
Thank you for attending the 2024 Annual Meeting
This year’s annual meeting in Nashville, TN was a huge success. We want to thank all attendees, speakers and sponsors for making this year’s meeting so memorable. Below you’ll find access to the session recordings and presentation slides.
Please keep an eye on your inbox for updates for next year’s annual meeting.
Meeting Agenda
1
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Exchange Coordinating Committee Chair opened the annual meeting with the Coordinating Committee’s perspective of the network, including progress highlights and the path ahead.

Matt Eisenberg, MD, FAAP
Matt Eisenberg, MD
Associate Chief Medical Information Officer - Stanford Health Care
Dr. Matthew A. Eisenberg joined Stanford Health Care in early 2013 and is the Associate Chief Medical Information Officer. Stanford Health Care is a not-for-profit academic healthcare system with leading edge clinical capabilities that is part of Stanford Medicine. Stanford Health Care seeks to heal humanity through science and compassion one patient at a time and its mission is to care, to educate, and to discover. In his role at Stanford Health Care, Dr. Eisenberg focuses on interoperability and health information exchange as well as government and regulatory reporting, health care analytics, patient reported outcomes and other uses of technology to meet our strategic initiatives.

2
State of the Network
eHealth Exchange President shared the annual state of the network, including accomplishments of 2024 and roadmap for 2025.

Jay Nakashima
Jay Nakashima
Executive Director - eHealth Exchange
Jay Nakashima leads the eHealth Exchange, the nation’s largest health information network which operates in all 50 states. Incubated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2006 as an ONC initiative, the eHealth Exchange is now an independent non-profit dedicated to the public good.
After years in leadership roles at providers, payers, and health IT vendors, Jay now focuses on improving interoperability to improve patient care.

3
Morning Keynote Address
Jim Jirjis, MD, MBA, FACP is Division Director of Data Policy and Standards within the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology at CDC. He is responsible for leading CDC’s interoperability and data policy and standards to ensure data transmitted across the public health ecosystem is robust, interoperable, and conforms to open data policies. A long-time champion of interoperability and public health, Jim provided an update on CDC’s efforts and goals to improve data exchange.

Jim Jirjis, MD, MBA, FACP
Jim Jirjis, MD, MBA, FACP
Division Director of Data Policy and Standards, Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology – CDC
Jim Jirjis, MD, MBA, FACP is Division Director of Data Policy and Standards within the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology at CDC. He is responsible for leading CDC’s interoperability and data policy and standards to ensure data transmitted across the public health ecosystem is robust, interoperable, and conforms to open data policies.
Prior to joining CDC, Jim was the chief health information officer for the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) Healthcare Clinical Service Group from 2013-2023. He oversaw data quality and governance for HCA’s clinical data enterprise and successfully automated most of the data mapping for all core data domains throughout HCA. He also served as HCA’s health IT data policy lead and was appointed to two terms on the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC)—advising ONC on public health reporting, pharmacy interoperability topic, and more.
Jim is a longtime champion of electronic medical record adoption and interoperability in the healthcare community. Before joining HCA, he practiced internal medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), where he served as medical director of internal medicine and chief health information officer.

4
Accelerating Data Exchange for Public Health
The CDC provided $255M in funding through Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) for the Implementation Center Program to bolster vital public health data modernization efforts. In this session you’ll hear about what these Implementation Centers will do, and the process to bring more agencies and STLTs into the fold for use cases like electronic case reporting and case investigations.

Panelists

MODERATOR
Craig Behm
Craig Behm
CEO - CRISP Shared Services
As President and CEO, Craig is the lead executive responsible for developing and executing the strategic plan as well as ensuring strong financial controls and high-quality services. His focus is on driving interoperability and innovation by expanding Health Data Utilities through CRISP and member Health Information Exchanges across the country. He manages the senior team with an emphasis on fostering collaboration while advocating for the mission, vision, and values of both CRISP and CRISP Shared Services. Craig is also an instructor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County Master’s program in Health Information Technology. Prior to supporting health IT efforts, Craig led the start-up and operations of three physician-led, Advance Payment Medicare Shared Savings Program Accountable Care Organizations. He has a Master of Business Administration from Loyola University.

Massimo Pacilli

J.T. Lane

Bryant Thomas Karras, MD FACMI
Bryant Thomas Karras, MD
Chief Informatics Officer and Senior Epidemiologist at State of Washington Department of Health
His current position is in the Office of Science Health and Informatics, where he guides the agencies interoperability work. He is a Physician, an Engineer and Public Health Informatician. He has a technical, business process, and problem-solving approach with a background in Internal Medicine/Chief Resident (University of Wisconsin), Biomedical Engineering (University of California San Diego), and a Medical Informatics Fellowship (Yale). As Informatics Officer for the state’s Public Health agency, he guides the informatics and interoperability enterprise wide agency efforts including how to utilize innovative technologies such as Bluetooth Exposure Notification. Bryant is passionate about improving public health’s use of Health Information Technology in Washington state helping state and local Public Health Agencies elsewhere with informatics issues. www.doh.wa.gov/HealthIT "a healthy dose of information"
5
Unlocking the Impact of the CARES Act Final Rule Changes on 42 CFR Part 2 for HIN/HIEs
HHS published a final rule modifying 42 CFR Part 2, which governs the use and disclosure of substance use disorder information. The compliance deadline is February 16, 2026. In this presentation, Mel Soliz explained how these changes may impact data exchange for health information networks and exchanges (HIN/HIEs).

Melissa (Mel) Soliz
Melissa (Mel) Soliz
Partner, Coppersmith Brockelman PLC and Outside Counsel for Velatura
Melissa Soliz is a partner with Coppersmith Brockelman, PLC in Phoenix, Arizona. Her regulatory health law practice focuses on compliance with data privacy, access and interoperability laws (such as HIPAA, 42 C.F.R. Part 2, the ONC Information Blocking Rule, the CMS interoperability mandates, and state laws), health information exchange (HIE) (including the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA)), behavioral health/substance use disorder law issues, data breaches and OCR investigations, as well as clinical research compliance and contracting.
Melissa regularly speaks in local and national forums on these topics and has been active in state and federal policy making on data privacy and HIE issues. She is the President of the Arizona Society of Healthcare Attorneys and is recognized by Chambers, Best Lawyers© and Southwest Super Lawyers: Rising Stars© for her work in health law. She is a Phoenix Business Journal (PBJ), 40 under 40 recipient (Class of 2023) and 2023 Managed Healthcare Executive: Emerging Leader in Healthcare.

6
Leading Trust in National Networks
Trust is essential when it comes to accessing health care data. Recent disputes over patient privacy, interpretation on policy, and allegations of inappropriate requests for data have rattled our industry. In this panel, we unpack how the TEFCA and Carequality national frameworks are responding, and review how eHealth Exchange’s enhanced trust guardrails protect patient privacy and increase transparency.

Panelists

MODERATOR
Amy Bagge-Smith

Mariann Yeager
Mariann Yeager
CEO The Sequoia Project
Mariann Yeager has more than 20 years of experience in the health information technology field. She currently serves as CEO for The Sequoia Project, a non-profit solely focused on advancing secure, interoperable nationwide health data sharing in the US. She leads the Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) effort, in close collaboration with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to develop, implement, and maintain the Common Agreement component of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) and to operationalize the Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) designation and monitoring process. The Sequoia Project serves as a steward of independently governed health IT interoperability initiatives, including the RSNA Image Share Validation Program and the Interoperability Matters program, which engages experts from across the healthcare and health IT communities to collaborate to solve discrete challenges to nationwide health information sharing through various workgroups. Ongoing Interoperability Matters workgroups include Information Sharing workgroup, Data Usability workgroup, and the Public Health workgroup. Under her leadership, The Sequoia Project supported, the startup, growth and maturation of two highly successfully interoperability initiatives, the eHealth Exchange and Carequality, which now operate as independent non-profit organizations. Prior to her tenure at The Sequoia Project, she worked with the HHS Office of National Coordinator (ONC) for five years on nationwide health information network initiatives. She also led the launch and operation of the first ambulatory and inpatient EHR certification program in the US.

Alan Swenson
Alan Swenson
Executive Director – Carequality
As Executive Director of Carequality, Alan Swenson guides the development and implementation of the Carequality Interoperability Framework, the leading, nationwide trusted exchange framework enabling health data sharing across and among different types of networks and service providers. First implemented in July 2016, the framework now supports the exchange of more than 300M documents a month across more than 4,200 hospitals and 50,000 clinics. Alan also leads Carequality in supporting The Sequoia Project as the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s (ONC’s) Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE). Alan has spent more than a decade focused on health IT interoperability. Before leading Carequality, he helped lead an exponential increase in patient record sharing through direct collaboration with hundreds of healthcare systems and provider organizations, EHR vendors, HIEs, HISPs, PHRs, payers, government agencies, and other digital health platforms. He has also volunteered with The Sequoia Project, National Association for the Support of Long-Term Care (NASL), CommonWell Health Alliance, DirectTrust, National Quality Forum, and HIMSS, among other industry interoperability initiatives.

Matt Eisenberg, MD, FAAP
Matt Eisenberg, MD
Associate Chief Medical Information Officer - Stanford Health Care
Dr. Matthew A. Eisenberg joined Stanford Health Care in early 2013 and is the Associate Chief Medical Information Officer. Stanford Health Care is a not-for-profit academic healthcare system with leading edge clinical capabilities that is part of Stanford Medicine. Stanford Health Care seeks to heal humanity through science and compassion one patient at a time and its mission is to care, to educate, and to discover. In his role at Stanford Health Care, Dr. Eisenberg focuses on interoperability and health information exchange as well as government and regulatory reporting, health care analytics, patient reported outcomes and other uses of technology to meet our strategic initiatives.
7
Federal Interoperability Progress and Promise
eHealth Exchange was founded on the principal need for health information exchange between and among federal agencies and their private sector partners. In this session you learn how these relationships have evolved, how network participants can better work together, and opportunities for future use cases.

Panelists

MODERATOR
Pam Matthews, RN
Pam Matthews, RN, MBA, CPHIMS
CEO/Executive Director - East Tennessee Health Information Network
Ms. Matthews is an accomplished information technology (IT) leader experienced in healthcare information exchange, strategic planning, IT operations and clinical informatics. She is currently the CEO/Executive Director of East Tennessee Health Information Network. Ms. Matthews spent nine years at the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS), where she launched and directed the Society’s health information exchange activities, supported HIMSS Analytics activities, convened communities at the state and regional levels, and participated in HIMSS’ advocacy, policy, and Federal initiatives. She has worked with many HIEs through her consulting firm with strategic planning and operations as well as participated in ONC contracts.
Ms. Matthews has served on multiple boards and advisory councils. She was CIO for a nationwide health care provider, worked in a large academic health care system, and with two consulting firms including KPMG. She is a Registered Nurse with a bachelor’s in industrial engineering and a master’s in business administration. Ms. Matthews is a HIMSS Fellow, served on the HIMSS Board of Directors, the HIMSS Foundation Board and Chair, and the HIMSS Professional Certification Board. Ms. Matthews is currently on the eHealth Exchange Board of Directors, serving as Vice-Chair as well as a member of the Coordinating Committee. Ms. Matthews has served as an adjunct professor focusing on clinical informatics and interoperability. She is a frequent speaker and has authored many articles and book chapters on information technology, health information exchange and informatics.

Hussein Ezzeldin, PhD
Dr. Hussein Ezzeldin
Senior Staff Fellow - FDA
Hussein Ezzeldin earned his PhD in 2012 from the University of Maryland, College Park. He joined the FDA, Office of Biostatistics and Pharmacovigilance (OBPV) in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) in 2013. Dr. Ezzeldin worked on multiple modeling and risk assessment, policy, and research projects. Dr. Ezzeldin works on advancing the science of patient input as part of the FDA regulatory-science strategic goals, and he is leading the natural history study for metachromatic leukodystrophy, HOME. Currently, Dr. Ezzeldin co-leads the Biologics Effectiveness and Safety Innovative Methods Initiative (BEST IM), which aims to develop new and innovative methods for a semi-automated adverse events (AEs) reporting system for CBER-Regulated Biological Products. Dr. Ezzeldin is the acting CBER Lead for the digital health technology review team (DHT-RT), supporting the use of DHTs in regulatory submissions.

Cindy Pan
Cindy Pan
Program Manager at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Cindy Pan joined the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) in 2019 as a Veterans Health Information Exchange (VHIE) Program Manager overseeing the VA's query based exchange (VA Exchange) partners and networks. In addition to the internal and external operations of account management for all of VA Exchange, she leads the team in strategic direction for interoperability with VA's Community Care partners.
Cindy's background working directly with VA Medical Center end users, Community Care Partners, and Veteran patients uniquely equips her with the broad perspective needed for optimization during expansion and overall vision. After a decade plus of experience working in Healthcare IT, she brings consultative technical tactics, successful experience in end-to-end implementation, and large scale account management to the VA VHIE Program. Her passion for collaboration and efficiency brings all the best ingredients together for leading the VA's interoperability efforts.

Ray Duncan, MD
Marty Prahl
Executive Director, Tech R&D - Cedars-Sinai Health System
Ray Duncan is a neonatologist, software developer, and author with broad experience in clinical care, software development, technical publishing, and health information technology. He received a BA in Chemistry from UC Riverside and an MD from UCLA School of Medicine, and completed his pediatric residency and neonatology fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During the early years of personal computing, he wrote several technical books and hundreds of magazine columns for Microsoft Press, Addison Wesley, PC Magazine, Microsoft Systems Journal, Programmer’s Journal, Embedded Systems Programming, and others, as well running a small consulting firm for embedded applications, and developed multiple PC, Mac, and web-based applications for the neonatal intensive care unit. He served as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the Cedars-Sinai Health System for seven years during the Cedars-Sinai implementation of the Epic electronic medical record for the full continuum of care. Ray is currently Executive Director of Technology R&D for Cedars-Sinai working with cloud services, device integration, HIE, personal/wearable devices, and mobile applications. Ray’s team is an early adopter of FHIR services for EMR integration and also acts the primary technical mentors and liaison to the healthcare IT startups in the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator. Ray is the administrator of the web site “Neonatology on the Web,” and the moderator of the “NICU Professionals” group on Facebook.
8
Tomorrow’s TEFCA – Expanding Exchange Purposes
The mission of many HIEs, public agencies, and other organizations has been expanding to support the integration of data and sharing of data to tackle complex problems like unmet social health needs and coordination with child welfare and social support programs – including activities beyond the six current Expanded Exchange Purposes. Do we need additional TEFCA Exchange Purposes to support these goals? What other use cases for TEFCA should we be contemplating today so we are ready for tomorrow?

Panelists

MODERATOR
Greg James

Gary Parker
Gary D. Parker, MBA, JD
Chief Data Officer - Alabama Medicaid Agency
Director - Alabama One Health Record
Mr. Parker has over 35 years of experience, at all levels of systems and policy design, development, implementation, and strategic planning, across both the public and private sectors. He began his public service career with State of Alabama in 2008 and has served in various administrative and leadership roles.
Since 2018 he has served as both Alabama Medicaid’s Chief Data Officer, as well as the Director of Alabama’s HIE, One Health Record®. In these roles, his responsibilities are focused on formulating and guiding the Agency’s Health IT, Data Governance & Interoperability initiatives, including TEFCA.
Mr. Parker is currently serving as the Chair of the eHealth Exchange QHIN Advisory Committee.

Mark Knee
Mark Knee
Deputy Director of the Interoperability Division- ASTP/ONC
Mark Knee is the Deputy Director of the Interoperability Division within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) Office of Policy, where he works on federal health IT and interoperability policy. Prior to coming to ONC, Mark worked in different capacities within the federal government assisting federal agencies—including the Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency, and Office of Personnel Management—in policymaking and enforcement activities. Mark earned his J.D. from William & Mary Law School and was a Presidential Management Fellow.

Jaime Bland
9
The “007” of the CMS-0057 Prior Authorization Rule Requiring FHIR
We’ll investigate CMS-0057 regulation and uncover the market needs of payers and providers. Join us as we magnify possible solutions and weigh some of the challenges with FHIR exchange. Together we have the opportunity to “kill it” and proliferate provider and payer burden reduction across healthcare.

Panelists

MODERATOR
Ryan Howells
Ryan Howells
Leavitt Partners
Ryan Howells is a nationally recognized digital health policy and interoperability expert based out of the Leavitt Partners Washington, D.C., office, who regularly works with the White House, Congress, HHS, and the VHA. Since 2016, Ryan has led the CARIN Alliance, which has advanced consumer-directed exchange using FHIR APIs. CARIN’s work has been implemented in production across the U.S., named as an “industry best practice” in multiple federal regulations, and received a World Changing Idea Award by Fast Company magazine.
Ryan also works with CMS and NCQA to advance digital quality measures, the Utah Governor’s office on their statewide FHIR interoperability pilot, and with CDC and ONC on public health data modernization.
Ryan is a previous General Manager of a digital health product company and current board member for multiple health care companies. He also serves on the CMS MITA Governance Board, Carequality Steering Committee, ONC’s FAST Identity Tiger Team, and the Steering Committee of the Vaccination Credentialing Initiative. Ryan has a MHA from USC and a BA from BYU. He lives in Athens, GA, with his wife Alison and 5 children.

Bill Gregg, MD, MS, MPH
William (Bill) Gregg, MD, MS, MPH
William (Bill) Gregg, MD, MS, MPH, joined HCA Healthcare in 2014 and serves as Vice President of Interoperability. In addition to his medical degree, Dr. Gregg holds an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned master’s degrees in Clinical Informatics and Public Health at Vanderbilt University and was a VA Quality Scholars Fellow. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics. At a national level, he is Co-Chair of the Sequoia Project’s Data Usability Workgroup whose charge is to identify practical solutions to make interoperability work better for clinicians and patients. Dr. Gregg also serves on the Sequoia Project Interoperability Matters Leadership Council and the SMART Health IT Advisory Committee. Prior to joining HCA, Dr. Gregg served as an Assistant Professor of Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University and was the Director of Population Health Informatics. He helped develop successful clinical programs and led software development in population health and clinical decision support. His primary focus is on system level integration of technology, interoperability, and processes to support transformation of clinical care in our rapidly changing healthcare landscape.

Kirk Anderson
Kirk Anderson
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer - Cambia Health Solutions
Kirk Anderson is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Cambia Health Solutions, where he leads technology strategy and execution. Prior to becoming Cambia’s CTO, Kirk served as its Chief Information Security Officer and previously led information security for WebMD Health Solutions.
In his current role, Kirk has led Cambia’s digital transformation, cloud strategy, and health care interoperability initiatives. Kirk is a founding member and current Board Chairman of the HL7 Da Vinci Project – a national effort to accelerate the use of FHIR APIs between payers and providers. Kirk is also a board member of the CARIN Alliance, focusing on consumer-driven access to health care data.

Michael Westover
Michael Westover
Vice President of Data Partnerships and Informatics - Providence
Michael Westover serves as the Vice President of Data Partnerships and Informatics for Providence, a healthcare system with 120,000 caregivers, over 50 hospitals, and more than 1,000 clinics. He developed Providence’s data exchange strategy and the interoperability infrastructure used to support over 150 Value Based Care risk arrangements and government programs. Michael graduated with honors from Brigham Young University and has a master’s degree with an emphasis in healthcare management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Ryan McLelland
Ryan McLelland
Chief Technology Officer - UHIN
Ryan McLelland has a diverse work experience in the technology industry. Ryan is currently the Chief Technology Officer at UHIN, a position they have held since December 2021. Prior to this, they served as the Director of Engineering at UHIN from November 2019 to December 2021. Before joining UHIN, Ryan worked at Footprints Inc. as a Software Engineer/Project Manager from February 2009 to July 2017, where they oversaw projects for various clients and developed custom software. From 2005 to 2009, they were the Production Manager/Web Developer at ELS Productions, managing the production department and handling web programming and IT needs. In their earlier career, Ryan worked as a Trainer/Support at LiteTouch from 2002 to 2005.
Ryan McLelland attended the University of Utah, where they pursued a field of study in Computer Science. No specific start or end year for their education at this institution is provided.
10
Afternoon Keynote Address
Dr. J. Marc Overhage has served as Chief Health Information Officer for organizations like Elevance Health, Siemens Health Solutions and Cerner as well as practicing for 20 years as a physician in a major academic medical center for 20 years, combined with over 35 years of experience developing and implementing clinical and scientific systems, including population health platforms and community-based EHR systems — giving him a unique 360-degree view into our healthcare system. Hear what this industry rock star thinks about how interoperability can affect change.

J. Marc Overhage, MD, PhD
Dr. Marc Overhage
Staff VP Health Informatics MD – Elevance Health
Dr. J. Marc Overhage is a results-focused healthcare executive who has grown successful, innovative, data-intensive healthcare organizations by capitalizing on opportunities he identified. He has demonstrated skill at creating cross-organizational collaboration, communication, and innovative business models. He is currently Chief Health Information Officer at Elevance Health, Inc. He is responsible for the design, development, and execution of the Elevance Health strategic vision, policy, and planning related to health information technology (HIT) in ways that optimize operational efficiency and clinical outcomes. Dr. Overhage has over 35 years of experience developing and implementing clinical and scientific systems and evaluating their value. His work focuses on developing, deploying, and evaluating clinical information systems, emphasizing clinical decision support and regional health information exchange. Before joining Elevance Health in 2020, he served as a Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Cerner and Siemens Health Services. In that role, he led innovation teams and provided clinical oversight for developing population health platforms. He previously worked at the Regenstrief Institute, where he created a community-wide electronic medical record (called the Indiana Network for Patient Care), which contains data from many sources, including laboratories, pharmacies, and hospitals in central Indiana. Over 104 acute care hospitals and over 22,000 physicians participate in the system, including inpatient and outpatient encounter data, laboratory results, immunization data, and other selected data. Dr. Overhage practiced for 20 years with experience in the inpatient and ambulatory settings and the emergency department. He has been recognized as a Master by the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Overhage is a graduate of Wabash College and the Indiana University School of Medicine, earning his Ph.D. in Biophysics and his MD. He completed his residency and fellowships at Indiana University, where he also served as Chief Resident in Medicine. He completed a fellowship in Health Services Research with an emphasis on Medical Informatics. Dr. Overhage is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI), and a Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine.

11
Insights from the Top
eHealth Exchange Board of Directors Chair Bill Howard sum’s up the meeting’s insights and call to action for participants to enhance their connectivity to improve patient care and outcomes.

Bill Howard
Bill Howard
Board Chairman - eHealth Exchange
Bill Howard is the current board chair of eHealth exchange and has been involved with eHealth Exchange, The Sequoia Project and Carequality since 2016. Bill has more than 30 years of Health IT experience ranging from lab instrument interoperability (3M, Roche), establishing a nationwide EDI claims clearinghouse (GE, IDX), and experience implementing HIE and Population Health solutions globally (GE, Microsoft). Recently Bill became an independent consultant after 7 years with Audacious Inquiry where he led product strategy and was hands-on with deployments in ~10 states.

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