Both panels are approved for 1.50 Face-to-Face credits each (Total – 3.0)

Date: April 30, 2018
Time: 7:00am – 11:00am
Location: CHRISTUS Good Shepherd Institute for Healthy Living
3133 Good Shepherd Way Longview, TX 75605

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Master of Ceremonies: Gurinder Singh, Programming Chair, ACHE East Texas

Schedule of Events

7:00am – 7:30am Registration/Welcome/Announcements

7:30am – 9:00am Panel 1: Accountability for the Care We Provide

Moderator:

Mary Elizabeth Jackson
Vice President
CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances Health System

Panelists:

Anthony Brooks, MBA
Chief Executive Officer at Azalea
Orthopedics & Sports Medicine

Erich Koch, FACHE
Chief Financial Officer
Tyler Family Circle of Care

Ron Short, MBA, FACHE
Chief Operating Officer
Care Systems, Inc.

9:00am – 9:15am Break

9:15am – 10:45am Panel 2: Healthcare Executives Role in the Opioid Crisis

Moderator:

Katy Nustad, FACHE
Administrative Officer
Longview Veteran Affair Clinic

Panelists:

Lynn Jennings, MD
Staff Physician
Longview VA Clinic in Longview, TX 

Sushma Sharma, PhD
Director Community, Public and Population
Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council Foundation

Candy Still, PharmD, BCPS
Academic Detailing Clinical Pharmacy Specialist
Veterans Health Administration in VISN16

Brad Walsh
Project Administrator
Parkland Hospital

10:45pm – 11:00am Master of Ceremonies’ Closing Remarks and Adjourn

Speakers Bios:

Anthony Brooks, MBA, currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Azalea Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in Tyler, TX. He joined the practice in February of 2018 after serving as the Chief Operating Officer at Longview Regional Medical Center for two years. Prior to his work at Longview Regional Medical Center, Anthony served in multiple roles with increasing responsibility including Chief Financial Officer at Sparks Medical Center and Assistant Chief Financial Officer at Dallas Regional Medical Center. Anthony has a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Webster University and a Bachelors in Business Administration with a focus in accounting from Texas State University. In his spare time, Anthony enjoys spending time with his family and traveling.

Mary Elizabeth Jackson currently serves as the Vice President of Governmental Affairs and Community Relations in Tyler, Texas. Expanding the communication lines between rural service areas, local community leaders, and the health system’s leadership is a prime focus her current position.

Prior to coming to CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances, Mary Elizabeth owned a communication-consulting firm, offering services ranging from fund raising, message development, strategic planning, community organization, media relations, public relations development, and mediation. Her clients included public policy organizations, not-for-profit groups, and public elected officials. She has worked for the Texas Attorney General as communication director and statewide director of Volunteer Services, the State Comptroller’s Office Regional Economic Development, and for the Texas House of Representatives.

Mary Elizabeth has worked in the public policy field helping entities to formulate policy, work on strategic planning, and to deal with conflict resolution in-group settings. With over 30 years of experience in advocacy work, she is now a volunteer for many organizations in developing communication plans and message development.

Jackson holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Texas at Tyler. She has completed additional graduate studies at the University of Oklahoma and Southwestern Oklahoma State University. She has also completed the required course of study in mediation and mediation for family law.

As a community volunteer, she has served as a consumer member of the State Board of Nurse Examiners (RN) where she was elected chair (first consumer elected), former Council member for the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section of the State Bar of Texas, Leadership Texas, Robert Woods Johnson Foundation Governance Council for the Southern Rural Access Project for Texas, and past chair of the Tyler-Smith County Area Chamber of Commerce. She is currently on the Texas Association Board of Directors.

She and her husband, Alan, reside in Tyler and attend Marvin United Methodist Church. They have two children Austin Reeve a graduate of Texas Tech Law School who lives in Tyler with his wife, Laura. They are the proud parents two daughters, Maryellen (3) and Allison (22 months). Ashley Elizabeth, who is a graduate of Texas A&M, lives in San Antonio with her husband, Brent, and their two girls, Addison (11) and Katherine (9) and son, Tyler (7).

Dr. Lynn Jennings currently serves as a Staff Physician at the Longview VA Clinic in Longview, TX that is affiliated with the Overton Brooks VA Medical Center. Since serving at the Longview VA Clinic, Dr. Jennings has served in various leadership roles including more recently as a champion of the opioid communication strategy at the facility. Dr. Jennings obtained her medical degree at the University of Tennessee Center for the Health Science in Memphis, Tennessee. She completed an Anesthesiology residency at the University of Tennessee in Memphis and a second residency in Family Practice at the North Central Texas Medical Foundation affiliated with University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center-Family Medicine. Dr. Jennings has over 33 years of healthcare experience with special interest in opioids. Dr. Jennings resides in Tatum, TX (city) with her husband.

Erich Koch, FACHE, is the Chief Financial Officer of Tyler Family Circle of Care which is a 5 location, $17 million dollar FQHC serving over 21,000 unique patients for over 70,000 visits. Prior to assuming this role, Erich served for almost 3 years as Chief Financial Officer of Robeson Health Care Corporation located in Pembroke, NC, during which time he helped lead the organization through a turnaround. Before Erich got there, the company lost $900K, and after Erich left, the company had a profit of over $800K.

Erich has more than 18 years of combined healthcare financial management and general accounting experience. Prior to joining Family Circle of Care in Tyler, Erich also served as a Chief Financial Officer or Controller for a Critical Access Hospital, Psychiatric Hospital, Acute Care Hospital, FQHC, and FQHC look-a-like. Erich specializes in FQHC’s and FQHC look-a-likes.

Erich is actively involved with the Health Financial Management Association (HFMA), the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), and The Texas Association for Healthcare Financial Administration (TAHFA). Erich is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

Erich is a graduate of Heriot-Watt University (MBA, November 2005), and Lakehead University (BA Administration, May 1998). Erich is also a Fellow with ACHE (FACHE), a Fellow with HFMA (FHFMA), a Certified Public Accountant from North Dakota (CPA – ND), and a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator from Alaska (NHA – AK).

Katy Nustad, MHA, FACHE, is the Administrative Officer at the Longview VA Clinic in Longview, TX and an East Texas native. She is responsible for daily outpatient operations serving nearly 7,000 East Texas Veterans as part of the Overton Brooks VA Medical Center in Shreveport, LA. She has served in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) in three health systems in four states over the past 10 years and held various leadership roles including Executive Officer to the Director/CEO, Administrative Officer of Medicine Service, and Administrative Fellow. She holds a Masters of Health Administration from Texas A&M University and is an active member of the Junior League of Longview, the East Texas Chapter of American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), the Longview Chamber of Commerce, and the First United Methodist Church of Longview. Ms. Nustad is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and is board certified in healthcare management. She currently resides in Longview, TX with her husband and two children.

Sushma Sharma, PhD, is the Director Community, Public and Population Health at the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council Foundation (DFWHCF), Irving, TX.

Dr. Sharma manages public health research initiatives in her current role at DFWHCF. She serves as the North Texas Community Health Collaborative (CHC) leader, which has membership of more than 45 organizations, including 11 area health systems and 96 hospitals.

Dr. Sharma is a scientific executive with over 15 years of post-doctoral experience in scientific research and management. She has extensive experience in conducting and managing research and community programs. She has published over 60 peer-reviewed publications in international journals, serves on the editorial board of international journals, and is an invitee reviewer for several journals. She has won several awards, most recent being the Dr. Ron J. Anderson Thinking Progressively for Health and Innovation Award-Texas Public Health Association 2017.

Dr Sharma’s work has taken her all over the world. In her previous role, she worked as a Senior scientist at the University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA. She was a Senior scientist and lab manager at the University of Highlands and Islands in Scotland, UK. She completed her post-doctoral research fellowship from the British Heart Foundation UK, after earning her PhD from India.

Dr. Sharma’s ongoing community initiatives:

• addressing behavioral health (mental health and substance abuse) related disparities in 16 North Texas Counties,
• training 10,000 North Texans in Mental Health First Aid (10,000 lives initiative)
• standardizing domestic violence reporting and promoting data sharing among North Texas hospitals to facilitate early intervention and prevention of domestic violence
• the SAMHSA-funded Dallas County ReJuvenATE (Revitalize Juveniles through Acknowledgement, Training and Empowerment) program to assist high-risk youth and families and promote resilience and equity in communities that have recently faced civil unrest (reference: Dallas shooting in 2016).

Ron Short, MBA, FACHE
Chief Operating Officer
Care Systems, Inc.

Dr. Candy Still received her Doctorate of Pharmacy degree at Harding University College of Pharmacy in Searcy, AR. She completed her PGY-1 Pharmacy Practice Residency at the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks in Fayetteville, AR. Dr. Still is currently serving as an Academic Detailing Clinical Pharmacy Specialist for the Veterans Health Administration in VISN16 as the Opioid Safety Initiative Lead.  Prior to her career in pharmacy, Dr. Still was in the field of Physical Therapy and has over 24 years of healthcare experience.  Dr. Still lives in Bentonville, AR with her husband and two children.

Brad Walsh is a Project Administrator at Parkland Hospital in Dallas.  He has served as chair of the HEI survey team for the past six years, which has earned Parkland the highest marks on the Human Rights Campaign’s annual hospital survey each year.  Brad is trained as an epidemiologist, with research and community work which includes transgender health and LGBTQ community needs assessment projects.  Brad has a Masters of Public Health from the UT Health Science Center.

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A special thanks to
CHRISTUS Good Shepherd Institute for Healthy Living
for hosting this event!