Stakeholder Advisory Board Bios

Governance Stakeholder Advisory Board

Gordon Bergelson, Patient Representative: Mr. Bergelson has been a participant in several long term programs within the Department of Veterans Affairs, Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (VA) related to weight management. As a Vietnam Era Veteran, he observed the effects of military service and the VA on the veteran and their family. Mr. Bergelson served on the pSCANNER Phase I SAB-Education (Weight Management).

Kate Davila, Patient Representative: Ms. Davila is a Kawasaki disease survivor, diagnosed at the age of 15, and continues to be active as a board member with the Kawasaki Disease Foundation and as a KD Bridges volunteer talking to newly diagnosed patients and their parents.  She is involved as a patient partner on a pSCANNER research proposal relating to Kawasaki disease and served on the pSCANNER Phase I SAB-Education (KD).

Catherine Frank, Patient/Parent Representative, Patient Advocate: Ms. Frank is a board member and vice-president of the Kawasaki Disease Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to Kawasaki disease issues. The board of directors consists of parents whose children have had Kawasaki disease. Ms. Frank served on the pSCANNER Phase I Education (KD) and Governance SAB.

Lucy Johns, Patient Advocate

Romona Koren, Patient Representative: Ms. Koren is a patient stakeholder representing a SAFTNet clinic partner from Colorado.  She has worked for a number of years with the University of Colorado on a diabetes peer support project and looks forward to working on governance and sustainability issues relevant to pSCANNER.

Leslie Levine, Patient Representative: Dr. Levine is a neuropathy patient and patient advocate, leading a large neuropathy support group. She formerly worked as a medical researcher, then as a biomedical patent attorney, lastly as Director of Intellectual Property at Harvard University.  She is a PCORI Ambassador and reviewer of PCORI grant applications, and is devoted to promoting patient centered research and education. Dr. Levine served on the Phase I pSCANNER SAB-Governance.

Anna Lillian, Patient/Parent Representative: Ms. Lillian is active as a parent and patient advocate for Kawasaki disease.  She has been involved in several research studies and the KD Foundation for over 10 years.  Ms. Lillian served on the Phase I pSCANNER SAB-Education (KD).

Shilo McGrew, Patient Representative: Ms. McGrew has experience as a nurse and patient advocate and currently resides as an Advisory Board member of a major medical center Heart and Vascular Institute. She remains active as associate chair of an advisory panel supporting women's cardiac treatment and research. Ms. McGrew participated in Phase I of the pSCANNER project as a representative on the Education SAB specific to heart failure. 

Frederick Meyers, Clinician/Health System Representative: Dr. Meyers is associate dean for precision medicine and professor of internal medicine / hematology-oncology at the UC Davis School of Medicine.  He has a long-standing interest in cancer biology, clinical trials, and palliative care with a focus on advanced and metastatic malignancies. Dr. Meyers’ current focus is leading and integrating precision medicine across all of the colleges and schools at UC Davis and the communities it serves.

Sally Okun, Patient Advocate: Sally Okun is the Vice President for Advocacy, Policy and Patient Safety at PatientsLikeMe, a health data-sharing platform to help patients manage their own conditions and improve patient care.  She is responsible for the company’s patient advocacy initiatives; participates and contributes to health policy discussions at the national and global level; and is the company’s liaison with government and regulatory agencies.

Cara Rauschl, Patient/Parent Representative: Cara Rauschl participated in Phase 1 of the pSCANNER project as a representative on the SAB-Education (KD).  Ms. Rauschl brings an understanding of the evolution of the project and the importance that it will provide to patient centered research.  As a nurse she understands the process of a hospitalization; as a parent of a child diagnosed with KD she brings a unique perspective from both sides.

Lilly Rocha, Patient Representative: Ms. Rocha brings a unique patient’s perspective as a young woman who suffered a heart attack at the age of 37.  Her perspective adds to the dialogue regarding patient centered outcomes research. Ms. Rocha participated on the SAB-Education (HF) in Phase I of the pSCANNER project.

(Jon) Eric Sadler, Patient/Patient Advocate Representative: Eric Sadler is a diabetic and heart failure patient, actively involved in fighting for patients’ rights and helping to create support groups to educate and give support for people with heart failure and internal cardio defibrillators. Married and a father to two sons; he is interested in prevention and research aimed at identifying higher risk populations due to family history. Mr. Sadler participated on the pSCANNER Phase I SAB (Governance and Education).

Bruce Sawyer, Patient Representative: Mr. Sawyer is a retired public school educator with a background in science/technology. He is involved with the pSCANNER project because of an interest in getting medical information to patients in understandable language.  This would empower patients to make informed decisions about their course of treatment and feel more positive about their health care. Mr. Sawyer participated in Phase I of the pSCANNER project on the SAB-Governance and SAB-Education (HF).

Linette T. Scott, Clinician/Health System Representative: Dr. Scott is the Chief Medical Information Officer and the Deputy Director of the Information Management Division in the California Department of Health Care Services. In this role she works across the Department and with stakeholders to ensure that reliable data and information are available, and used to drive improvements in population health and clinical outcomes through the Department’s programs and policies.

Dolores Yanagihara, Health System Representative: Dolores Yanagihara is Vice President, Analytics & Performance Information with the Integrated Healthcare Association. She led the development and transition of the California Pay for Performance (P4P) program to Value Based P4P, which incorporates performance on quality, cost, and resource use into health plan incentive payments to physician organizations. Her focus is now on the development of new strategic initiatives in performance measurement, reporting, data use, and related areas. Ms. Yanagihara has a passion for advancing healthcare value, and a track record for building consensus among stakeholders to expand and enhance programs in the field of performance measurement, transparency, and alignment of incentives.

Hal Yee, Clinician/Health System Representative: Dr. Hal Yee Jr. is Chief Medical Officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, which includes 4 academic medical centers, a large ambulatory care network, and affiliations with USC, UCLA, and Drew Schools of Medicine. An emeritus Professor of Medicine at UCSF, he serves on the board of the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, as well as the external advisory boards of the UCLA and Southern California Clinical Translation Science Award Programs. He conceived of and helped lead implementation and evaluation of electronic specialty care referral and consultation management systems in both San Francisco (i.e., eReferral) and Los Angeles’s (i.e., eConsult) health care safety nets that have become national models for the transformation of access to, and the quality of, specialty care.

pSCANNER Research Team

Katherine Kim, Principal Investigator, UC Davis Lead: Dr. Kim is an Assistant Professor at UC Davis, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. Her research centers on the role of technology in consumer and patient engagement in health and technology-enabled care models with a particular focus in mobile Health (mHealth) and social networks, distributed research networks (DRNs) and health information exchange (HIE). Dr. Kim co-leads the Patient and Consumer Engagement Task Force for the PCORI’s PCORNet. 

Hugo Campos, Patient Co-Investigator: Mr. Campos is a member of the pSCANNER National Steering Committee, an ePatient Advisor at Stanford Medicine X, and a former advisor to the Health Data Exploration Project, UCSD. He has been at the forefront of the battle to give patients more access to their medical device data.  In July 2015, he was honored by the White House as a Champion of Change for Precision Medicine for his data liberation advocacy. Mr. Campos served as the patient co-chair on the Phase I pSCANNER SAB-Governance and continues in that role for Phase II.

Kate Marie, UC Davis Project Manager: Ms. Marie is the Research Manager for the UC Davis Center for Health and Technology providing management and oversight for technology-enabled health programs.

Rita Germann-Kurtz, UC San Diego: Ms. Germann-Kurtz is a Research Associate in the UCSD School of Medicine’s Division of Biomedical Informatics. Her research interests include Public and Behavioral Health.

Emily Guardado, UC San Diego: Ms. Guardado is a Research Associate in the UCSD School of Medicine’s Division of Biomedical Informatics. She is the Project Coordinator for pSCANNER. 

Gina Keppel, University of Washington, Seattle: Ms. Keppel is a Research Scientist with the University of Washington Department of Family Medicine and Institute of Translational Health Sciences. Her health services research experience includes both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, project management, and grant development. Outside of her work on pSCANNER, Ms. Keppel coordinates the WWAMI region Practice and Research Network, a practice-based research network of over 50 primary care clinics. 

Bethany Kwan, University of Colorado, Denver: Dr. Kwan is a social health psychologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She also serves as the Assistant Director of the Scalable Architecture for Federated Translational Inquires Network (SAFTINet), a Practice-Based Research Network. Dr. Kwan’s research primarily concerns the application of health behavior theory and health information technology (HIT) to the study of chronic disease self-management and health behavior change in primary care settings.

Kari Stephens, University of Washington, Seattle: Dr. Stephens is a clinical psychologist, biomedical informaticist, and an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Adjunct Assistant Professor in Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education, and the Associate Director of the Behavioral Science and Technology Program. Her research focuses on disadvantaged populations by: adapting evidence-based behavioral practices into medical settings and developing data sharing methods and tools to leverage electronic health data for research.

Howard Taras, UC San Diego: Dr. Taras is a Professor at UCSD’s School of Medicine, specializing in academic-community engagement for health care and research, and in field of School Health. He is past chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on School Health and now edits a national publication on this topic.

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)