merging the health system into Providence St. Joseph Health.</p><p>Manemann holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Iowa and a Master of Arts in organizational leadership from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.</p>

Gary Oftedahl, MD

Speaker

<p>Gary Oftedahl has had a lifelong interest in exploring new ideas, concepts, theories and contemplating how one might apply them to addressing issues in innovative ways. He is a voracious reader and has used his vast literary exposure to bring unique perspectives to his work. He spent over 40 years in the health care sector, both as a provider of health care and collaborator in multiple initiatives across a wide range of topics and participants. His 26-year experience as an internal medicine physician and over 13-year experience as a chief knowledge officer at the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI) fueled his interest in innovation and creativity as he enters the encore phase of his life. </p> <p>While retired from ICSI, Gary has become a collaboration catalyst, spending some of his time pursuing creative and innovative approaches to addressing wellbeing, including working with multiple universities and community organizations. He serves as a board chair of a social impact organization known as Kairos Alive! which uses dance as an example of participatory arts in engaging and supporting communities of all types of diversity. He also serves on the Hennepin Health Quality Committee, the Minnesota Community Health Workers Alliance Board of Directors and is a member of The Care Collaboratory Guiding Coalition. He is passionate in his pursuit in understanding how we can integrate adaptive principles, aesthetics, participatory arts and collaboration across diverse sectors into efforts to improve the health and wellbeing of those who work in the health care arena, but also in the communities we serve. </p>

Neel H. Pathak, DSc, FACHE

Speaker

<p>Dr. Pathak is an assistant professor of practice and director of the Executive Healthcare MBA Program at Creighton University’s Heider College of Business. Pathak has 14 years of progressive management experience in diverse settings including major health systems, healthcare associations, accrediting organizations and academic institutions. He is a skilled clinician, an experienced administrator and a passionate educator. </p> <p>Pathak recently earned his doctoral degree in executive healthcare leadership from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). His research interests are in the areas of price transparency, patient experience and implementation of delivery system innovations. </p> <p>Pathak was most recently involved in administration of quality and performance improvement initiatives, operational efficiency initiatives and patient experience initiatives for the Department of Ambulatory Services at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Understanding the value in staying current with the administrative practices and trends, Pathak continues to serve as a part-time project administrator for key strategic initiatives of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. </p> <p>He served as the director of operations and business development for the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) where he focused on initiatives within the healthcare employer and academic communities. Prior to joining CAHME, Pathak was involved in the national quality improvement initiatives with the American Hospital Association (AHA) to reduce hospital-acquired infections. He completed an administrative fellowship at OhioHealth through Aramark Healthcare. Pathak is a strong advocate of performance excellence initiatives and has served as a Baldrige Examiner on state and national levels. </p> <p>Pathak earned the distinction of board certification in healthcare management by earning the Fellow credential with the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). He served on the Asian Healthcare Leaders Forum, a national committee of the ACHE Board to leverage the Asian-American representation in healthcare executive management policy and leadership. Pathak received a master’s degree in health administration from the University of Scranton and a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy from Manipal University, India. </p>

About Neel H. Pathak, DSc, FACHE
Associate Program Director
Creighton University - B.S. in Healthcare Administration

Anna R. Steelman, DBA, FACHE

Speaker

<p>Dr. Annie Steelman is Senior Vice President, System Strategy at RWJBarnabas Health, a 12-hospital academic health care system affiliated with Rutgers Health. She is a skilled strategic planner with 20 years of experience in the health care industry, including work with community hospitals, children’s hospitals, integrated health systems, and academic medical centers. Before joining RWJBarnabas in 2014, Annie was a consultant with Health Strategies & Solutions, Inc. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Annie holds a Doctorate in Business Administration degree from Drexel University. Her dissertation focused on organizational behavior and examined the role of empowering leadership in strategy implementation. She received her Master of Business Administration/Master of Science degree in Healthcare Management/Healthcare Financial Management from Temple University and her Bachelor of Science degree from Saint Joseph’s University in Interdisciplinary Health Services. Annie is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and a member and past-president of the Healthcare Planning and Marketing Society of New Jersey (a SHSMD chapter). Annie is also a Fellow of the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME).</p>

About Anna R. Steelman, DBA, FACHE
SVP System Strategy
RWJBarnabas Health

Dawn Z. Wright, JD, FACHE

Speaker

<p>Dawn Zell Wright has a proven track record of aligning operations strategy with business goals, developing leaders and driving significant, sustainable organizational improvements. She is a transformative leader who brings together complex, growing healthcare systems through strategic partnerships. Her extensive experience includes designing, creating, building and implementing high-functioning, consistent, centralized, agile human resources services and teams. Wright leverages best practices and standardizations to deliver best-in-class solutions, positioning organizations to create incredible employee experiences, lead the market as a best place to work and realize sustainable growth with financial excellence. </p> <p>Wright is the chief human resources officer for New Orleans-based LCMC Health. Prior to joining LCMC Health, she served as system vice president of Human Resources Operations for CHRISTUS Health, vice president of Human Resources for the Northcentral Region of Pennsylvania at UPMC and director of Human Resources for CommonSpirit Health’s Catholic Health Initiatives Texas Division. Wright's Human Resources expertise is complemented by her background as an attorney, where she received numerous accolades for her work as a litigator and defense attorney specializing in minority rights issues. As a passionate advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, Wright is focused on removing artificial barriers and building a sustainable pipeline of diverse and inclusive healthcare leaders reflective of the communities served. Her legal and HR background equips her with a unique perspective enabling her to foster highly reliable organizations for patient outcomes, employee experience and community impact. </p> <p>Wright earned her undergraduate degree in behavioral science from Concordia University Texas, an MBA from West Texas A&M and a Juris Doctor from St. Mary’s University School of Law. She is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and holds the Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) certification. </p>

About Dawn Z. Wright, JD, FACHE
Chief Human Resources Officer
LCMC Health

Gary Yates, MD

Speaker

<p>Gary Yates is a former partner with Press Ganey Strategic Consulting and the founding president of Healthcare Performance Improvement (HPI) LLC. Prior to that, he was senior vice president/CMO for Sentara Healthcare, where his responsibilities included the clinical effectiveness, patient safety, physician integration and medical management initiatives for Sentara’s integrated health system. He is a board-certified family physician and currently serves on the Board of Stewardship Trustees for CommonSpirit Health.</p>

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2025 Boston Cluster