Founding Members
Kevin Bresnahan
Kevin Bresnahan, MD practices Emergency Medicine in Massachusetts. He has extensive experience in the management of our physician group, department and hospital. In his twenty-five years of practicing on the front lines of medicine, the health care system in which we operate has evolved dramatically. The coming era will see advances in patient empowerment and education, access through the utilization of new technologies, information sharing and availability, and integrated practice support. Through such changes, we strive to improve the experience of the patient and the provider. It is clear that moving forward will require extensive multidisciplinary collaboration. This is why he is excited about supporting the mission of the SHCI as it seeks to advance healthcare through innovation in cost, quality, and access.
Krzysztof Laudanski
Krzysztof “Kris” Laudanski, MD, PhD, MHCI is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the University of Pennsylvania. He is board-certified in both anesthesiology and critical care. He is the Fellow of Critical Care Medicine. His clinical experience focuses on managing ECMO, VAD, postoperative recovery, sepsis, and postoperative cognitive decline. Dr. Laudanski's activities are split between research, innovation, and mentoring. His research focuses on the three distinctive areas: regulation of DNA expression in survivors of critical care illnesses, health care operations/medical decision-making processes, and medical volunteerism.
Lucia DiNapoli
For the last three years, Lucia DiNapoli has built a portfolio of projects and initiatives that drive excellence at the #1-ranked school of nursing in the world. Lucia is responsible for leading organizational change to accelerate process improvements, develop innovative product and service lines, and cultivate an inclusive culture that nurtures the largest workforce in healthcare – nurses. In 2019, she foundedTrajectory Consulting, a firm focused on enhancing organizational. That year, she was also a finalist in the “Your Big Idea” Challenge powered by the Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation for the next meaningful mental health and wellness solutions.
Hima Prabhakar
Dr. Hima Prabhakar, MD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been an attending radiologist at Pennsylvania Hospital (Penn Medicine) for the past 9 years, and specializes in CT/MRI/Ultrasound with specific interest in oncologic and women’s imaging, as well as patient quality and safety. Her interests lie in utilizing collaborative evidenced based/data-driven research to devise innovative approaches to tackle some of the barriers to improving health and health care access.
Johnson Khor
Johnson Khor is the Center Coordinator for the Center for the Study & Treatment of Castleman & Inflammatory Lymphadenopathies (CSTL) at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a current Masters of Health Care Innovation Candidate at the Perelman School of Medicine after graduating from UC Berkeley where he studied Microbial Biology and Education. Health Care Innovation is important to Johnson as he works in the rare disease sphere. His goal is to be able to help shape a more equitable and effective health care system for individuals suffering from rare and chronic diseases with the help of the MHCI degree and the SHCI.
Jon Pomeroy
Jon Pomeroy, MD is an internal medicine physician and application analyst at Penn Medicine. His current work involves predictive healthcare models, clinical pathways, provider engagement in the electronic health record, clinical decision support, and clinical operations. He has a Masters in Health Informatics and a Masters in Health Administration and am currently pursuing a Masters in Healthcare Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania. His passions are cooking and travel. He has explored seven continents. His role in the SHCI is a founding member and active in website design and social media platform.
Cassie Solomon
Cassie A Solomon is a highly experienced organizational development consultant and executive coach. Her book, Leading Successful Change: 8 Keys to Making Change Work, co-authored with Greg Shea, is now updated for 2020 and beyond to help leaders successfully navigate the ever-increasing pace of change. A significant part of her consulting practice has been in academic medical centers and regional health systems, supporting leaders with organizational design, strategy and change. Cassie holds an MBA in Operations from the Wharton School of Business and a degree in Organizational Behavior from Yale University. She teaches at the Wharton School’s Aresty Institute for Executive Education and is a certified futurist.
Ceit Butler
Ceit Butler is an advisor, program coordinator, and development programmer lead at Applied A.I. Solutions program at George Brown College. She specializes in developing blockchains and hopes to apply her expertise to the field of healthcare innovation.
Charles Bae
Charles Bae, MD MHCI is an experienced Sleep Neurologist at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. Previously at the Cleveland Clinic, Charles has a history of leadership in the health care industry. Dr. Bae also has extensive experience planning and leading Continuous Improvement projects with special interests in Operational Innovation, Behavioral Economics, Healthcare Information Technology, Quality, and Telehealth.
Cindy Smith
Cindy Smith, MD MHCI's career has been an interesting combination of country and city doc. For almost 30 years she’s practiced rural dermatology while maintaining an academic appointment at the University of Minnesota. She is currently the CEO of Carris Health. She has served as both President of the Minnesota Dermatological Society and the Minnesota Medical Association.
Cindy is currently a Delegate to the American Medical Association. She believes that the current healthcare delivery system is unsustainable. It must transform and it cannot do so without innovation. The way we did things in the past in healthcare is not the answer to our future.
Corey Feldman
Corey Feldman, MBA is the VP of Business Development at Emmacare, an interactive platform that empowers care managers to more efficiently and effectively monitor patients who suffer from chronic disease.
Corey served in a special operations unit of the IDF in Israel, and currently holds the rank of Staff Sergeant in the IDF reserves.
Corey holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology, and is a candidate for the Master of Health Care Innovation at the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.
Deepak Sudheendra
Deepak Sudheendra, MD, RPVI, FSIR (aka Dr. Sudi) is the Founder and Director of the DVT and Complex Venous Disease Program and an Assistant Professor of Clinical Radiology and Surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Sudi spearheads an internationally recognized, multidisciplinary new service line in venous interventions that draws nearly 400 new patients per year from across the US and nearly every continent. As a founding member of SHCI, his goals are to bring the subject of venous thromboembolism, the 3rd most common cause of cardiovascular death, into the national spotlight to minimize further deaths from this devastating condition.
Dmitriy Petrov
Dmitriy Petrov, MD is an Assistant Professor in the department of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania. His clinical interests are in cranial and skull base surgery. His research program focuses on translation models of neurotrauma and development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic modalities for patients with significant head trauma. Dmitriy is also the founder of the TBI recovery project, a charity organization supporting the traumatic brain injury community. He is committed to pushing healthcare innovation forward, in both surgical technology and healthcare operations to optimize patient outcomes.
Gabriela Sabaté
Gabriela Sabaté, MBA, MHCI is an entrepreneur, executive, and investor with a 25-year US and international career in creating and leading new ventures in healthcare, tech and biotechnology.
Currently CEO of Health Semantics, she held executive positions at SoftBank, IBM, and Tiaxa. With a multidisciplinary background in innovation, engineering, healthcare, and translational research, her current focus is on developing technologies and scientific collaborations that can transform care delivery, increase prevention and maximize data assets through AI, telemedicine, and cloud computing.
Gabriela holds degrees from UBA, UF, and the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.
Gregory Shea
Gregory P. Shea, Ph.D., consults, teaches, researches, and writes in the areas of organizational and individual change, leadership, innovation, and group effectiveness. He has worked extensively in multiple industries and with leaders and boards in multiple industries especially of healthcare provider systems as well as deep within organizations. He is a Senior Fellow at the Wharton School’s Center for Leadership and Change, Adjunct Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and of its Aresty Institute of Executive Education, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the Wharton School.
Dr. Shea has co-authored 6 books including Leading Successful Change: 8 Keys to Making Change Work (revised edition, 2020, contributed chapters to multiple books) and published numerous articles in various professional journals.
Atul Kalanuria
Dr. Atul Kalanuria is a neurologist with a specialization in acute and critical care. His experience spans over 20 years and during this time he has worked at rural health clinics, small community hospitals as well as large academic centers. As a founding member and general secretary of the Society for Healthcare Innovation (SHCI) his role is to ensure that its operations run smoothly and that it stays within regulatory and statutory compliance. This is an exciting time for the US and global healthcare industry and he is certainly looking forward to working with such a talented group at SHCI as we scale new heights.
Bartlomiej Olczak
Bartlomiej Olczak, MD is a junior doctor currently doing his residency in Poland. He earned his medical degree from the Medical University of Lodz. His main interests are endocrinology disorders and critical care innovations. He is a member of the research group under the supervision of Dr. Krzysztof Laudanski. As a representative of the SHCI in Europe, his aim is to strive for cooperation between SHCI members in multidisciplinary fields related to healthcare innovation and research activity. Dr. Olczak believes that SHCI has a crucial role in helping bridge the gap to improve health systems around the world through vital healthcare innovations.
Blair Clark-Schoeb
Ms. Blair Clark-Schoeb has over two decades of experience developing unique, integrated and effective communications programs for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. To stay on top of the changing healthcare environment, she is working to complete her Master of Healthcare Innovation degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine. To nurture collaborative innovation, Blair and classmates from the Penn MHCI program have created the Society of Healthcare Innovation.
Brian Kearns
Mr. Kearns currently serves as Senior Vice President of Business Development for Globus Medical, a $5 billion publicly traded medical technology company, where he is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, negotiating and integrating all mergers and acquisitions. He is also responsible for Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Prior to joining Globus in 2015, Mr. Kearns’ experience includes: four years as CFO of the nation’s oldest publicly traded generic pharmaceutical company; four years as CFO of a ten thousand employee publicly traded healthcare services company; six years equity research at Citi (Salomon Smith Barney) and Bank of America Securities following pharmaceutical, managed care and hospital sectors; and over six years financial management at Johnson & Johnson. Mr. Kearns received his B.S. Finance from Lehigh University, his M.B.A. from Rider University and his Masters in Health Care Innovation from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Bruce Brod
Bruce Brod, MD MHCI received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and completed his residency in Dermatology at the University of Pittsburgh after completing a one-year internship in Internal Medicine at Brown University. A fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, Dr. Brod is a Clinical Professor of Dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Chief of Dermatology at Pennsylvania Hospital. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Academy of Dermatology and Dermatologic Surgery and the Immediate Past President of the American Contact Dermatitis Society.
Carolyn Winter
Carolyn Winter, BSN, RN, CRRN is currently a Clinical Care Manager at Penn Partners in Care. She serves patients as part of Penn's innovative Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) program, working with primary care providers to strengthen patient care. Carolyn earned a BSN from University of Pittsburgh in 1993, and has been a Certified Rehabilitation Registered Nurse (CRRN) since 1995. She is an active member of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter Association of Rehabilitation Nurses since 1999, serving as a Board Member and as President. Carolyn is passionate about helping people achieve their best possible health outcomes, greatest level of independence, and highest quality of life.
Joshua Littlejohn
Joshua Littlejohn, MPH, MSN, RN, is Head of Product for envoyatHome, a healthtech startup that provides remote caregivers of eldery individuals aging in place actionable, data-driven insights through the use of motion sensors and proprietary algorithms, ultimately allowing for more efficient and cost-effective care management. He has spent 10+ years in different healthcare ecosystems as a clinician, public health practitioner, and innovator, predominantly serving as a “connector” on many of his teams. In his current role, he manages the product development roadmap for envoyatHome and uses his clinical skills to help identify and translate business requirements into new feature requests for the development team. Outside of the startup, he is focused on weaving together networks of people and organizations that can enable home- and community-based care delivery models using next-gen technology and business models.
Karina Nuñez
Karina Nuñez is a Senior Application Analyst at Penn Medicine and has been an essential lead in successful projects throughout the health system. Her goal is to lead innovation in her community and find creative ways to leverage technology in healthcare. Outside of her career, Karina devotes her free time to chronic illness advocacy and mentorship through social media while also running a photography business.
As a founding member of the SHCI, she is working on growing our social media presence and content creation.
Karina holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and is pursuing a Master of Healthcare Innovation from the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.
Katherine Larivee
Katherine Larivee, BSN, MHCI is an experienced Registered Nurse with a demonstrated history of working in the hospital & healthcare industry. Competent and knowledgeable healthcare professional with a Bachelor of Science (BS) focused in Nursing from Villanova University. New graduate from The University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine with a Master of Healthcare Innovation degree. Unique skill set credited to previous roles in various aspects of care delivery from IT service desk, educator for new EHR platform and clinical roles.
Meher Khan
Meher Khan is an allergist-immunologist physician based in the greater Philadelphia area with a wide telemedicine practice. She chairs a global nonprofit foundation that promotes youth and girls sports, and is deeply involved as a health advisor in her local public and private schools. She is Chief Medical Officer of a HealthTech startup, LAAF -Live Active and Agony Free, which makes an intelligent insole that provides continuous data feedback via deep learning. As a mother of four adult athletes she has learned that many injuries can be prevented with precise alignment and balance. Through LAAF, Dr. Khan not only wants to spare parents the agony of watching their children suffer avoidable pain, but importantly, having an experiential understanding of upstream triggers of chronic disease she is motivated to build a startup that encourages an active and healthy lifestyle in our communities
Nadia Amrikani
Nadia Amrikani, RN works in the UAE at the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. She assists in coordinating the progression of care throughout the inpatient process and is also developing and implementing higher standards of practice in each department. She was motivated to join the MHCI program through her passion for providing high-quality care and improving healthcare access to the under-served. Through her role as the Middle East chapter leader of SHCI, she hopes to collaborate in all research, education, and experience with SHCI members to impact various areas of healthcare around the globe.
Nattachai Suwachittanont
Nattachai Suwachittanont, MD is Chief of the Health Promotion Center 3 at the Bangkok Hospital HQ in Bangkok, Thailand. He obtained his MD from Chulalongkorn University. After graduation, he spent years as an acting director of a government hospital. He joins the society with his strong attention to develop and imply health care advancement and innovation to improve the quality of care, improve access to care, and reduce health expenditure. He believes that the society will be the convergence of experts and talents who are the major players in different parts of the health care continuum in a different geography. This will lead to a potential space to kick-start a new era of healthcare.
Nicholas Felici
Nick is originally from New Jersey and currently resides in Philadelphia. Nick’s current role is a Value-Based Program Manager with Independence Blue Cross responsible for developing and negotiating value-based arrangements with hospital systems. He has formerly worked in medical economics for AmeriHealth Caritas, where he was responsible for building code-based programs to analyze trends and implement the use of statistical metrics to measure quality and financial performance. He is interested in developing new and improved value-based arrangements and translating ideas into outcomes. Nick has also written a published paper with Krzysztof Laudanski, a fellow member of the society, researching lab values over time as they pertain to sepsis and the efficacy of associated drugs.
Nirav Bhavsar
Dr. Nirav Bhavsar is a practicing anesthesiologist at the University of Miami with a background in biomedical engineering. After completing his degrees in biomedical engineering and medicine at Boston University, he completed his training in anesthesiology at University of Miami / Jackson Memorial Hospital. He started his career working at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio but found himself returning to University of Miami while completing a master’s degree in biomedical and health informatics with University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Dr. Bhavsar has an acute interest in healthcare UI/UX and to bridge the gap in innovation as a physician-engineer.
Qiong Qiu
Qiong Qiu (Q) is a third-year general surgery resident at the University of Toledo. She received her A.B. degree in molecular biology from Princeton University and her M.D. from Saint Louis University School of Medicine. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Health Care Innovation from the University of Pennsylvania. The health care landscape is rapidly evolving. As more corporations enter medicine, it becomes more important for clinicians to become actively involved in the development, implementation, and regulatory stages of these emerging technologies. Therefore, she is both excited and honored to serve as the Young Professional Liason at the SHCI.  She looks forward to connecting people early in their training/career to the projects and leaders that will transform health care. 
Ray Raven
Ray Raven, MD MHCI is the Managing Partner and CEO of Orthopaedic Surgery Specialists, a mid-sized medical group based in one the largest metropolitan areas of Southern California. Since his appointment to CEO in 2016, he has focused on improving patient reported outcomes and employee satisfaction. Dr. Raven’s leadership has expanded health care delivery to more than 60,000 patient-encounters each year through a comprehensive health care delivery model. As an innovator, Dr. Raven has developed medical devices used globally to treat bone fractures of the hand and upper extremity and continues to leverage technology to optimize patient care through tracking outcomes and remote monitoring. He is active in promoting health care policy that improves access and fosters cost-effective health care delivery.
Renee Caslow
Renee A. Caslow, DO MHCI is a pediatrician and founding member of the Society of Health Care Innovation. She also serves as the Physician Executive Director of Primary Care for the Memorial Health System in Marietta Ohio. She became the Physician Executive Director of Primary Care during her first year of UPenn’s MHCI program. Innovative thinking is imperative for any health system looking to position itself successfully within the ever-changing environment of health care.
Robert Debbs
Robert Debbs, MD is a Professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania where he has served as the director of the University of Pennsylvania Maternal Fetal Medicine Network since 2000. While he actively lectures, teaches students, residents, fellows, nurses and midwives at the University of Pennsylvania and throughout the country, he still finds a strong desire to contribute in more innovative ways to the betterment of medicine and particularly women’s health care. In pursuing a Masters in Health Care Innovation at Penn, and participation in the SHCI, he strives to improve and shape patient and clinician behaviors across healthcare systems.
Sangeeta Shenoy
Dr. Sangeeta Shenoy is a clinical practitioner, public health professional and a clinical researcher. She has always been passionate about improving the process of health care and patient physician relationship, which fueled her desire to become a medical professional. The heart of providing exceptional care lies with the doctor-patient relationship. She believes a good physician must apply relevant scientific evidence, practice good clinical judgement, and be aware of patient values and preferences. Encompassing these traits will lead to better health care delivery. As a chair in research for SHCI, she will work towards exploring pioneering quantitative methods and technique to enhance health innovation. The Society will work towards evaluating new healthcare technologies, health care services, strategic planning, policy development and advancement to improve different outcomes in health care.
Stephen Dansiger
Stephen Dansiger, PsyD, MFT is an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) Therapist/Consultant/Trainer, an author, and a mindfulness teacher. He is the CEO of StartAgain Associates, providing training, curriculum and consulting along the full continuum of care for mental health, wellness, and addictions. He developed the MET(T)A Protocol (Mindfulness and EMDR Treatment Template for Agencies) a fully manualized trauma-focused program for mental health and wellness agencies. He is also Head of Health & Wellness Innovation & Partnerships for DropLabs, makers of full immersion sound technology delivered through Bluetooth enabled vibrational footwear paired with bluetooth headphones.
Theresa Urban
Theresa Urban has 20 plus years of experience in her professional role of registered nurse in multiple settings. She spent many years as a direct patient-care nurse in acute inpatient and acute rehabilitation hospitals. During this time, she held leadership positions such as Chair of the Nurse Unit Council and member of the Executive Nursing Council. Theresa has experience as a Clinical Care Coordinator in Home Health and is now currently employed in a Primary Care Practice as a Clinical Care Manager in the ambulatory setting. Theresa joined the Masters in Health Care innovation program at University of Pennsylvania with the desire to have a greater impact on changing the health care system for the better.
William Nicolich
A founding member of the SHCI and a member of the outreach committee, Billy Nicolich, MHCI is a health care technology and product leader in the industry.
Billy seeks to reverse the trend that technology too often interferes with the interactions between people in health care rather than facilitates those interactions. He recognizes the careful, nuanced approach that must be taken to let tech solutions reduce friction and work seamlessly in the background so people can do their best work. Billy holds extensive experience and top-level industry certifications in transformation process innovation methods such as Kanban, Agile and Scrum. Billy seeks to continue making contributions in these areas.