Speakers
The 2022 VHA iEX theme is Reimagining Veterans Healthcare and this year’s panel of speakers will cover this forward-looking theme with topics such as digital twinning, simulation, machine learning and many others to explain how innovation efforts support Veteran health and wellness. The series offers an opportunity for participants to interact with some of the Nation’s premier innovators and thought leaders from government, industry, and academia who are transforming how the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) thinks about, delivers, and connects innovation to solving Veterans toughest challenges.
Keynote
Keynote Innovation, collaboration, and technological advances at VHA continue to break boundaries, reimagining how we care for Veterans and improving Veteran lives.
Shantanu Agrawal, MD, MPhil, chief health officer at Elevance Health will deliver the keynote address at iEX 2022. Dr Agrawal will brief attendees on current industry strategies driving whole-health approaches to care, including medical policy and clinical quality, as well as initiatives to address health-related social needs and health equity. This keynote will set the stage to celebrate VHA Innovation as best in class, providing a foundation for thought-provoking discussions that inspire VHA innovators and their academic, industry, and government partners to continue solving the most pressing challenges in healthcare to improve the lives of Veterans.
Fireside Chat: From Innovation to Adoption
Innovation without adoption limits our potential to improve lives.
As the VHA continues to advance innovation, this discussion will highlight the necessary incentives and infrastructure needed to appropriately scale and drive broad adoption of successful innovations. By bringing together leadership from VHA IE and industry funders and implementers skilled at equitable, effective adoption at scale, this fireside chat will help ensure that the transformation currently underway at VHA will have the greatest impact on the lives of all Veterans who stand to benefit.
Speakers
Andrey Ostrosky
Latoya Thomas
William Robinson
Moderator
Ryan Lilly
Plenary Session Descriptions
The seven plenary sessions reflect VA strategic priorities, VHA innovation success, and leading industry trends with the potential to improve the way we care for Veterans. They provide the opportunity for attendees to hear from leading innovators at VA alongside their academic and industry partners and in conversation with the strong Veteran patient voices that drive transformation through innovation at VA:
1. Driving Value with Innovation
2. Delivering Equitable Care
3. Care Delivery Models of the Future
4. How to Succeed with Innovation
5. Creating Meaningful Engagement
6. Innovation in Mental Health Leading with Innovation - VA as a Connector
Driving Value with Innovation
To innovate the path to high-value care, we must first define value beyond just dollars and cents. Panelists will discuss how strategies focused on four dynamic measures of value—access, effectiveness, efficiency, and equity—and following three fundamental principles—meaningfulness, appropriateness of scale, and time to value realization—can help ensure that every dollar invested in innovation returns value to the Veterans we serve.
Speakers
Michael Borges
Jen Goldsack
Pothik Chatterjee
Ron Dixon
Moderator
Ryan Vega
Delivering Equitable Care
VHA works tirelessly to provide appropriate, individualized healthcare to each Veteran in a way that eliminates disparate health outcomes and assures health equity. Intentional approaches to innovation can help support the elimination of health disparities and achieving health equity for all Veterans. During this panel, experts with proven success in advancing transformation in lock step with improved equity will describe what it takes to practice ‘equity-by-design’ and share examples of the real impact that intentional innovation can have on the lives of all Veterans.
Speakers
Sonya Ebhotemen
Capt Wanda Finch
Adimika (Meadows) Arthur
Silas Buchanan
Moderator
Ernest Moy
Care Delivery Models of the Future
The VHA is one of the few health care systems to have the capabilities, scale, and incentives to develop novel digital platforms and systems and create public-private partnerships and vendor competition to solve the most pressing challenges in health care. In this session, panelists will explore pathways to harness the power of high-resolution data flows captured outside of the clinic, new approaches to Veteran access to care, the redesign of clinical workflows that are optimized for the digital era of health, and the person-centric and operational considerations necessary for successful innovation at scale.
Speakers
Ann Mond Johnson
Michael Gorton
Vida Passero
Jay Bhatt
Moderator
Cole Zanetti
How to Succeed with Innovation: Implementation Strategies to Practice
Innovation cannot succeed in a vacuum. A human-centered design approach is required to drive successful innovation and innovators must consider critical elements such as clinical workflows, regulatory considerations, and market/business domains throughout the innovation lifecycle. This session will focus on the rich experiences of the VHA, industry leaders, and healthcare innovators who have successfully scaled innovation to deliver greater access, efficiency, effectiveness, and equity to patients and the people and systems that care for them.
Speakers
Stephen Konya
Saurabha Bhatnagar
Gregory Khan-Arthur
Nate Peper
Moderator
Blake Henderson
Creating Meaningful Engagement
Meaningful engagement of Veteran patients, care partners, and VHA staff is critical to the success of innovation at VHA. During this session, panelists will report on their success driving strategies for creating and sustaining engagement throughout the innovation lifecycle. They will also discuss the value that returns to all stakeholders when meaningful engagement is prioritized in an innovation ecosystem.
Speakers
Michelle Holko
Barbara C. Morton
Ernesto Ramirez
Sandeep Pulim
Moderator
Arash Harzand
Innovation in Mental Health
The goal of VA mental health care is to support recovery and enable Veterans who experience mental health problems to live meaningful lives in their communities and achieve their full potential. This panel will describe how innovation can support the provision of coordinated care for the whole person, not just for the person’s mental illness, and how innovation can drive progress to ensure that the mental healthcare needs of Veterans are met 24/7 regardless of place. This session will focus on driving innovations to support improved mental health including coping, mindfulness, and suicide prevention.
Speakers
Matthew Miller
Amanda Purnell
Sonya Ebhotemen
Jarah Meador
Moderator
Suzanne Shirley
Leading with Innovation - VA as a Connector
As a result of the success of VHA’s own innovation efforts, the VHA is emerging as the clinical home for academic and industry innovators seeking to develop, iterate, diffuse, and sustain high-value healthcare innovations. This session will highlight the vast accumulated experience of the VHA and their government colleagues and describe current strategies and future plans for VHA serving as a powerful connector for healthcare innovation across industry and various government agencies.
Speakers
Beth Ripley
Linda Ricci
Nathanael Higgins
Sandeep Patel
Dora Hughes
Moderator
Ryan Vega
