Join AMHP and the Cambridge Public Health Department for our national conference to foster dialogue and collaboration between health professionals and students and to promote public health initiatives that impact our communities. This year’s theme is Innovation in Action: Solution to Public Health Challenges.

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Keynote Address: 

Dr. Kavita Patel is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution as well as a practicing primary care physician with leadership experience at Johns Hopkins Medicine. In her role at the Brookings Institution, Dr. Patel was instrumental in the
development of several specialty payment models that have been adopted by Medicare.

Dr. Patel was previously a Director of Policy for The White House under President Obama and a senior advisor to the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

Her prior research in healthcare quality and community approaches to mental illness have earned national recognition and she has published numerous papers and book chapters on healthcare reform and health policy.

She has testified before Congress several times and she is a frequent guest expert on NPR, CBS, NBC and MSNBC as well as serving on the editorial board of the journal Health Affairs.

Keynote: Networking Dinner Reception

Abdul El-Sayed is the former health commissioner for the City of Detroit. Abdul has a medical degree from Columbia University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University where he earned a doctorate in public health. He is a native Michigander who grew up in Metro Detroit. Abdul left his position as an assistant professor in Columbia University’s Department of Epidemiology to return to Michigan. Abdul became the youngest health official in a major American city when Mayor Mike Duggan appointed Abdul to rebuild Detroit’s Health Department after it was privatized during the city’s bankruptcy. As Health Commissioner, he was responsible for the health and safety of over 670,000 Detroiters.

Abdul worked tirelessly to ensure government accountability and transparency, promote health, and reduce cross-generational poverty. Abdul launched his gubernatorial campaign after witnessing the systematic failures in Flint and across the state. He was the first candidate to release a comprehensive policy platform with a bold, progressive agenda focused on Michigan’s future. Abdul lives in Detroit with his wife, Sarah, a mental health doctor. He loves working out, good biographies, coffee, and Michigan sports.

Conference Schedule

Confirmed Speakers:

Mona Siddiqui, MD, MPH is currently serving as the Chief Data Officer for the Department of Health and Human Services where she is focused on building an enterprise wide data governance structure, streamlined data use agreements, creating a business analytics unit and developing strategic partnerships for data sharing with external stakeholders.

Rafiya Javed is a medical doctor and founder of ShoutHealth, who is excited about using data-driven technology to improve healthcare accessibility. After earning a B.S. in physics from the University of Florida and an M.D. from McGill University, she is now working on her M.S. in Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology. While in medical school, Rafiya had observed that many of her low-income patients were suffering from an underlying social cause and simply didn’t know about resources that could have helped them. There was a huge information gap among both providers and patients about community resources like subsidized housing, free clinics, and other social determinants of health. So after graduating medical school, she founded ShoutHealth to attempt to address this enormous informational gap. ShoutHealth Inc. is designed to help healthcare professionals navigate their patients to local community resources. It is backed by Georgia Tech’s Create-X accelerator fund and is now piloting at a major children’s hospital in Atlanta.

Samir Malik is currently the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Genoa Telepsychiatry, the largest outpatient telepsychiatry provider in the country. Samir came into this role through the acquisition of his company, 1DocWay, a New York City-based telepsychiatry company, which he co-founded and served as CEO. The company expands access to mental healthcare in rural America. Samir and his team have built the technology-enabled-services company. Prior to 1DocWay, Samir was the President of Signature Healthcare, and CEO of ZipCare Transportation, two healthcare service companies he started and led.

These two endeavors have grown in the past 5 years from two employees to over 200, while improving access to healthcare in markets and populations in need of mental health access.

Joan Y. Reede is the Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Dr. Reede also holds appointments as Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health, and is an Assistant in Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Reede is responsible for the development and management of a comprehensive program that provides leadership, guidance, and support to promote the increased recruitment, retention, and advancement of underrepresented minority, women, LGBT, and faculty with disabilities at Harvard Medical School (HMS). This charge includes oversight of all diversity activities at HMS as they relate to faculty, trainees, students, and staff. Dr. Reede also serves as the director of the Minority Faculty Development Program, and faculty director of Community Outreach Programs at Harvard Medical School, Program Director of the Faculty Diversity Program of the Harvard Catalyst/The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center, and Director of the HMS Center of Excellence in Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Dr. Reede is acknowledged as an authority in the area of workforce development and diversity. Her colleagues and mentees have recognized her with a number of awards that include the Herbert W. Nickens Award from AAMC and the Society of General Medicine in 2005; election to the National Academy of Medicine in 2009; the 2011 Diversity Award from the Association of University Professors; and in 2012 she was the recipient of an Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Trust Award. In 2013 she received an Exemplar STEM Award from the Urban Education Institute at North Carolina A & T University in Greensboro, North Carolina, and in 2015, she was the Distinguished Woman Scientist and Scholar ADVANCE Lecturer at the University of Maryland School of Public Health.

Vikram Patel is The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. His work has focused on the burden of mental disorders, their association with social disadvantage, and the use of community resources for their prevention and treatment. He holds Honorary Professorships at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, the Public Health Foundation of India, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (where he co-founded the Centre for Global Mental Health in 2008), and is a co-founder of Sangath, an Indian NGO which won the MacArthur Foundation’s International Prize for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2008 and the WHO Public Health Champion of India award in 2016. He is a co-founder of the Movement for Global Mental Health. He is a Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences and has served on several WHO expert and Government of India committees.

Ahmad Gaber is currently the Vice President, and Head of Strategy for Premier Inc., the nations leading publicly held healthcare transformation company. In his role, Ahmad is responsible for articulating a constantly maturing vision of the healthcare ecosystem, while functionally overseeing the setting of strategy for the organization as well as evaluating potential partners and acquisition targets. Previously, Ahmad served as the Director of Healthcare Deals Strategy Consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he advised clients on evolving business models and M&A opportunities to help navigate the changes in healthcare.  He achieved a track record of leading the development and execution of nuanced strategies for some of the most contemporary and complex aspects of healthcare today, such as deals between payers/physicians/providers, healthcare consumerization, population health solutions, and entry strategies for new players in the healthcare economy.

Amy Rosenthal’s career has focused on public health, politics, and non-profit management.  Prior to becoming the Executive Director of Health Care For All, Amy was the Director of External Affairs & Campaigns at Community Catalyst (CC), where she played a leadership role within Protect Our Care, a coalition of national organizations engaged in the current health care defense efforts; worked with the White House and Health and Human Services during the Obama Administration on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA); and led CC’s federal work with other national organizations, Congressional offices, and agency staffers.

Amy has worked in both the Massachusetts State Senate and the Massachusetts State House of Representatives, served as the Policy Director on a gubernatorial campaign, and provided political consulting services for several clients in New England.  She was the Executive Director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, which focuses on promoting women in politics, and served as Political Director for Barbara Lee, an activist and fundraiser for progressive women candidates.

Prior to entering politics, Amy spent seven years working for three large academic hospitals conducting public health work, with an emphasis on preventing gun deaths and injuries.

Amy has a Master in Public Health degree from Harvard University, a Master in Public Affairs degree with a concentration in Non-Profit Management from Indiana University, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Studies from Northwestern University.  Amy married a fellow Northwestern University alum, Marc Rosenthal.  They live in Lexington, MA and have two children Emily (8) and Owen (4).

Dr. Wasif Syed is Founder and CEO of Ivy Strategy Advisor LLC (formerly known as Ivy League Advisor LLC), an educational and leadership strategy consulting firm in Washington, D.C., specializing in innovative human capital development. Wasif has developed the proprietary, data-driven, Innovative Leadership Program. Wasif, an avid proponent of youth empowerment, leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation, conducts professional development programs worldwide. He mentors students and young professionals to help unlock their potential, develop their leadership skills and help them achieve their educational and career goals. He works extensively with youth from the Middle East. His clients have gone on to attend top universities such as MIT, Stanford, and the Ivy League for undergraduate and graduate studies. He also works with schools, universities, nonprofits, governments and the private sector globally. He was named one of “5 People Inspiring Peace” globally for his education and leadership work in Huffington Post.

Nadeem Mazen is an engineer, social entrepreneur, and community leader. He has been fortunate to educate and train students, leaders, and entrepreneurs from every background over the past 15 years. Nadeem has served as faculty and Director of Innovation at School of the Museum of Fine Arts, an instructor at the Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan, a Varsity Head Coach at MIT, and a full time elected City Councillor in Cambridge, the home of Harvard and MIT.

Nadeem is an Andover native, and went on to graduate from Phillips Academy and MIT. Nadeem is a serial entrepreneur, having founded successful businesses in education, high-tech job training, software, and media.  

Hira Raja is a Crisis Counselor Coach at Crisis Text Line, a free, 24/7 support for those in crisis. In her role, she trains and prepares volunteers to become Crisis Counselors to connect with people in crisis across the nation.

She holds a Masters in Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology from Ohio State University. She is particularly interested in the intersection between mental health and the stigma amongst minority groups as well as global public health.

Hesham Hamoda Dr. Hesham Hamoda is an Assistant Professor at the Harvard Medical School and a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Hamoda graduated from medical school after which he completed training in Psychiatry and a Fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. He also holds a master-degree in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. He currently serves as the President of the Harvard Arab Alumni Association, the Vice President of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions and as a consultant for the World Health Organization (WHO).

He started medical school at the age of 15 and was the youngest Assistant Professor in the history of his department in Boston. His academic accomplishments have been recognized through awards from Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, and several national and international organizations including the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association, and the International Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions.

Dr. Hamoda has a passion for public health education and his online courses on parenting and child mental health have over 2 million views. He is also a frequent media guest and has been featured on US radio and TV stations including NPR/WBUR, WBUZ channel 4 and NECN, in addition to Arab networks including MBC, Al-Hurra, Al-Nahar, BBC Arabic Radio, Nile TV and Nile Culture TV. In 2013 he was featured by the Huffington Post in an article entitled “Meet 5 people inspiring peace”.  

Wen Dombrowski, MD, MBA is a geriatrics physician executive with a unique perspective bridging clinical, technical, business, design, ethics, policy, and movement expertise. She is passionate about building ecosystems, connecting needs to resources, identifying and addressing root causes of complex systems problems, and impacting culture change. Dr. Dombrowski creates technology-enabled services, business models and care models to improve the lives of populations with complex medical and social needs — including older adults, people with disabilities, severe chronic illnesses, and urban poor. She uses human-centered design thinking, data analytics, digital communication technologies, and interdisciplinary collaboration to innovate patient experience, workflow efficiency, and product-service development. She is regularly invited to keynote and speak at international conferences about healthcare innovation, information technology, tech-enabled aging, social engagement, and workforce development.

Dr. Dombrowski is the founding principal of CATALAIZE, a consultancy that advises a wide range of healthcare organizations, technology companies, and investors on innovation and emerging technologies. She has also worked in technology startups, managed care, home care, nursing homes, community health centers, hospitals, and other settings along the continuum of care. Dr. Dombrowski was previously Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO+CIO) for a state-wide homecare and community health provider, the Technology & Communications Strategy lead for a large regional integrated delivery network’s Value-Based Care initiatives, Clinical Informatics Director at a multi-specialty network of community clinics, and Medical Director at a special needs managed care plan for Medicaid-Medicare dual-eligible seniors.

Zayed Yasin, MD/MBA, is a board-certified Emergency Physician at the Brigham and Women’s (BWH) and Faulkner Hospitals in Boston, MA. Prior to his work in Emergency Medicine, Zayed worked as a management consultant in the corporate sector, and has experience working in healthcare systems in the US, Asia and Scandinavia.

He helps manage the Division of International Collaborations at BWH, where he is focused on the intersection between Population Health and Acute Care Systems, and is currently working on projects to improve emergency care in Sweden and India. Domestically, Zayed is working on opportunities to use technology to improve patient access and engagement.

He studied biomedical engineering at Harvard College, a joint MD/MBA at the Harvard Medical and Business Schools, and trained clinically at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. In his free time Zayed enjoys cross-country skiing, travel, and spending time with his wife and 3 young daughters.

Rahul Dubey is currently responsible for collaborating with the C-level executives at AHIP’s Health Plan Membership to develop and implement innovative, best in class, emerging solutions and approaches that accelerate utilization of these mission critical applications in order to deliver a higher quality of care, improving the wellbeing of consumers and driving down the cost of care received.
Rahul has extensive practical knowledge in regard to creating new, multi-stakeholder, collaborative business models as well as optimizing the use of effective next gen digital health solutions that create a simplified and positive consumer care experience. His role expands to include efforts on initiatives that have led to the creation of innovative care pathways, normalizing and sharing of data to build new and viable care measures, developing actionable and personalized programs and tools that ensure behavior change resulting in increased desired health outcomes. He continues to help develop, test, measure and iterate innovative platforms that increase efficiencies for all key stakeholders as they collectively focus on outcomes driven care.
Rahul’s most recent brainchild is the 26,000 sq ft AHIP Innovation Lab in Chicago’s West Loop. He is responsible for creating the Lab’s one of a kind concept, continues to fulfill its mission of delivering an invaluable resource for AHIP Membership and leads all of the Lab’s collaborative and confidential Solution Working Groups that involve individual payers, providers, manufacturers, MedTech, innovative solution providers and the AHIP Innovation Lab’s trusted and crucial Inaugural Partners.