SUMMIT HOST

Dr. James Merlino joined Press Ganey as president and chief medical officer of the Transformational Advisory Services division in 2015. As an accomplished surgeon and industry leader in improving the patient experience, Jim draws from more than two decades of health care experience to oversee Press Ganey’s Transformational Advisory Services division. Under his leadership, the team helps providers improve the delivery of safe, high-quality care in a patient-centered environment.

Prior to joining Press Ganey, Jim served as chief experience officer and associate chief of staff at the Cleveland Clinic health system, as well as a practicing staff colorectal surgeon at the organization’s Digestive Disease Institute. At Cleveland Clinic, Jim was responsible for leading strategic programs to improve the patient experience across the system. He spearheaded numerous groundbreaking initiatives to ensure the highest standards for patient care, and improve patient access and referring physician relations. He championed organizational cultural alignment around the patient as a key component of patient-centered care.

SUMMIT ​HOST

Rachel Biblow
Senior Vice President, Transformational Solutions Press Ganey
​
 View Bio >

Rachel Biblow is the Senior Vice President of Transformational Solutions at Press Ganey. In her role, she provides strategic vision and partners with organizations to integrate, execute and advance the ability to deliver safe, high quality and compassionate care experiences across their systems.

Prior to joining Press Ganey, Rachel served for over 15 years at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. During her tenure she worked directly with patients and families, as well as served in a variety of leadership roles with expanding scope and influence. In her most recent role, she served as the Senior Director of Patient and Family Services and Enterprise Co-Sponsor for the Patient and Family Experience initiative. In addition to the strategic and operational oversight for several clinical support areas; she led the design, strategy, and implementation of an enterprise-wide initiative to improve overall patient and family engagement and experience. Through collaborative efforts, she commissioned high performing and cross-functional teams to establish organizational values and standards that served as the foundation for the organization. These essential building blocks catapulted necessary changes that accelerated system and process improvements and reaffirmed CHOP’s long-standing commitment to partnering with patients and families to consistently achieve safe, high quality and compassionate care experiences.

She is passionate about improving safety, quality and the overall experience in healthcare and has served on a variety of committees to advance these efforts; including, Ethics, Value-Based Care, Transparency Advisory Council and Quality Improvement Committees. She is a firm believer that exceptional care experiences are a team sport and requires each and every one of us to play a role.

Rachel is a founding leader in establishing the National Pediatric Experience Collaborative formed in 2016. The Collaborative is a consortium of leading children’s hospitals working together to improve and advance safe, high quality, and compassionate care experiences across all systems. She is an international speaker on Experience, Family-Centered Care, Social Work leadership, and has presented at multiple health systems and conferences. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, from the Pennsylvania State University and a Masters in Social Work from the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Caitlin Beck Stella, MPH, serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. Stella comes to Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital with an impressive background and experience in children’s healthcare and professional highlights that have allowed her to build a legacy early in her career.

Before joining Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, Stella was the Chief Administrative Officer for UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital and Women’s Health. She led efforts to affiliate with Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital and developed a system-wide strategy for the joint expansion of children’s health services in Southern California.

After completing her undergraduate degree in Child Development at Virginia Tech, she headed to Los Angeles to complete an internship in Child Psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Later, she began working in clinical research administration at the institution currently known as the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA Medical Center, overseeing the start-up of a multi-million-dollar clinical research Center of Excellence funded by the National Institutes of Health.

During her time at UCLA, she also completed a Master’s in Public Health in Health Policy and Management, which led her to pursue a management consulting career in the healthcare advisory practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Kevin Churchwell, MD
President & Chief Operating Officer
Boston Children’s Hospital

View Bio >

Kevin B. Churchwell, MD, is the President and Chief Operating Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital. He provides leadership, direction, integration and oversight for the medical delivery system, while partnering with the Chief Executive Officer on a full range of research, clinical, academic, operational and strategic issues.

Prior to joining Boston Children’s Dr. Churchwell was Chief Executive Officer for Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE. As the lead administrator in the Delaware Valley, Dr. Churchwell was actively driving efforts to increase the quality and affordability of care for all children. Under his leadership, the Leapfrog Group recognized Nemours duPont as one of 12 safest children’s hospitals.

Dr. Churchwell also served as the CEO and Executive Director for the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital, part of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN. He previously served in several other capacities, including Chief-of-Staff, Medical Director for the Children's Health and Injury Prevention Program, Medical Director for the Pediatric Critical Care Services, and Transport Director.

A graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Vanderbilt Medical School in Nashville, Dr. Churchwell completed his pediatric residency and a clinical fellowship in Anesthesia and Pediatric Critical Care at Boston Children's Hospital. Since 1993, Dr. Churchwell has been a clinician and faculty member at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is a diplomat for the National Board of Medical Examiners and is board certified with the American Board of Pediatrics. Dr. Churchwell was recently appointed the Robert and Dana Smith Associate Professor of Anesthesia at the Harvard Medical School.

Larry H. Hollier Jr., MD, FACS, FAAP
Surgeon-in-Chief, Texas Children's Hospital; Chief of Plastic Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine

View Bio >

Dr. Hollier serves as the Surgeon in Chief of Texas Children’s Hospital as well as the Chief of Plastic Surgery at the Baylor College of Medicine. The Department of Surgery at Texas Children’s is the largest in the country with 130 full-time surgeons and 135 advanced practice providers. It is also the busiest clinically with over 30,000 surgeries performed in 2017 and 180,000 clinic visits. Clinically, Dr. Hollier specializes in pediatric facial reconstruction including cleft and craniofacial repair.

He has also been very focused on improving the patient and family experience at Texas Children’s by initiating projects such as same-day clinic appointments and surgeries and the first ever pediatric pharmacy delivery project in which families receive their child’s medicines and are counseled by a pediatric pharmacist before discharge. For this work, he was named Physician of the Year for the United States in 2016 by Press Ganey.

He has authored over 200 manuscripts and over 100 book chapters. He serves as editor or co-editor for many scientific journals. These roles include serving as the section editor for pediatric and craniofacial surgery for the most widely read plastic surgery journal, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

He’s also been very involved in global surgical work. In addition to organizing and participating in numerous educational and capacity building surgical projects in Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East, he serves as director of the Baylor Global Surgery Residency. This is one of the first ACGME approved programs of its type. He also serves as chairman of the Medical Board of Smile Train. In that capacity, Dr. Hollier helps to supervise safety and quality in over 100,000 pediatric surgeries in 85 countries around the world.

Myra Gregorian, MA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Chief People Officer & Senior Vice President
Seattle Children’s


View Bio >

Myra Gregorian works closely with, and supports the senior executive team of the organization with assessing, implementing and evaluating talent development and creative people strategies, ensuring that they are in alignment with overall organizational strategy and values. Prior to joining Seattle Children’s, Myra led human capital at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

Myra holds a B.S. in Business Administration, and a M.A. in Organizational Leadership from Woodbury University. She is SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources), SHRM-SCP (Society for Human Resources Management Senior Certified Professional) certified and is a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner. 

Myra lives in beautiful Seattle with her husband and two young children, Evan and Elin, ages nine and six. Since becoming a mom of two, much of her time off is devoted to kid-friendly activities. Exploring the PNW with their recently acquired puppy, Esme has also become a fun family pursuit.

Fiona Levy, MD, MBA
Executive Director, Sala Institute for Child and Family Centered Care, Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone; Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs, Department of Pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine

View Bio >

Fiona Howard Levy, MD serves as Executive Director of the Sala Institute for Child and Family Centered Care at Hassenfeld Children's Hospital at NYU Langone, and Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs for the NYU Langone Health Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Levy came to NYU Langone from the Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, where she served as the Chief Quality Officer for Cohen Children’s and the Pediatric Service Line at the North Shore-LIJ Health System, and Professor of Pediatrics at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine.

 Prior to her return to her hometown of New York City, she was the Vice President for Quality and Director of Hospital Access and Inpatient Services at Children’s Medical Center Dallas and Professor of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern School of Medicine.

Dr. Levy earned a BA in chemistry from Wellesley College, and received her medical degree from New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York. She completed a residency in pediatrics at SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York and a fellowship in critical care medicine at Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, Seattle, Washington. Dr. Levy also earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Washington University in St Louis. 

Dr. Levy recently served as a member of the Patient Safety Team for the Child Health Patient Safety Organization and The Clinical Steering Team for Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety. She currently serves on the Children’s Hospital Association Quality and Performance Committee of the Board of Trustees.

Craig Clapper, PE, CMQ/OE
Partner, ​Transformational Advisory Services
Press Ganey



View Bio >

Before he started with Press Ganey, Craig was a founding Partner and the Chief Knowledge Officer of HPI. Craig has over 25 years of experience improving reliability in nuclear power, transportation, manufacturing, and health care. He specializes in cause analysis (including nuclear power events and component failures, commercial aviation components, and the Texas A&M bonfire structure collapse), reliability improvement (including Feed Water & Main Turbine systems in nuclear power, manufacturing at Baker Hughes, and chemotherapy processes at St Jude’s Children’s Hospital), and safety culture improvements (for Duke Energy, US Department of Energy, ABB, Westinghouse, Framatome ANP, Sentara Healthcare, and others). He now is the lead ​partner on several safety culture engagements for health care systems. 

Prior to forming HPI, Craig was the Chief Operating Officer of Performance Improvement International, Chief Engineer for Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station and Systems Engineering Manager for Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station. He is a registered professional engineer in Arizona, has a Master in Business Administration, and is a Certified Manager of Quality and Organizational Excellence by the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

Carolyn Quinn, RN, MSN, NEA-BC
Executive Director
Cohen Children’s Medical Center


View Bio >

Carolyn Quinn’s responsibilities as deputy executive director at Cohen Children’s Medical Center include overseeing the daily operations of the children’s hospital. Ms. Quinn, who has held a variety of clinical and leadership roles at Cohen since 1987, previously served as the associate executive director of patient care services and chief nursing executive. 

As chief nursing executive, she created and facilitated the strategic plan for nursing and clinical services, and she assumed fiscal responsibility for the largest cost center at Cohen Children’s. She is an integral member of Northwell Health Nurse Executive Council and has focused on the professional development of nurses. Her work has resulted in a national certification rate of 65 percent. Eighty-five percent of her nurses hold a bachelor’s of science in nursing — the highest percentage Northwell-wide and higher than the national and state averages. 

Ms. Quinn is an innovative thinker. Her staffing strategies, which included creating nursing competence across institutions, reduced nursing overtime costs by 68 percent and agency cost by 92 percent while maintaining fewer than 5-percent RN turnover. Nursing engagement scores (4.23) at Cohen Children’s were among the highest in the health system. Seventy-five-percent of Cohen Children's unit-based nursing scores for patient experience are also well above the Press Ganey mean for nursing care. Nursing quality has also outperformed national benchmarks in catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI), patient falls and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP).

These quality outcomes helped demonstrate excellence in care as the American Nurses' Credentialing Center (ANCC) recognized Cohen Children's as a Magnet hospital in 2016. Cohen Children's is the only children’s hospital in the New York metro region to receive this recognition, and the 31st children's hospital in the country. 

Ms. Quinn holds a master’s in nursing from Molloy College and a bachelor’s in nursing from Adelphi University. She is a member of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the American Organization of Nurse Executives, American College Healthcare Executives and she is certified through American Nurse Credentialing Center as a Nurse Executive – Advanced.

Joan Shook, MD, MBA, FAAP, FACEP
Chief Safety Officer, Deputy Chief Quality Officer, Chief Clinical Information Officer, Texas Children’s Hospital; Professor of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine

View Bio >

​Dr. Joan Shook is the Chief Safety Officer, Deputy Chief Quality Officer and Chief Clinical Information Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital. Additionally, she is a professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and a practicing Pediatrician. Dr. Shook graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1981 and has been in practice for 36 years.

Deirdre Mylod, PhD
Executive Director, Institute for Innovation; Senior Vice President, Research & Analytics
Press Ganey


View Bio >

Deirdre Mylod, PhD, joined Press Ganey in 1997 and currently serves as the executive director of the organization’s Institute for Innovation and senior vice president of Research & Analytics. In this joint role, she is responsible for advancing the understanding of the entire patient experience, including patient satisfaction, clinical process and outcomes. Through the Institute, Mylod partners with leading health care providers to study and implement transformative concepts for improving the patient experience.

As a prominent thought leader within Press Ganey and the industry, regularly lectures on such topics as public policy, legislation and the future of the patient experience. She is the architect of Press Ganey’s Suffering Framework, which reframes the view of the patient experience as a means to understand unmet patient needs and reduce patient suffering. She has extensive expertise in survey development, methodology and statistics. Mylod holds a master’s degree and a PhD in psychology from the University of Notre Dame.

Chrissy Daniels, MS
Partner, ​Medical Practice, Consumerism
& Transparency
Press Ganey

View Bio >

Chrissy Daniels is a national thought leader in patient experience and health care value. She joined Press Ganey in August, 2017 and brings to her role of partner more than 20 years of expertise in advancing the patient experience and building an engaging and collaborative culture. She is also widely recognized for her pioneering work in the areas of consumerism and physician performance data transparency. 

Prior to joining Press Ganey, Chrissy was Director of Strategic Initiatives at University of Utah Health Care, responsible for teaching and coaching physicians, leaders and staff on the importance of patient experience as a measure of quality. In this role, she was also responsible for designing the University of Utah Health Care’s online physician review process, making the system the first in the country to electronically survey its patients and post the results publicly online. In addition, Chrissy worked closely with hospital, physician and executive leadership to drive culture change around improving patient experience and value in every encounter across the system. This work resulted in system-wide initiatives targeting leadership and team development, communication, and motivation which evolved into a model for cultural transformation.

Darlene Barkman
Family Consultant
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia


View Bio >

Darlene Barkman is the mother of two daughters. At the age of six, her younger daughter was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and also suffered a pediatric stroke. It was at that time that she joined Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as a family partner, after making frequent visits and spending countless hours in the Hospital and within the Care Network, as specialists treated her daughter’s leukemia. For over ten years, Darlene has worked as a Family Consultant at CHOP, as well as the Co-Chair for the Family Advisory Council. Darlene has helped to ensure that new systems and programs reflect the most critically important things to support patients and their families. Foremost, Darlene helps to provide services to patients and families, in order to honor, empower, and respect the central role of the family as the constant in a child’s life. This entails educating families, staff, volunteers, and the larger community on the principles and applications of family-centered care, and the overall patient experience.

Laura Cooley, PhD
Senior Director of Education and Outreach, Academy of Communication in Healthcare; Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine


View Bio >

Laura Cooley, PhD, serves as Senior Director of Education and Outreach for The Academy of Communication in Healthcare (ACH) and Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Dr. Cooley leads strategic efforts to support the non-profit mission of ACH by collaborating with healthcare leaders to develop and deliver customized communication skills training programs. She has recently led program implementation efforts for major health systems such as: Stanford Healthcare, Yale New Haven Hospital, Northwell Health, Adventist Health, The Texas Children's Hospital, and many other health systems across the U.S. While earning her doctorate in Health Communication Science she examined organizational and interpersonal communication dynamics encountered across the healthcare context. Her research interests include the intersections between patient-centered care, interpersonal skills, mindfulness, empathy, and communication in the end-of-life context. She frequently presents to audiences at major healthcare systems and at national events hosted by organizations such as, The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), The American Medical Group Association (AMGA), Planetree, The Beryl Institute, and Press Ganey. She recently co-edited the book "Communication Rx: Transforming Healthcare Through Relationship-Centered Communication".

​Elisa Jones
Director, Patient and Family Centered Care
Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital


View Bio >

As the Patient & Family Centered Care Director, Elisa Jones provides education to patients, families and staff about our Patient & Family Centered Care philosophy, supporting our efforts, reviewing policies and family reading materials, as well as acting as a resource for staff and units when dealing with delicate situations. PFCC Director rounds with staff and the multidisciplinary teams to assist as needed. PFCC Director also coordinates the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Patient & Family Advisory Council, Youth Advisory Council, Joe DiMaggio Volunteer program, Child Life Department as well as Integrative Therapies program.


Elisa has a vast experience of Patient & Family Centered Care which began in 2003 as a Child Life Specialist for on our pediatric unit. In 2005 Elisa served as the Program Manager for Gilda’s Club, overseeing Noogieland, the children's department, as well as the volunteers and providing resources and support groups for the patients and families of all ages. Joe DiMaggio’s Oncology practice was lucky enough to bring her back to the JDCH team in 2009 as their Child Life Specialist and the Love Jen Fund Coordinator. Elisa is a dedicated, caring employee that routinely thinks outside of box to find solutions and to support the staff, patients and families.

Marty Wright
Director, Transformational Advisory Services
Press Ganey


View Bio >

Marty Wright has gathered valuable experience through nearly 15 years of working in healthcare market research, process improvement, and patient safety. As a Director for Transformational Advisory Services, he is responsible for supporting Press Ganey’s advisory services focused on the caregiver experience, including safety culture, employee and physician engagement.

Throughout his career, Marty has both served as a consultant and managed process improvement consultants, all with the goal of helping client organizations improve patient, employee and provider experiences. His clients have ranged from small critical access hospitals to large integrated health systems, and he has managed teams comprised of ten to twenty consultants. 

Marty has partnered with organizations to drive improvement by: Designing quality improvement models, to create efficient and effective ways to drive change; Assessing the efficacy of strategies, tactics and behaviors that influence the delivery of care at the bedside; Coaching and developing individuals to assist them in achieving their highest potential.

Prior to his current role with Press Ganey’s Engagement Consulting and Advisory Practice, he held the position of Vice President, Engagement Services at Avatar Solutions. In this role, Marty was responsible for strategic planning, solution development, client engagements and team leadership over a group of Advisors and Consultants. During his time with Avatar, Marty nearly doubled the consulting revenue while spearheading the integration of two disparate consulting teams to form a cohesive unit for solution delivery. He also spent time consulting for a technology company focused on patient safety where he was tasked with growing relationships with his customers, identifying opportunities within those organizations, and matching solutions to help them achieve their strategic business objectives.

Marty has been a featured speaker at a variety of national healthcare conferences and has coauthored articles in several prominent healthcare publications. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.

Elise Bloch, EdD, OT/L
Associate Professor
Nova Southeastern University


View Bio >

Dr. Bloch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy (OT) at Nova Southeastern University. Prior to that she served on the OT Faculty at Florida International University (FIU). Elise serves as Chair of the College Inter-professional Education Committee where she advocates for patient and family education (PFCC) education. While at FIU, she developed a comprehensive PFCC education online module for faculty development.  Dr. Bloch currently teaches a PFCC elective for OT doctoral students and serves as secretary of the Florida Occupational Therapy Association.  She is also an executive committee member of Florida Families Leaders Network.  Prior to academic appointments, Dr. Bloch worked as a pediatric occupational therapist in schools, early intervention, children’s hospital and pediatric rehab centers.