Buying into healthcare: Why the industry must learn to appeal to consumers to survive and thrive

Author's Biography

Harold L. Paz Harold ‘Hal’ L. Paz, MD, MS, is a nationally renowned healthcare leader with a unique combination of expertise in both academic medicine and industry. As the first Executive Vice President of Health Sciences at Stony Brook University and the Chief Executive Officer, Stony Brook University Medicine, Dr Paz lead Stony Brook Medicine, a premier academic health enterprise that includes five health sciences schools, four hospitals and more than 230 ambulatory healthcare settings throughout Long Island. Prior to this role, Dr Paz was the first executive vice president and chancellor for health affairs at The Ohio State University and chief executive officer of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center. Before joining Ohio State University (OSU), Dr Paz was executive vice president and chief medical officer at CVS Health/Aetna, where he led clinical strategy and policy at the intersection of all of Aetna’s domestic and global businesses. In addition, he was professor adjunct of internal medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine and was clinically active in pulmonary medicine at the West Haven (CT) VA Hospital. Prior to joining Aetna, in 2014, Dr Paz served as president and CEO of the Penn State Hershey Health System, senior vice president for health affairs at the Pennsylvania State University and dean of its College of Medicine for eight years. Before his appointment at Penn State, he spent 11 years as dean of the (Rutgers) Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Group. Dr Paz received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester, a master of science in life science engineering from Tufts University and his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He completed his residency at Northwestern University, where he served as chief medical resident. Dr Paz was a Eudowood Fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School. In addition, he was a postdoctoral fellow in environmental health science at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Daniel Knecht , MD, is a board-certified internist and currently serves as Vice President, Chief Clinical Innovation Officer, CVS Caremark. Dr Knecht’s focus is on helping clients better understand the evolving clinical landscape of speciality medications, develop strategies for better patient care and outcomes and manage costs. Prior to this role, as Vice President, Clinical Product, Dr Knecht was responsible for clinical product ideation, concept development and testing, optimisation, launch, performance and measurement in collaboration with important stakeholders across the enterprise. Dr Knecht is a Fulbright scholar and graduated with honours from Dartmouth College. He also has a joint MD, MBA, from Weill Cornell Medical College and Johnson Graduate School of Management, where he was a recipient of the Lee Family Scholarship. He is an associate clinical professor at Mount Sinai West in New York City, where he still sees patients, and a member of the Board of the Foundation of CUNY School of Public Health.

Andrea Pearson is Chief Growth Officer for DispatchHealth and has more than 20 years of general management, product development and marketing experience and an extensive track record of scaling consumer web and native app businesses. At DispatchHealth, Andrea is focused on driving consumer awareness and demand as service rapidly expands to new markets. She joined DispatchHealth from Healthgrades, where she served in executive roles for more than nine years, most recently as its Chief Marketing Officer. As EVP and GM of Consumer Products, she led the growth of Healthgrades.com to reach more than 1 million visitors a day. Prior to Healthgrades, Andrea spent ten years in marketing and product leadership roles, including GM of Mapquest.com, as the service grew from 15 million monthly visitors to more than 80 million monthly visitors. Her experience spans product development, customer acquisition, affinity partnerships, branding, marketing communications and public relations in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer environments.

Amir Dan Rubin serves as CEO & Founder of Healthier Capital, a venture capital firm focused on healthcare innovation. Amir recently served as CEO of One Medical, the leading member-based primary care organisation transforming health care with its human-centered, technology-powered model. Amir previously served as EVP at UnitedHealth Group’s Optum division, where he focused on making the health system work better. Amir also previously served as President and CEO at Stanford Health Care — the academic health system affiliated with Stanford University — where he helped raise patient experience and quality scores to the highest levels in the nation, grow a regional network, and advance digital and population health. Amir also previously served as COO for UCLA Health, COO for Stony Brook University’s health system, AVP at Memorial Hermann Health System and management consultant at APM. He holds MBA and MHSA degrees from the University of Michigan, a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and has twice received an EY Entrepreneur of the Year award.