The 2021 Business of Healthcare event will feature presenters providing participants a birds-eye view into a wide array of businesses working within and/or supporting the healthcare industry, but are outside the traditional hospital setting. Some of the areas of business being represented include: Patient Engagement, Medical Equipment Planning, Architecture, Law, Hospitalist Management and Support Services.

This year’s participants will include the following presenters. Invites have been extended to a few more presenters representing additional sectors of the industry as well.

Vishal Bhalla
Chief Experience Officer
Parkland Health & Hospital System

Ben Cheney
Business Development Manager
OneEQ

Alli Giacometto
Senior Designer
CRTKL

Jenny G. Givens
Partner
Gray Reed Attorneys & Counselors

Bethany Hale
Head of Marketing
Cedar

Christie Hutchinson, RN, BSN, MBA, CPEN, CPHQ, CPHRM, NEA-BC
Chief Executive Officer
QCC Healthcare Consultants

Clayton Lawrence, FACHE
Senior Vice President
Sound Physicians

John Raish
Senior Vice President
Parkland Health & Hospital System

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Speakers’ Bios:

Vishal Bhalla joined Parkland in August 2016 and soon moved into the role of Vice President and Chief Experience Officer (CXO), focusing on the experience of employees, providers, patients and their families.

Transitioning to healthcare a few years ago from a successful career in hospitality, Vishal completed his Master of Business Administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) along with a Healthcare Certificate from the joint Harvard-MIT Healthcare Innovation Initiative. Vishal also serves on the Dallas Fort Worth Hospital Council, representing Parkland as the Chair for the Workforce Collaborative and is a member for the Texas Hospital Association (THA) Fellows Program for 2019.

Vishal is passionate about leveraging analytics, technology and system sciences, along with his extensive experience in managing large service operations, to add rigor to the art of human interaction; thereby enabling meaningful employee and patient experiences. The Experience Team at Parkland has seen tremendous results, achieving the 90th Percentile rank in the National Press Ganey Database and the 93rd Percentile Rank in the University Health Systems. The strategy and its execution were cited in the 2019 whitepaper on Strategic Initiatives by Press Ganey : Accelerated Transformation – From Strategy to Action.

Prior to coming to Parkland, Mr. Bhalla was the Director of Operations for a hospitality firm, where he oversaw twelve facilities with more than 6000 rooms. He has worked on four continents and also previously served as a Director for Sandals Resorts International. He possesses a Master in Hotel Administration from University of Strathclyde, a General Managers’ Program certification from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and is a Lean Six Sigma Master Blackbelt.

Ben Cheney is currently a Business Development manager with OneEQ, and has several years of experience with projects of all sizes and phases. He has helped design the reporting process, created and implemented project specific order of operations that reduce gaps in communications and diminishes redundancy. He helps facilitate work flow to stream line the procurement process, keeping resources to a minimum and maximizing project efficiencies, while reducing overhead and maximizing profitability. Ben also maintains multi-million dollar hospital procurement projects, providing a way to keep teams on schedule and clients informed.

Healthcare providers trust Jenny Givens to help them navigate the numerous regulatory frameworks impacting their businesses and to guide them through a variety of operational, privacy and corporate matters. She works with a wide range of providers with operations primarily in Texas but also in many states across the country, including hospitals, physician entities, ambulatory surgery centers, pharmacies, laboratories, neuromonitoring facilities plus many more. Jenny is Board Certified in Health Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and Certified in Healthcare Compliance by the Compliance Certification Board.

Jenny is the go-to advisor for healthcare providers that need strategic guidance on how regulatory compliance interacts with their everyday operations and long-term business planning. She has substantial experience in developing proactive policies and corrective action plans concerning several issues, including fraud and abuse, the Stark Law, the Anti-Kickback Statute, HIPAA, EMTALA, licensure and certification, patient overflow and billing and reimbursement. Jenny also helps clients with a variety of transactional and corporate matters, ranging from employment contracts and coverage agreements to management services contracts and entity formation.

Before joining the firm, Jenny held in-house positions at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children and City of Hope National Medical Center in Pasadena, California, where she handled a variety of transactional and compliance matters. Prior to entering law school, Jenny served as an assistant administrator for a community hospital in Los Angeles where she worked with medical staff committees, participated in all executive team committees and was responsible for strategic planning, service quality, licensing and accreditation activities and day-to-day operations of the hospital’s ancillary services.

Bethany Hale brings more than 20 years of experience across marketing and content strategy, brand development, demand generation, and experience design to lead the marketing team at Cedar, a patient financial engagement platform. She’s a creative storyteller and thought leader who has worked with notable brands including IBM (Watson Health), American Express and Samsung Electronics, among others. Bethany has an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and a B.A. in Journalism from Michigan State University. She currently lives with her daughter and French Bulldog in Brooklyn, NY.

Christie Hutchinson is the CEO of QCC Healthcare Consultants where she works with healthcare organizations to improve their compliance, quality, and operational efficiencies. As a healthcare risk manager, Christie is instrumental in identifying successes and areas of opportunities for her clients, assisting them in achieving the highest level of quality care for their patients. Her professional background includes ER nurse, COO for a pediatric urgent care system, and VP of Care Coordination for a publicly traded, healthcare organization.

Christie is the founder and president of the Texas Healthcare Advisory Council serving healthcare professionals in the DFW area. She also serves on the Baylor Scott & White Centennial Community Advisory Board and the North Texas Association for Healthcare Quality (NTAHQ) Board.

Clayton Lawrence serves as Senior Vice President at Sound Physicians. He brings with him over 20 years of experience in driving margin improvement and volume growth at physician-led organizations as well as leading hospital operations. He has been charged with driving operational and financial performance over the entirety of his career while also growing business units across multiple territories. Since 2006, Clayton has led several physician groups and has demonstrated numerous successes in collaborating closely with clinicians to improve patient outcomes and experience. Clayton most recently served as Group Vice President for Sound Physicians in the Gulf Region which included a portfolio of 21 contracted hospitalist programs throughout Texas and Oklahoma.

Clayton earned a Masters of Healthcare Administration from Tulane University after receiving a Bachelors of Science from Arkansas State University. He started his career in healthcare after completing the Paramedic training program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences where he earned his National Registry Paramedic certification. Clayton is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and an active member of the North Texas Chapter where he serves on the Membership and Networking Committee. Residing in Plano, TX, Clayton enjoys world travel, physical fitness, landscaping and, (as anyone living in Texas does) dining out.

John Raish is the Senior Vice President of Support Services at Parkland Health & Hospital System. He has been at Parkland for the past nine years and currently oversees the following departments: Real Estate, Planning Design & Construction, Facilities, Environmental Services, Laundry & Linen, Food & Nutrition, Disaster Management, Language Services, and the Police Department. John is a proud Georgia Tech Alumnus and continues to stay involved with their Industrial Engineering Department.

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