Building Bridges: Making a Difference in Long-Term Care
2005 Colloquium
Sponsored by The Commonwealth Fund
Conducted by AcademyHealth
PRESENTER BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
Randall Brown, Ph.D.
Dr. Brown is Vice President and Director for Health Research at Mathematica Policy Research in
Princeton, N.J. As the project director of the Cash and Counseling evaluation, he oversees
Mathematica’s investigation of program effects on consumers, workers, and family caregivers.
He also directs two Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)-funded evaluations of
innovative demonstration programs in care coordination and disease management for Medicare
beneficiaries with chronic illnesses. In 2002-03, Dr. Brown led the first phase of the Robert Wood
Johnson-funded Community Partnerships for Older Americans, which involved a survey of older
adults in 13 grantee communities on their knowledge of long-term care issues, need for
assistance, sources of information, and awareness of locally-available programs and resources.
He was principal investigator for two earlier studies of prospective payment for Medicare home
health care and co-authored a Report to Congress on Social HMOs. In the 1980s, he led a major
study of CMS’s Medicare HMO program and served as co-principal investigator on the
evaluation of the national long-term care channeling demonstration. Dr. Brown received a Ph.D.
in economics from the University of Wisconsin.
Karen Davis, Ph.D.
Dr. Davis is president of The Commonwealth Fund, a national philanthropy engaged in
independent research on health and social policy issues. Before joining the Fund, she served as
chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management at The Johns Hopkins School of
Public Health, where she also held an appointment as professor of economics. She served as
deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Department of Health and Human Services
from 1977–1980, and was the first woman to head a U.S. Public Health Service agency. Prior to
her government career, Ms. Davis was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in
Washington, D.C., a visiting lecturer at Harvard University, and an assistant professor of
economics at Rice University. A native of Oklahoma, she received her Ph.D. in economics from
Rice University. Ms. Davis is the recipient of the 2000 Baxter-Allegiance Foundation Prize for
Health Services Research. Ms. Davis has published a number of significant books, monographs,
and articles on health and social policy issues, including the landmark books Health Care Cost
Containment, Medicare Policy, National Health Insurance: Benefits, Costs, and Consequences,
and Health and the War on Poverty.
Maggie Dionne
Ms. Dionne has over 20 years of experience in elder services. She has been the Director of
Housing and Supportive Services at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs for five
years. In that role, she is responsible for developing housing policy, oversight of assisted living
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residences, and the Congregate and Supportive Housing programs. Ms. Dionne also serves as
the project director for the Massachusetts Coming Home program. Prior to coming to Elder
Affairs she spent six years at the Cambridge Housing Authority. As Deputy Director of
Management for elderly housing, she provided management support to over 1,000 units of
elderly housing throughout the city. Ms. Dionne holds a B.S. from the University of Maine at
Farmington and an M.S.W. from Boston College.
Deborah Ellis
Ms. Ellis has worked with the Arkansas Department of Human Services since 1989, and with
consumer-directed programs since 1997. She was a member of the Arkansas team that
implemented the first Cash and Counseling program, IndependentChoices, in the United States.
Her primary contributions were developing the system design for the implementation of a
consumer-directed program into the Arkansas Medicaid program and designing a client-tracking
database for the IndependentChoices project. She also worked with the Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services (CMS) to define cost-neutrality for the IndependentChoices 1115
Demonstration project. In addition to the daily oversight of the IndependentChoices program,
Ms. Ellis is in charge of implementing a second generation consumer-directed program,
NextChoice, which will offer persons residing in a nursing home the opportunity to return to the
community with a cash allowance. From 1993 - 1997, Ms. Ellis was a policy writer for the
Arkansas Medicaid program. Between 1989 and 1994, she worked within the Arkansas Medicaid
program, writing specifications for edits and audits within Arkansas Medicaid Management
Information System (MMIS). She also wrote the system specifications for implementation of
Medicaid’s Family Planning Waiver, Alternatives for Persons with Physical Disabilities Waiver
and the ElderChoices Waiver program.
Penny Hollander Feldman, Ph.D. (Co-chair, Building Bridges Advisory Committee)
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.
Len Fishman
Mr. Fishman is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston.
Hebrew SeniorLife has been providing health care, housing and services to seniors in the
Greater Boston area for 100 years and has gained national and international prominence in the
areas of geriatric health care, senior housing, gerontological research, and the training of
geriatric health care providers. Mr. Fishman’s professional life has been devoted to public
health, health care and, especially, the needs of seniors. Prior to joining Hebrew Rehabilitation
Center for Aged, Mr. Fishman was President of the American Association of Homes and Services
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for the Aging (AAHSA), a 6000 member national organization of non-profit long-term care and
senior housing providers. He also served in the Cabinet of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd
Whitman as Commissioner of Health and Senior Services, an agency with 1900 employees and a
budget of $2.3 billion responsible for all State services to seniors. As Commissioner, he created
the nation’s most progressive, consumer-oriented HMO regulations and published the state’s
first HMO report card holding HMOs accountable for quality of care and service. Under his
leadership, the Department emphasized quality measurements, quality improvements and
consumer information.
Stephen Golant, Ph.D.
Dr. Golant has been a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Florida
since 1980. Previously, he was an associate professor in the Behavioral Sciences and Geography
Departments at the University of Chicago (1972 – 1980). Dr. Golant has been conducting
research on the housing, care, mobility, and transportation needs of the elderly population for
over 30 years. He is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, and serves on the editorial
boards of numerous journals. He is currently preparing The Assisted Living Residence: A Vision
for the Future, a co-edited volume to be published by John Hopkins University Press. As a
Fulbright Senior Scholar award recipient, Dr. Golant investigated the need and prospects for the
growth of assisted living facilities in Canada, and recently served as a consultant to the
Commission on Affordable Housing and Health Facility Needs for Seniors in the 21st Century
(Seniors Commission), a bipartisan 14-member panel created by an act of Congress to study the
housing and health care needs for the next generation of elderly Americans and to offer specific
policy and legislative recommendations to the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S.
Senate. Dr. Golant received his Ph.D. in social geography and social gerontology from the
University of Washington in 1972 and his B.A. (1968) and M.A. (1969) in geography from the
University of Toronto.
Joanne Handy, R.N.
Ms. Handy is the President of the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston, the nation's oldest and
second largest such agency. She is the former President of the Goldman Institute on Aging, an
affiliate of the University of California at San Francisco. She serves as the immediate past
Chairman of the Board of the American Society on Aging and on the Board of the National
Association for Home Care at Home. Ms. Handy is a former Chair of the California Association
for Home Care at Home, served on the National Chronic Care Consortium and was a Kellogg
International Leadership Fellow from 1990-1993. She is the author of several publications
spanning the areas of geriatrics, home care, management, and marketing. Ms. Handy is a
Visiting Scholar at Boston College and an adjunct faculty member of the University of
Massachusetts, Boston.
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
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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.
Susan Horn, Ph.D.
Dr. Horn is Senior Scientist for the Institute for Clinical Outcomes Research (ICOR), and Vice
President of Research for International Severity Information Systems, Inc. (ISIS), both located in
Salt Lake City, Utah. She is also Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medical Informatics and
Research Professor of Physical Therapy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, and a
Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt University’s School of Nursing. From 1991-95, Dr. Horn was
Senior Scientist at Intermountain Health Care in Salt Lake City. Prior to that, she spent 23 years
as a full-time faculty member at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where she conducted
research, taught biostatics and health services, and directed the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation Program for Faculty Fellowships in Health Care Finance. With a group of colleagues,
Dr. Horn developed severity of illness measures used to create the Comprehensive Security
Index (CSI®), which is the basis for software used to collect disease-specific physiologic data for
clinical practice improvement and risk-adjusted outcomes. Dr. Horn has authored over 150
publications on statistical methods, health services research, severity of illness measurement,
clinical practice improvement, and quality of care. She earned a B.A. in mathematics at Cornell
University in 1964, and a Ph.D. in statistics at Stanford University in 1968.
Peter Kemper, Ph.D. (Co-chair, Building Bridges Advisory Committee)
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.
Dan Murphy
Mr. Murphy is Chief of the State Unit on Aging for the Washington State Department of Social
and Health Services Aging and Adult Services Administration. Since the late 1970s, he has been
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engaged in planning, development and administration of services for the elderly and people with
disabilities. His major areas of focus have been on case management, home care, supports for
minority and ethnic groups, legislative advocacy, mental health programs, information and
outreach. For the past six years, in his present capacity with DSHS, his staff has managed home
care programs, in-home case management, nursing services, and elder programs for the state of
Washington. Prior to state employment, Mr. Murphy worked locally on many of the same issues
as a planner and administrator in the human services departments of several counties
surrounding Puget Sound. He was also an administrator at a multipurpose non-profit agency
that provided childhood development, employment, and casework support for a wide variety of
populations including families, the elderly, people with disabilities and people with low incomes.
Judith Rabig, R.N., M.A., C.
Ms. Rabig is a certified gerontological nurse, who has worked in various administrative and
leadership positions in institutional and community based long-term care. Her research focus is
quality of life in institutional long-term care. Ms. Rabig is the Executive Director of the Green
House Project, a radical approach to reinventing long-term care. She is an adjunct faculty
member at Utica College of Syracuse University, where she teaches in the gerontology certificate
program. She attended Lenox Hill Hospital School of Nursing in New York and has a Master's
degree from SUNY Empire State College. Ms. Rabig is currently a candidate for a Ph.D. from
Union Institute.
William Scanlon, Ph.D.
Dr. Scanlon is a health policy consultant, and was recently appointed to the Medicare Payment
Advisory Commission. Until April 2004, he was the Managing Director of Health Care Issues at
the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). He has been engaged in health services research
since 1975. Before joining GAO in 1993, he was the Co-Director of the Center for Health Policy
Studies and an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown
University and had been a Principal Research Associate in Health Policy at the Urban Institute.
At GAO, he oversaw Congressionally requested studies of Medicare, Medicaid, the private
insurance market and health delivery systems, public health, and the military and veterans’
health care systems. His research at Georgetown and the Urban Institute focused on the
Medicare and Medicaid programs, especially provider payment policies, and the provision and
financing of long-term care services. Dr. Scanlon has published extensively and has served as
frequent consultant to federal agencies, state Medicaid programs, and private foundations.
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