Open Data Initiatives & Innovations for Population Health and Health Services I and II

Aman Bhandari, Ph.D., works at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President of the United States. He is staffed to the President's Chief Technology Officer where he works on health and healthcare initiatives at the intersection of technology and innovation. Aman received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in health services research along with a BioEntrepreneurship Certificate from the Haas School of Business. He also has a Master's in epidemiology from the University of Minnesota. At Berkeley, he was a United Nations Management of Technology Fellow where he put together a team to research innovations in global health. In the past Aman has worked at Genentech, the UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies, the Stanford Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and served as a director of the Knowledge and Social Responsibility Program for the National Conference for Community and Justice.

Linda Bilheimer, Ph.D., Linda Bilheimer is Associate Director for Analysis and Epidemiology, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The role of her office includes monitoring the health of the Nation through the annual report Health, United States; tracking progress in meeting the Healthy People objectives to improve population health and address health disparities; conducting interagency and international collaborations to improve health data; developing health data through data linkages; conducting research on health issues and statistical methods; and disseminating data electronically through interactive websites.

Before joining NCHS, Ms. Bilheimer was a Senior Program Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation where she led the health insurance coverage team and directed the Foundation’s policy synthesis project.   Previously she served as Deputy Assistant Director for Health at the Congressional Budget Office.  She has also been a senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research Inc. and Director of Health Statistics and Epidemiology in the Arkansas Department of Health, where she also served on the faculty of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.  Ms. Bilheimer received her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Murray N. Ross, Ph.D., is Vice President at the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, and leads the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy in Oakland, California. The Institute seeks to leverage evidence and experience from the nation's largest private integrated health care delivery system to shape policy and practice. His current work focuses on how the U.S. health system can make more effective use of new drugs, devices, and medical procedures and how to encourage greater integration of care delivery to improve quality. Before joining Kaiser Permanente in 2002, Dr. Ross was a policy advisor to the United States Congress. He served five years as the executive director of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an influential nonpartisan agency charged with making recommendations on Medicare policy issues to the Congress. Previously, he spent nine years at the Congressional Budget Office, ultimately leading the group charged with assessing the budgetary impact of legislative proposals affecting Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Ross earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park, and completed his undergraduate work in economics at Arizona State University.

David Van Sickle, Ph.D., is the co-founder and CEO of Reciprocal Sciences, a Madison, WI-based company developing Asthmapolis and other tools for real time public health surveillance and chronic disease management. David was formerly an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Paul Wallace, M.D., is an active participant and program leader in clinical quality improvement, especially in the area of translation of evidence into care delivery using people and technology-based innovation supported by performance measurement. As Medical Director for Health and Productivity Management Programs in Kaiser Permanente's national Permanente Federation, he now leads work to extend Kaiser Permanente's experience with population-based care to further develop and integrate wellness, health maintenance and productivity enhancement interventions. He is also active in the design and promotion of systematic approaches to comparative effectiveness assessment and accelerated organizational learning.

Dr. Wallace was previously the Executive Director of Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute (CMI) from 2000 - 2005 and continues as a Senior Advisor to CMI and to Avivia Health, the Kaiser Permanente disease management company established in 2005. Dr. Wallace joined Kaiser Permanente in 1989, and has participated on the organization's program-wide New Technology, Research, Guidelines and Diversity Committees. Board certified in Internal Medicine and Hematology, he previously taught clinical and basic sciences and investigated bone marrow function as a faculty member at the Oregon Health Sciences University.

Dr. Wallace is currently a member of the Institute of Medicine Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice and the Board of Directors for AcademyHealth. He recently concluded terms as the Board Chair for the Center for Information Therapy, and as a Board member and Secretary for DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance. He has previously served on the Committee on Performance Measurement and Standards Committees for NCQA, the National Advisory Council for the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Medical Coverage Advisory Committee for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Medical Advisory Panel for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Technology Evaluation Center.

Wallace is a graduate of the University of Iowa School of Medicine and completed further training in Internal Medicine and Hematology at Strong Memorial Hospital and the University of Rochester.