2019 Speakers

Ash Goel, M.D.

Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer
Bronson Healthcare

Ash Goel, M.D., is the senior vice president and chief information officer for Bronson Healthcare. He also practices medicine as an inpatient medicine hospitalist and is part of the faculty at the Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine. He has more than 20 years of healthcare leadership experience in various roles and more than 10 years in executive roles in technology operations. His current responsibilities include oversight of Bronson Healthcare's system-wide IT enterprise; facilitating the use of technology to improve and coordinate patient care; and developing and enhancing the use of a digital platform informed by data analytics throughout the health system to support better clinical and business outcomes.

Session: Technology Translated

Precision health, digital transformation, real-time analytics, AI enabled medical diagnoses, IoT hospitals, genomics, virtual medicine—hype words thrown around in the media, journals and research every day. In his keynote session, Goel will review the emerging trends in technology circa 2019 as well as their impact on healthcare and discuss what it may mean for users of such tools. This presentation provides a window into what we should be thinking about as the new generation of students, healthcare experts and technology leaders grapple with actualizing the benefits ascribed to the flow of information that continues to escalate in volume, variety and density of its content.

Theresa Beckie, Ph.D.

Associate Dean and Professor
University of South Florida

Theresa Beckie, Ph.D., is an associate dean and professor in the colleges of nursing and medicine at the University of South Florida. Her research has substantially contributed to the science for improving health behaviors and health outcomes of women with cardiovascular disease. She was the first to develop a motivationally tailored cardiac rehabilitation program specifically for women. The international reputation of her work to understand the environmental and genetic risks for women, their unique physiological and psychosocial risks, and gender-specific barriers to disease self-management, led to contributions to numerous American Heart Association scientific statements including guidelines for preventing cardiovascular disease and acute myocardial infarction in women, and performance measures for delivering cardiac rehabilitation. Her research seeks to improve access to healthcare at a lower cost for improved health outcomes of women with heart disease. Dr. Beckie is translating her face-to-face cardiac rehabilitation program for women to a mobile platform using wearable sensors and a smart phone.

Session: Technology-enhanced Intervention for Fighting Coronary Heart Disease

Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death and disability globally. In 2015, the estimated cost of caring for coronary heart disease patients was $182 billion in the U.S. This presentation addresses the gap in accessible evidence-based secondary prevention care for women recovering from heart disease. Despite proven health benefits, center-based cardiac rehabilitation has been dreadfully underutilized for decades across most demographic groups, but especially for socio-economically disadvantaged, uninsured or underinsured women. An innovative, technology-enhanced behavioral theory-based mobile health intervention for improving the cardiovascular health of women with coronary heart disease is described, including the implications for global reach and implementation into evidence-based practice.

Doug Dietzman

Chief Executive Officer
Great Lakes Health Connect

Doug Dietzman, chief executive officer for Great Lakes Health Connect, has more than 25 years of experience in information technology leadership focused primarily in the healthcare and health insurance markets. Dietzman has overall responsibility for Great Lakes Health Connect’s business and technical operations and achieving the organization’s mission on behalf of Michigan’s citizens and healthcare communities across the state. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business management from Biola University in California and was named a 2011 Thought Leader in Health Care by Business Review West Michigan. Dietzman is an executive director of Making Choices Michigan; serves on the board of directors of Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative; serves as the HIO representative for eHealth Exchange Coordinating Committee; and participates on the advisory board of the Bonnie Wesorick Center for Health Care Transformation at Grand Valley State University Kirkoff College of Nursing.

Session: The Future Health Landscape—Intelligent and Interconnected

Healthcare continues to evolve at the same breakneck speed seen during the past decade. What are we evolving to? How do we harness the vast number of new technologies and delivery models, both from inside and outside the healthcare industry, to create the landscape in which we aspire to live?  In this presentation, Doug Dietzman will explore the core elements of intelligence and interconnectedness that are indispensable for healthcare moving forward. From his perspective of running a core interoperability hub across Michigan with participants across physical, behavioral and social settings, Dietzman will highlight the importance and vital need of collaboration in best caring for those we serve.

Rebecca Laborde, Ph.D.

Global Lead Product Strategist for Healthcare and Precision Medicine
Oracle Healthcare

Rebecca Laborde, Ph.D., is the global lead product strategist for healthcare and precision medicine in the Oracle Healthcare Global Business Unit. In her role, Ladorde works directly with thought leaders in the fields of healthcare and research to inform the development of products to support the current and future direction of healthcare initiatives. She received her doctorate in genomics with a focus on genome modulation and immune response to infection from Iowa State University. She then continued as a senior scientist and postdoctoral fellow at Mayo Clinic with a focus on integrating genomics into translational research and precision medicine in areas including head and neck cancer, hematology and immunotherapy.

Session: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Customer Experience Solutions to Deliver the Next Generation of Smart Care—A Real-World Example of a White House Tech Sprint

We are in a period of rapid transition in healthcare toward more flexible and technology-assisted smart care, including AI-assisted CX. Real-world clinical examples are critical to the success of these development projects. Laborde will discuss one such example— matching patients to clinical trials as next steps in cancer care. 

Oracle was invited by the White House to participate in a demo sprint, building a solution that uses AI to simplify clinical trials matching. The company was able to integrate AI-assisted cloud technologies including website services, digital assistants, policy automation and AI to produce a solution. The resulting solution provides intuitive interfaces and proper data to support the patient and doctor in clinical decision support.

Jason Joseph

Chief Information Officer
Spectrum Health

Jason Joseph is chief information officer of Spectrum and is responsible for strategic and operational information systems, technology, cybersecurity and emergency preparedness. He previously served as senior vice president of information services and has advanced a variety of strategic priorities. He has held roles across the system, including within Spectrum Health Hospital Group, Spectrum Health Medical Group and Priority Health. Prior to joining Spectrum Health in 2006, Joseph was vice president, information systems and services, for IdeaSphere. He began his career with Ernst & Young in its management consulting practice. Joseph holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Western Michigan University and master’s degree in business administration from the University of Notre Dame. He also holds a certificate in healthcare project management from the Harvard School of Public Health and is a graduate of the Spectrum Health Executive Leadership Institute at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

Session: Making Sense of Healthcare’s Technology-Enabled Future

This presentation will discuss the broad forces within our economy and healthcare system overall and the key role that technology will play in the future. We will explore the environmental changes that are driving transformations in the business model, as well as the technology triggers that are creating new opportunities to improve or alter the way healthcare is delivered. The intersection of healthcare and technology is rapidly evolving and creating both challenges and opportunities. We will explore both these challenges and opportunities from the perspective of a healthcare CIO.

Larry Yob


Senior Director of 
Information Security
Ascension Technologies



Larry Yob has been the senior director of information security at Ascension Technologies, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, since 2015. Previously, he held multiple security roles at Ascension. He established the Ascension Security Operation Center and led the deployment and support of multiple large scale projects, including endpoint encryption, data loss prevention, multi-factor authentication, and endpoint detection and response. Yob has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Grand Valley State University and has held a Certified Information Systems Security Professional certification for more than 10 years.

Session Abstract 

As we transition into a world of smart care and interoperability, how do we maintain security, privacy and each organization’s competitive advantage? During this session, we will look at security and privacy concerns when allowing anytime, anywhere, any device access to protected healthcare information. Also, we will peek into the challenges of securing data from devices to electronic health records and ultimately into large data lakes in the cloud. Finally, we will examine the balance between need to know and zero trust.