Southern California Health Systems and Hospitals faced unprecedented and historic challenges this past year with multiple surges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The availability of critical resources and bed space, the explosion of telemedicine and virtual care, the deluge of population level data for tracking and predicting spread of COVID-19 and the unrelenting burden on front-line providers are just some examples facing healthcare organizations. Now, vaccine distribution and the gradual return to business, school and leisure present different challenges to the stressed health systems.

HIMSS SoCal is grateful for the participation of physician leaders who will be sharing their experiences, lessons learned and outlook on the future of healthcare across Southern California.

Moderator

Dr. Alan Young is a physician innovator and strategist with diverse clinical, corporate and entrepreneurial accomplishments. He currently is the Head of Clinical Partnership at KelaHealth, a surgical intelligence platform using AI to predict complications for patients. He also serves on the National HIMSS Physician Committee and is the HIMSS SoCal CMIO Committee Chair.

Guest Speakers

Shaun Miller, MD, MBA, completed his Medical Doctorate and Master of Business Administration degrees at the University of California, Irvine, in 2006 and joined Cedars-Sinai as a medical resident in 2007. He is board certified in Internal Medicine as well as subspecialty certified in Clinical Informatics. He has been working as an attending hospitalist with the Inpatient Specialty Program hospitalist group since 2010. Dr. Miller was an early electronic health record (EHR) champion and has played an integral role in the multiyear implementation of the enterprise EHR at Cedars-Sinai. In 2013, he transitioned into the role of medical director of inpatient clinical technology and continued to play an important role in leveraging the EHR and other clinical technologies to support quality improvement and population health initiatives in the hospital. In 2016, he was appointed the associate chief medical information officer. In this role, he maintained a close partnership with the chief medical information officer to advocate innovative technologies in support of safety, quality and effective patient care throughout the health system. In 2020, he was promoted to Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer, and now helps lead various strategic initiatives supporting clinical efficiency, population health, and quality of care throughout the health system. He has a particular focus in implementing clinical decision support, enhancing EHR clinical workflows, and supporting physician EHR proficiency. Additionally, he is helping lead the expansive use of patient-focused digital health solutions at Cedars-Sinai.

Patrick Meehan, MD is a board certified family physician.  He is currently the medical director of a non-profit, safety net multispecialty group, Martin Luther King Health Associates, located in Compton, California.  He graduated from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo.  He completed a family medicine residency and was chief resident at the UCSF affiliated program at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, California, and completed a second residency in preventive medicine at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.  He has served in various leadership positions in both public health and clinical medicine.  He was state public health director in both New Hampshire and Georgia.  He was county health director for three counties in the Atlanta area.   He spent several years at the CDC in leadership positions, primarily in environmental health and emergency response.  He has served as executive director and medical director of a federally qualified community health center, the Santa Cruz Community Health Centers, and as medical director of the adult outpatient FQHC clinic at San Mateo Medical Center.  His passion is leading organizations that focus on eliminating health disparities as professionally, effectively and compassionately as possible. 

As a pediatric hospitalist, Dr. Paul Fu provides compassionate and family-centered care for children and young adults who have been admitted to the City of Hope Helford Clinical Research Hospital. In addition, as CMIO for City of Hope, he provides strategic leadership to optimize the use of ConnectHope, the City of Hope electronic health record, as well as catalyze technology-based innovation to accelerate the delivery of high quality, patient-centered health care.

Dr. Fu completed his undergraduate studies and medical school at Boston University, pediatric residency, chief residency, and General Academic Pediatrics fellowship at Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and HRSA Maternal and Child Health fellowship at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Most recently, Dr. Fu was CMIO at Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Division Chief and Fellowship Director for the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine, co-lead for the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute biomedical informatics core, and led research informatics for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

His current research focuses upon the systems and processes necessary to leverage EHR data for translational research and evaluating the impact of health IT and eHealth innovation on health outcomes and health disparities in vulnerable populations.

Marlene Millen, MD, is CMIO at UC San Diego Health. She is a board-certified internal medicine doctor. She provides primary care for adults, including preventive care and diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic diseases. Dr. Millen has a special interest in disease prevention and screening, as well as integrated care for patients with a chronic illness. She sees a wide variety of patients, from those with cancer or kidney disease to patients with diabetes or who are in need of a transplant. Dr. Millen treats patients with high-risk family histories to healthy patients who want to maintain or further improve their health. Her research interests include improving medical care as a system and using electronics-based methods such as telemedicine to help provide different ways to deliver care to patients. As a professor in the Department of Medicine, Dr. Millen is involved in training residents and fellows at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Dr. Millen completed her residency training at UC San Diego School of Medicine. She earned her medical degree at University of Virginia.