Building Bridges: Making a Difference in Long-Term Care
2006 Colloquium
Sponsored by The Commonwealth Fund
Conducted by AcademyHealth
PRESENTER BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
Russell Bodoff
Russell Bodoff is Executive Director at the Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST), a
program of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA), which he
helped launch in March 2003. Bodoff joined AAHSA in 2002 with responsibilities for technology
and business development. He had prior experience with building online businesses and
product and program development and voluntary standards and certification programs. He was
responsible for developing and launching the world’s largest Internet consumer protection and
privacy trustmark program, BBBOnLine. Mr. Bodoff has been asked to provide expert testimony
on online consumer and privacy issues to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House
Commerce Committee and the European Commission. Bodoff has been quoted in hundreds of
publications and has appeared on CNN and CNNFN as an expert on Internet consumer issues.
Since launching CAST, he has become a leading voice in identifying how new technology can
help society response to the aging of the global population.
Eric A. Coleman, M.D.
Dr. Coleman is Associate Professor of Medicine within the Divisions of Health Care Policy and
Research and Geriatric Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. As a
board-certified geriatrician, Dr. Coleman maintains direct patient care responsibility for older
adults in ambulatory, acute, and subacute care settings. Dr. Coleman's research focuses on: (1)
enhancing the role of patients and caregivers in improving the quality of their care transitions
across acute and post-acute settings; (2) measuring quality of care transitions from the
perspective of patients and caregivers; (3) implementing system-level practice improvement
interventions and (4) using health information technology to promote safe and effective care
transitions.
Richard Della Penna, M.D.
Dr. Della Penna is a geriatrician who has worked at the national, regional, and local levels of the
Kaiser Permanente Program. As the Medical Director of the Kaiser Permanente Aging Network
and the National Clinical Lead of the Care Management Institute’s Elder Care and Palliative Care
Initiatives he leads strategic efforts to develop new approaches and programs that will better
address the unmet needs of Kaiser Permanente’s older adult members. He began his career with
the Southern California Permanente Medical Group in San Diego in 1977 and is currently on the
staff of the Care Management Institute in Oakland, CA. Dr. Della Penna has served on many
boards and advisory groups and is a member of the boards of the National Alzheimer’s
Association and the San Diego Opera.
W. David Helms, Ph.D.
Dr. Helms is president and CEO of AcademyHealth. As such, he directs a staff of 50 and
oversees the development of the organization’s strategic vision and mission. In addition to
leading AcademyHealth, Dr. Helms serves as a senior advisor to several of its programs
including the National Health Policy Conference, the Annual Research Meeting, The Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation's (RWJF) State Coverage Initiatives program and the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) User Liaison Program and Knowledge Transfer
Program. Dr. Helms also serves as President and CEO of the Coalition for Health Services
Research, AcademyHealth's advocacy arm. Prior to becoming president and CEO of
AcademyHealth in 2000, Dr. Helms served for twenty-five years as president of the Alpha Center
and one year concurrently as president of the Alpha Center and CEO of the Association for
Health Services Research (AHSR) prior to the merger of the two organizations. Dr. Helms has
published in the Health Affairs and Health Services Research journals and has given numerous
presentations, testimony before the U.S. Congress and state legislatures and briefings for
Congressional staff. He serves on the National Institute for Health Care Management
Foundation Board of Directors and is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance.
Additionally, he serves on the national advisory committees for the Center for Studying of Health
System Change, the State Health Access Data Assistance Center and the Kansas Health
Institute.
Penny Hollander Feldman, Ph.D.
Dr. Feldman is Vice President for Research and Evaluation at the Visiting Nurse Service of New
York (VNSNY) and Director of the Center for Home Care Policy and Research. Prior to joining
VNSNY, Dr. Feldman served on the faculties of the Kennedy School of Government and the
Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, where
she continued as Visiting Lecturer through June 2003. At the Center for Home Care Policy and
Research, she directs projects focused on improving the quality, outcomes and costeffectiveness of home-based care, supporting informed policy-making by long-term care
decision-makers, and helping communities promote the health, well-being and independence of
people with chronic illness or disability. From 1998 to 2001, she was a member of the Institute of
Medicine Committee on Improving the Quality of Long Term Care.
Peter Kemper, Ph.D.
Dr. Kemper is Professor of Health Policy and Administration at the Pennsylvania State
University. Prior to that, he was Vice President of the Center for Studying Health System Change,
Director of the Division of Long-Term Care Studies at the Agency for Health Care Policy and
Research, Director of the Madison Office of Mathematics Policy Research, Research Associate at
the Institute for Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, and Assistant Professor at Swarthmore
College. Dr. Kemper has published widely on managed care, long-term care, including home
care of elderly persons with disabilities and lifetime nursing home use and financing. He has
served on numerous advisory panels and government task forces, including the Medicare
Payment Advisory Commission and the Clinton Health Reform Task Force.
Mary Jane Koren, M.D.
Dr. Koren is a senior program officer at The Commonwealth Fund where she is responsible for
the Quality of Care for Frail Elders Program and, in addition, manages a grant portfolio of
projects within the Quality Improvement Program to improve the coordination of care. Dr. Koren
is also an internist and geriatrician. From 1997 to 2002, she was Vice President and Director at
the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation where she created and was responsible for their
$4 million grants program in the field of health services and aging. Dr. Koren began her career in
geriatrics at Montefiore Medical Center where she started the geriatric fellowship program. In
1986 she joined the faculty of the Department of Geriatrics at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
and was named Associate Chief of Staff for Extended Care at the Bronx VA Medical Center. In
1987 she became Director, Bureau of Long Term Care Services, for the New York State
Department of Health, a position she held for five years following which she was the Principal
Clinical Coordinator for the PRO of New Jersey. She has been principal and co-principal
investigator on a number of important health services research projects in the field of long term
care.
Carol Levine
Carol Levine directs the Families and Health Care Project at the United Hospital Fund in New
York City. The project focuses on developing partnerships between health care professionals and
family caregivers, who provide most of the long-term and chronic care to elderly, seriously ill, or
disabled relatives. Prior to joining UHF, Ms. Levine was director of the Citizens Commission on
AIDS in New York City from 1987 to 1991 and director of the Orphan Project from 1991 to 1996.
In addition, she was a senior staff associate of The Hastings Center, she edited the Hastings
Center Report. In 1993 she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for her work in
AIDS policy and ethics. Ms. Levine has written several books and articles, including a “Sounding
Board” essay in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “The Loneliness of the Long-Term
Care Giver” (May 20, 1999). She has also edited several books and journals, including Always
On Call: When Illness Turns Families into Caregivers, which was published in 2004 by the
Vanderbilt University Press.
Vincent Mor, Ph.D.
Dr. Mor is Chair of the Department of Community Health at the Brown University School of
Medicine and formerly served as the Director of the Brown University Center for Gerontology
and Health Care Research. Dr. Mor has been Principal Investigator of 20 NIH funded grants
focusing on the organizational and health care delivery system factors associated with variation
in use of health services and the outcomes frail and chronically ill persons experience. He has
had multiple grants from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Pew Memorial Trust and
the Retirement Research Foundation as well as contracts from the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (formerly the Health Care Financing Administration) and the Office of the
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation to evaluate the impact of programs and policies
in aging and long term care including Medicare funding of hospice, the costs and benefits of day
hospital treatment of cancer, patient outcomes in nursing homes, the impact of short term case
management for cancer patients, several studies documenting age discrimination in cancer
treatment and use of home care services, and a national study of residential care facilities. He
was one of the authors of the congressionally mandated Minimum Data Set (MDS) for Nursing
Home Resident Assessment and evaluated its implementation. He is a member of the
Secretary's Advisory Committee on Health Services Research for the Department of Veteran
Affairs. Over the past 25 years Dr. Mor's research has frequently integrated quantitative and
qualitative data, particularly in program evaluations examining the approaches communities,
organizations and specific providers use to adjust to health policy changes such as financing and
reimbursement or to the emergence of integrated delivery systems.
Mary D. Naylor, Ph.D., RN
Dr. Naylor is the Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology at the University of Pennsylvania,
School of Nursing. Since 1990, Dr. Naylor has led an interdisciplinary program of research
designed to improve the quality of care, decrease unnecessary hospitalizations and reduce health
care costs for vulnerable community-based elders. In 2003, Dr. Naylor assumed the leadership
role of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Interdisciplinary Geriatric Health Care
Research, one of only five such centers the U.S. In 2004, Dr. Naylor co-chaired the National
Quality Forum’s Steering Committee on Nursing Care Performance Measures. In 2005, Dr.
Naylor was selected to serve as the National Program Director for The Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation’s Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) program. In 2004, Dr.
Naylor was the first nurse selected as a McCann Scholar, the only national award by a private
foundation that recognizes outstanding mentors in medicine, nursing, and science. More
recently, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine in fall 2005.
Carol Raphael
Carol Raphael is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Visiting Nurse Service of New
York (VNSNY). Prior to joining VNSNY, Ms. Raphael held positions as Director of Operations
Management at Mt. Sinai Medical Center and Executive Deputy Commissioner of the Human
Resources Administration in charge of the Medicaid and Public Assistance programs in New
York City. Ms. Raphael was a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
(MedPAC), the commission that advises Congress on Medicare payment and policies (19992005). She was a member of the New York State Hospital Review and Planning Council and
chaired its Fiscal Policy Committee (1992-2004). She served on several Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation national advisory committees. Ms. Raphael was a member of the Medicaid Reform
Task Force established by the State Senate in 2003, and of the New York State Blue Ribbon Task
Force on Nursing. She is on the several boards, including the Boards of Excellus/Lifetime
Healthcare Company. She was a member of the Pfizer Hispanic Advisory Board, the Kaiser
Permanente Planning Group for Geriatric Care and an Issues Expert at the White House
Conference on Aging.
Mark Schultz
Mark Schultz has been Director of the Nebraska Assistive Technology Partnership since 1990.
The Nebraska Assistive Technology Partnership is a collaboration that integrates diverse
assistive technology and home or worksite modification needs in the areas of education, health,
employment, and housing into a comprehensive array of programs accessed through a single
point of entry. Previously, Mr. Schultz worked for the Center for Independent Living as a Barrier
Free Design Specialist. Mark has a comprehensive background in program administration and
legislative initiatives on a state and national level in the area of assistive technology, home and
worksite modifications, and funding.
Nancy Wolske
Nancy Wolske is the Director of Care Innovations for Elite Care, at Oatfield Estates, a retirement
community that emphasizes the importance of mutually beneficial, reciprocal relationships
among everybody who lives and works in their homes. She draws upon a diverse life history and
weaves it into her presentations, effectively translating how Elite Care Technology and a healthier
setting enhance relationships of the Elders and their families at Oatfield Estates. Prior to joining
the staff at Oatfield Estates, Ms. Wolske taught for the Oregon Health Care Association’s
Administrators Training Class; presented at various conferences and panel discussions on Long
Term Care and Technology, coordinated and participated in a variety of media and public
relations work.