2023 Board of Directors Bios

REBECCA ADKINS
Rebecca Adkins is currently serving as senior vice president of population health at Jefferson Health. Jefferson includes Jefferson Health Plans, Thomas Jefferson University, and Jefferson Health.  Jefferson Health provides over 5.6 million outpatient visits a year in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  Rebecca has over 20 years’ experience in healthcare working in telehealth, quality, community health and value based care. Rebecca received her bachelors and masters of health administration from Indiana University. 

TRAVIS BROOME
Travis Broome is the senior vice-president of policy and economics at Aledade, Inc. He guides Aledade and partner physicians through the policy, strategy and economics of value based health care. Joining Aledade shortly after its start, he worked on nearly every aspect from business development for both practices and payers, to early analytics, to serving as an ACO executive director for Aledade Louisiana ACO. Prior to Aledade, he spent seven years at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in roles ranging from regulation writing to quality improvement to management. Mr. Broome earned his masters of public health and business administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 

EMILY DUHAMEL BROWER
Emily Brower serves as senior vice president of clinical integration and physician services for Trinity Health, one of the largest multi-institutional Catholic health care delivery systems in the nation, serving more than 30 million people across 22 states. In this role, she provides leadership and strategic direction within the evolving accountable healthcare environment, with an emphasis on clinical integration and transformation under alternative payment models. Ms. Brower joined Trinity Health from Atrius Health, where she last served as vice president of population health, building and executing the essential capabilities required to achieve strong financial and clinical outcomes within integrated care models under value-based reimbursement, particularly for publicly insured populations. Her Medicare ACO team delivered year over year improvement in cost and quality, and the highest per-capita savings in an independent evaluation of the Pioneer model.  Prior to Atrius Health, Ms. Brower spent fifteen years in operational, financial, and contracting leadership roles at Urban Medical Group, a Massachusetts non-profit healthcare organization specializing in the care of medically complex, chronically ill populations across a community-based, long-term care continuum. During that time, she launched a PACE program and other innovative, capitated contracts for medically complex populations and served as Principal Investigator for a multi-year research project analyzing cost and quality outcomes to support payment reform.   Ms. Brower received her BA from Smith College and MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business. 

CLIF GAUS
Clif Gaus, Sc.D. is currently president and CEO of the National Association of ACOs which he helped found in 2012. NAACOS is the only national organization owned and managed by ACOs. It advocates for ACOs on policy and offers shared learning experiences through conferences, webinars, forums and work groups. Dr. Gaus has a diverse background as a public servant, entrepreneur and health executive. He served in senior health positions under Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Clinton. In the 1970's and 80's, as associate administrator of HCFA (now CMS), he directed the development of a broad range of innovations in health care financing and delivery, including the DRG hospital payment system, RBRVS physician payment system, Medicare Hospice Programs and Medicare payment of Physician Assistants. From 1994 to 1997 he was the Administrator of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (now AHRQ). 

In the late 90's Dr. Gaus held the position of executive vice president and chief administrative officer of WellPoint Health Networks Inc. Prior to WellPoint, he was senior vice president of the national Kaiser Permanente Health System in Oakland, California. From 2002-10 he served on the Board of Directors of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Stanford University. In recent years he has consulted for a number of prominent organizations, including a six month engagement with the Administrator of CMS working on the ACO regulations and the start-up of Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). He holds a master's degree in health administration from the University of Michigan and a Doctorate of Science in health care management from The Johns Hopkins University. 

TIM GRONNIGER
Tim Gronniger is the chief value-based solutions officer at Signify Health and joined Signify through the acquisition of Caravan Health in 2022 and now oversees Signify Health’s value based care business. Tim joined Caravan Health in 2017 as the senior vice president for strategy and development, becoming the company president in 2018. In those roles he oversaw the company’s delivery and operations as well as marketing and its strategic growth plan. He is the former chief of staff and director of delivery system reform at CMS where he led the agency’s work on implementation of the new physician payment system created by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, creation of new payment models, drug spending issues, and other topics. He previously held roles at the White House Domestic Policy Council; the House Energy & Commerce; and the Congressional Budget Office, all spanning the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Tim holds masters degrees in public policy and health services administration from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in biochemical sciences from Harvard University.

MELANIE MATTHEWS
Melanie Matthews is the dynamic, creative and innovative CEO at Physicians of Southwest Washington (PSW) and president at MultiCare Connected Care. She brings more than 20 years of operations, financial, human resources and product marketing experience in health care services for specialty populations. Her passion for public policy and engaging legislatures has propelled her as the “voice” of physician health policies. Since she joined the company in 2016, Ms. Matthews has maintained the core principals in which PSW was founded on and expanded business lines to include MSO services including credentialing, coding and compliance and the implementation of CMMI innovation models such as the Next Generation ACO. Her extensive knowledge in post-acute care provides strategic focus in reducing overall cost of care as well as provider and beneficiary engagement. 

Prior to PSW, Ms. Matthews served for three years as vice president of operations for Prestige Care, Inc., where she was responsible for regulatory and financial operations and outcomes for 38 skilled nursing facilities and two Medicare home health agencies in a four-state northwest region. Among her other accomplishments, she serves as co-chair for APG – Risk Evolution Taskforce, was selected by the American Health Care Association as a “National Political Ambassador” in 2013, and was named a national “Future Leader” in 2012.  Ms. Matthews holds a master of science, social gerontology, degree from Central Missouri State University and a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies from Pennsylvania State University.

JEN MOORE
Jennifer Moore, MBA is the president of the MaineHealth Accountable Care Organization (MHACO), whose membership includes 10 acute care hospitals and over 1,700 private practice and employed physicians. Jen oversees all activities associated with the Medicare Shared Savings Program and numerous commercial and Medicare Advantage value based contracts, representing over 260,000 Medicare and commercial lives. Jen has significant expertise in value based contracting, ambulatory quality measurement and performance, data analytics, and network management activities. Prior to her current role, she was the Chief Operating Officer for MHACO. Jen has her masters in business administration and over 25 years of experience in accountable care, physician-hospital organizations and health plans.

GEOFFREY NICHOLSON
P. Geoffrey Nicholson, Jr., M.D., is the senior vice president of population health at Wellspan. In this roll, Dr. Nicholson oversees WellSpan’s efforts in the areas of overall population health, risk contracting, case management and continuing care. He guides the use of technology to improve value-based performance and co-chair the WellSpan Value and Affordability Council, helping to guide the activities of WellSpan service lines, hospitals and medical group as it relates to value-based care performance. Prior to this role, Dr. Nicholson served as CMIO for WellSpan, and lead executive on Project One, the health system’s multi-year journey to integrate and unify the organization’s electronic health systems to one common platform – Epic. He has successfully facilitated Epic installations at legacy WellSpan hospitals, ambulatory locations and medical practices; as well as a rolling installation across WellSpan Philhaven locations. WellSpan’s Franklin and Cumberland county locations went live with Epic in October of 2020. Dr. Nicholson also led WellSpan’s achievement of HIMSS Stage 7 recognition for both inpatient and ambulatory locations – a designation reached by just 5 percent of hospitals and health systems nationally. And he served on the WellSpan 2025 Strategic Planning Committee. Prior to his appointment as CMIO, Dr. Nicholson served as a hospital informatics specialist at WellSpan from 2007 to 2011, responsible for the health system’s inpatient clinical systems. He began his WellSpan career in 2002 as a hospitalist physician. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Lock Haven University and his medical degree from the University of Maryland. He completed his residency in internal medicine at York Hospital and his board-certified in internal medicine and preventative medicine with a subspecialty in clinical informatics. Dr. Nicholson has also completed Lean for Healthcare training at the University of Tennessee.

STEPHEN NUCKOLLS
Stephen Nuckolls is the chief executive officer of Coastal Carolina Health Care, PA, and its ACO, Coastal Carolina Quality Care, Inc. His responsibilities include the direct management of the 60 provider multi-specialty physician-owned medical practice and its ACO. They currently participate in the MSSP’s Enhanced Track and have value-based contracts with Medicare advantage as well as commercial plans. The group has a large primary care base and their operations include an ambulatory surgery center (GI endoscopy), sleep lab, urgent care, and imaging center and 13 other practice locations. Mr. Nuckolls facilitated the formation of the group in 1997 and has served in his current role since that time. Prior to the formation of this organization, Mr. Nuckolls helped guide physicians and integrated hospital organizations in the formation of larger systems. Mr. Nuckolls earned his BA in economics from Davidson College and his MAC from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. He is a founding member of the National Association of ACOs and served in a number of roles on the executive committee including board chair from 2016-2017. In addition to these responsibilities, he serves on the board of Community Care of NC as well as several advisory boards and committees for the North Carolina Medical Society and is a frequent speaker on ACOs and related topics.

MARGARITA OLLET
Margarita Ollet, RN, MBA, is the chief operating officer of Health Choice Network, Inc. (HCN) and Health Choice Network of Florida (HCNFL) and chief executive officer of Health Choice Care (HCC). Ms. Ollet has more than 25 years of experience in South Florida’s dynamic health care arena. Her extensive and diverse background both as a health care executive and a registered nurse gives her a unique perspective in addressing the health care challenges faced by the neediest members of the communities served by HCN’s member centers. In addition, Ms. Ollet employs her vast expertise in the clinical and managed care arenas to guide her in directing HCN’s managed care activities and the development, oversight and operations of the network’s MSO infrastructure. She has spearheaded several clinical, care management and disease management initiatives designed to improve access to health care and quality of health care services provided to underserved populations. Ms. Ollet joined Health Choice Network in 1996 after serving as vice president of managed care for Jessie Trice Community Health System. Prior to assuming this position, she worked in similar positions at Management Utilization Review Associates and Jackson Memorial Hospital Health Plan, having launched her clinical nursing career by serving as a clinical registered nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Ms. Ollet received an MBA in health services administration from the University of Miami and a bachelor of science in nursing from Florida International University. She is a certified health care risk manager and holds a certificate from the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Providers.

BOB RAUNER
Bob Rauner, MD, MPH, splits his time between two jobs, chief medical officer of OneHealth Nebraska ACO and president of Partnership for a Heathy Nebraska, as well as serving on the board of directors Lincoln Public Schools.  Dr. Rauner received his undergraduate degree in philosophy at Creighton University, his medical degree at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, his residency training in family medicine at the Lincoln Family Medicine Program, and his master of public health degree at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Prior to his current roles he was a small town family physician including obstetrics and inpatient care in Sidney, Nebraska from 1998 to 2003, then served on the faculty of the Lincoln Family Medicine Program from 2003 to 2010, and then transitioned into health leadership and policy roles after finishing his MPH in 2010. His wife Lisa is also a family physician.

ARSHAD RAHIM
Arshad Rahim, MD, has worked for Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS) Population Health and the associated CIN for the last six years with the primary goal to help transform health care delivery in the greater New York City and create a model of value-based care excellence. In his current role, he serves as chief medical officer and senior vice president for MSHS Population Health and for the Mount Sinai Clinically Integrated Network, which includes 7,000 employed and community providers. Dr. Rahim has over 20 years of healthcare industry leadership experience at innovative organizations and companies including as vice president of quality for Essence Healthcare and Lumeris, a population health and analytics company. He also served as group vice president of quality improvement and innovation at Healthgrades where he built, led and helped deliver, coast to coast, quality measurement and quality improvement services. They had annual revenues of about $25M a year and impacting physician and provider behavior was a key value proposition of our work. He was also a director at Sg2, a health care intelligence, analytics, and services company for many hospitals and health systems, where he developed his analytic and statistical skills. Dr. Rahim has a BA in economics from Duke University, an MD from the University of North Carolina, and an MBA from Emory University. He completed his internal medicine residency at Yale University and Northwestern University. He is an actively practicing primary care internist and hospitalist at the Mount Sinai Hospital.

ANTHONY REED
Tony Reed most recently served as the vice president of population health operations for ChristianaCare.  Prior to this role, he served as the vice president of population health strategic solutions, clinical and network services at Ascension Medical Group (AMG) where he had responsibility for all value based health care programs and contracts for AMG. Mr. Reed is on the board of directors for NAACOS and has presented at many conferences including the leaders board for population health management, NAACOS conferences, The Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania, xG Health Solutions, Inc and for the Marcus Evans Group.  He is in his 23^rd year of work in health care industry and his previous roles include, chief administrative officer for the Keystone Accountable Care Organization, AVP of accountable care initiatives at Geisinger Health, director of business development for Geisinger Diversified Services and program director for VITALine Infusion Pharmacy Services. He also served for seven years as a product director for B. Braun Medical, Inc. with product development responsibilities and gaining FDA and Health Canada approvals for their lines of infusion pumps and accessories.

REBECCA ROHRBACH
Rebecca Rohrbach, DNP, has been in healthcare for 30 years. She currently serves as the chief population health officer for NOMS ACO, LLC.  She was a family nurse practitioner until 7 years ago when she took the role as vice president of population health for NOMS ACO, LLC.  Rebecca works closely with the champion physicians of the organization to promote transformation of healthcare delivery at NOMS Healthcare. This role entails oversight of a care management team, development of quality incentive scorecards for physicians and team members, evaluation of programs, quality metric reporting, and development of post-acute care networks and management of the ACO. She is also responsible for the exploration and determining feasibility of implementing other CMS innovation programs. As a result, many of our primary care providers are CPC+ track 2 and the orthopedics’ participation in BPCI-A total lower extremity joint bundle payment programs.  Rebecca received her master of science in nursing specializing in family practice from the Medical College of Ohio in 2001 and a doctorate in nursing practice from the University of Toledo in collaboration with Wright State University in 2015.

NINA TAGGART
Nina Taggart MA, MD, MBA, FAAO is the senior medical director for accountable care for the Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) and medical director for the LVHN ACO.  Bringing extensive health insurance experience to a provider network, she joined LVHN in July of 2015 to lead the design, development and delivery of LVHN’s Population Health initiatives in the Innovation Division.  Dr. Taggart supports all aspects of Value Based Reimbursement programs (VBR) for the network including payer contracting, risk contracting design, analytics, and care management operations. In her role as medical director for the LVHN ACO, she leads a team of professionals on all aspects of MSSP program operations and strategy, including authoring recommendations under the Pathways to Success program.  Dr. Taggart works to educate physicians in the PHO on key aspects of VBR performance.  She supports the development and deployment of the PHO’s physician incentive program used as a method to align incentives and distribute VBR dollars to participating primary care and specialty physicians.  She leads a clinical operational team dedicated to managing patients assigned through all VBR contracts, including both commercial and governmental programs.  Dr. Taggart also works closely with Populytics, LVHN’s informatics and analytic subsidiary, to improve our system wide approach to Population Health. She provides clinical direction to Populytics and is responsible for the development of analytic processes to improve both the quality of care and financial performance under VBR programs.  Prior to coming to LVHN, Dr. Taggart served in physician executive roles with increasing responsibility working for a regional Blue Cross plan, culminating with her position as chief medical officer.  Dr. Taggart has published/presented on computer graphics, molecular biology and ophthalmic plastic surgery as well as managed care and population health.  She has held multiple leadership positions on medical staff and served on the Board of Penn Care Board and the Board of the Luzerne County Medical Society.  Dr. Taggart holds degrees from Bryn Mawr College (AB), Haverford College (MA), Alvernia University (MBA) and Weill Cornell Medical College (MD) and is a certified professional in healthcare information technology. She completed her internship at Bryn Mawr Hospital, and her residency at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.  She is a board certified ophthalmologist.

ANTHONY VALDES
Anthony joined WellCare Health Plans (now Centene Corporation) in 2013 and is the president of Collaborative Health Systems. Previously, he served as the National Medicaid vice president of market performance. Before joining WellCare, Anthony held a number of positions of increasing leadership responsibility, including vice president of physical medicine for Healthways, chief executive officer of Maryland Medicaid health plan for UnitedHealth Group, and several financial management positions for The Procter & Gamble Company. Anthony received a bachelor’s degree in finance from Florida State University and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. 

DEBBIE WELLE-POWELL
Debbie Welle-Powell is a health care thought leader, educator, national speaker, and content expert in delivery systems models of care, population health and digital care. As the former chief population health officer at Essentia Health. She designed, built, and operationalized Essentia’s $2.5 billion dollar transition from a primarily fee-for-service model of care to one that focused on value, the patient and risk-based contracting with payers. Her twenty-five years of exceptional and national executive healthcare experience and background in multi-state, large integrated delivery systems, coupled with industry involvement and insights into emerging opportunities, trends, and challenges have been valuable to health systems and purchasers seeking to grow, diversity and promote its expertise in the development and implementation of data-driven strategies and solutions in population health and value-based care. Ms. Welle-Powell currently serves on many national and local boards including the National Association of ACOs, National Committee on Quality Assurance, Summit Community Care Clinic in Frisco, Colorado, and she teaches at the University of Colorado’s Executive MBA program. Her work has earned her many honors including being recognized as one of 58 Top Leaders in Population Health by Becker’s in 2022, Colorado’s Most Powerful and Influential Women Award, Outstanding Businesswoman Award from the Denver community, the Frances Wisebart Jacobs Award for Philanthropy from Mile High United Way, and Health Care Champion award from Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved.

KAREN WILDING
Karen Wilding is the chief value officer and president of Nemours Children’s Health and Delaware Children’s Health Network. Working “well beyond medicine”, Karen’s areas of focus include the growth of strategic partnerships that support the value journey, clinical practice transformation, and emerging payment models. Through community engagement, an emphasis on care across the continuum, and promoting overall health and well-being, she is positioning Nemours as a national thought leader in this area. The Nemours value portfolio includes over 14 active value-based contracts, near 200k children, and over 280M of expense under management, with contracts in both upside and downside risk. In realizing the quadruple aim, she brings commitment and vast experience to accelerate clinical and business transformation at Nemours. She has extensive knowledge of commercial and government payer models, facilitating workstreams and process improvement efforts on accountable care for our acute facilities and practice locations across all regions. Karen also provides executive oversight for the Delaware Children’s Health Network (DCHN), the Nemours-owned clinically integrated network. The DCHN partners with practices and payers to ensure the most efficient, effective, equitable, and high-quality care; the foremost goal is improved population health outcomes and create the “healthiest generations”. A former first responder, she has over twenty years of experience in healthcare, with over ten years in senior leadership for accountable care, analytics, and quality. Karen brings a robust value-based care background, with start-up, contracting, and innovation work that has paved transformation for both clinical and business operations. She holds a master’s degree in health administration, several professional certifications, and serves on the board of directors for NAACOS.