Greater Houston Healthconnect (Healthconnect) announces that UT Physicians, the medical group practice of McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), came live early this year in one of the country’s largest and most robust health information exchanges. UT Physicians now shares and accesses clinical information across participating entities for patients who have authorized sharing their medical information.
Junaid Husain is a 25-year healthcare executive with experience across hospital systems, healthcare services, digital health, medical technology, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. His career includes leadership roles in management, finance, operations, business development, and consulting.
As Acting Chief Executive Officer of Greater Houston Healthconnect—the health information exchange for Southeast Texas—Mr. Husain has built partnerships across thousands of hospitals, health systems, academic medical centers, health plans, and ambulatory practices. Under his leadership, Healthconnect has seen extraordinary growth, expanding its suite of digital health solutions, growing its clinical data repository, and magnifying its financial health—becoming one of the largest and fastest growing HIEs in the nation.
Mr. Husain’s professional career is a collection of unique experiences and accolades. As an executive for MedData, he led the firm’s Affordable Care Act strategy, spearheading Medicaid expansion efforts across the nation—advocating on behalf of hundreds of hospital systems, thousands of healthcare professionals, and millions of uninsured patients. As a veteran Wall Street healthcare executive, he provided advisory services on billion-dollar healthcare technology investments. as management Consultant to Fortune-500 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, he advised the C-suite on corporate and financial strategy. And finally, as an innovation enthusiast, he has worked for seven startup companies, founded three companies of his own, and serves as Advisor to several health-tech startups.
Mr. Husain is deeply engaged and committed to public service in our Greater Houston and Texas healthcare communities. He works collaboratively across the Texas Medical Center and beyond, partnering with community stakeholders to advance digital health solutions that improve patient quality, safety, and efficiency of care for all Texans. A thought-leader in the community, he regular speaks on matters pertaining to healthcare, innovation, interoperability, and community impact.
A lifelong learner, Mr. Husain received his BSc from the University of Saskatchewan, MSc from McGill University, and MBA from Queen’s University. In 2010, he received his third Master’s degree—a Master of Liberal Arts from Harvard University—where he was Commencement Speaker for his graduating class.
Siraj obtained his medical degree from the University of Mysore, India and worked as a primary care physician before pursuing a full-time career in informatics. He currently serves as the Chief Health Informatics Officer at Harris Health System, which is the 4th largest safety net health system in the United States. In this role, he leads the informatics and data science operations for the health system. Siraj is passionate about leveraging information technology, data and human relationships to provide patient care that has high quality and high reliability and has been doing this since 2001.
Dr. Boerwinkle earned master’s degrees in human genetics and statistics and a PhD in human genetics from the University of Michigan.
He joined the UTHealth faculty in 1986 and served as Chair of the Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Health at UTHealth School of Public Health. He also directed the Human Genetics Center at the School of Public Health and the Brown Foundation Institute for Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases. In 2016, he became the Dean of the UTHealth School of Public Health.
Author of more than 1,000 scientific papers, Boerwinkle has led groundbreaking research on the connection between genes and health. He and his colleagues completed the world’s first genome-wide analysis for a variety of cardiovascular disease risk factors, including hypertension and diabetes. These investigations have been a critical step in developing drugs that lower disease risk.
Boerwinkle has served on several national research panels, including the Advisory Council for the National Human Genome Research Institute and the Board of External Advisors for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. In 2033, he was the recipient of the President’s Scholar Award, which recognizes distinguished achievements in research and education at UTHealth. In 2016, he was the recipient of the University of Texas Regent’s Outstanding Teaching Award, which recognizes faculty members at institutions in the UT System who have demonstrated extraordinary classroom performance and innovation in instruction.
Carol Paret is the Senior Vice President/Chief Community Health Officer for Memorial Hermann Healthcare System (MHHS) and the CEO of Memorial Hermann Community Benefit Corporation. Carol completed her undergraduate work at the University of Houston and her graduate studies at University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. Her career began in community health planning and for the past 31 years, Carol has worked for MHHS.
Among Carol’s many accomplishments with the Memorial Hermann, Community Benefit Corporation is a partnership with five school districts, Houston, Pasadena, Aldine, Alief, and Lamar Consolidated, called The Health Centers for Schools Program designed to provide a “medical home” for uninsured and Medicaid children K-12th grade. The program offers access to primary medical care, dental care, mental health counseling, social services, and nutrition counseling. Each of the 10 clinics is staffed by a nurse practitioner/physician assistant, social worker, licensed vocational nurse, and a receptionist with dietitian support and physician oversight provided. The Centers are open year-round, five days a week and serve students in the schools’ designated elementary, middle and high school feeder patterns.
She is currently serving as past Board Chairman of Gateway to Care, a collaborative involving 165+ agencies whose mission is to improve access to care for Houston’s uninsured, and the Provider Health Network, a project promoting better access to specialty care. In addition, Carol has served on the board of Texas Health Institute since 2012 and currently serves as Chair.
Along with overseeing Memorial Hermann’s community benefit efforts, Carol is the system’s privacy and security officer. Having witnessed the tremendous power that healthcare information can have both positively and negatively on the lives of individuals, she has worked to ensure Memorial Hermann protects the privacy and security of the information entrusted to it.
Since 1992, Carol Paret has had executive responsibility for the Memorial Hermann physician residency program. The program has grown to 42 residents per year and has graduated hundreds of primary care physicians during Carol’s years of service. These residents provide a significant amount of the much needed primary care to the Greater Houston community with over 50,000 clinic encounters annually. The MHHS residency program was the first residency program in Texas to achieve level 3 primary medical home status and was one of the first to have an electronic medical record (EMR). Working with funding partners, Carol’s team has been able to provide an integrated behavioral health care model to our patients, provide our residents with a state of the art simulation lab, and care for a significant number of uninsured patients.
In 1994, Carol began directing the Clinical Medical Education (CME) department at Memorial Hermann. Through her efforts, MHHS has achieved system accreditation, including the movement to web-based programs, which is saving physicians significant time and money.
In 2008, Carol began overseeing the centralization of the medical records function at MHHS to improve the efficiency and the quality of this vitally important department while significantly reducing the cost. Toward that goal, Carol led a documentation improvement effort that has saved MHHS millions of dollars while improving the ability to accurately capture the clinical conditions of our patients. In order to improve the clinical care we provide, Carol created an interim imaged record solution so that the complete medical record would be available, on an ongoing basis, to clinicians while the transition to a complete EMR is in process.
Scott McBride provides legal services to clients throughout the healthcare industry, with a focus on compliance and enforcement issues. Scott represents and advises hospitals, academic medical centers, physician groups and other healthcare clients in over payment disputes, False Claims Act (FCA) litigation, internal and external investigations, and regulatory enforcement proceedings. His work spans a variety of matters related to Medicare and Medicaid billing compliance, civil monetary penalties, Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute, corporate oversight, and exclusions from federal and state healthcare programs.
Jon Manis serves as the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for CHRISTUS Health. Manis is a former clinician and veteran health care information technology leader. Prior to joining CHRISTUS, Manis served 13 years as SVP and CIO for Sutter Health of Sacramento, CA.
A native of central Florida, Manis grew up in Titusville and Cocoa with America’s space program. After working summers at both the NASA Space Center and Walt Disney World, Manis enlisted in the US Navy and was trained as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and licensed practical nurse (LPN). He served as a Hospital Corpsman on submarines, as a combat medic for the US Marine Corps, and as the Head Corpsman in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Jacksonville, Florida before being selected to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. After graduation, Manis was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps and was Parachute and SCUBA qualified. As a ground combat officer, Manis served as a forward observer and fire direction officer, and participated in combat operations in both Panama and Haiti. During Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Manis served as a tactical Fire Support Coordination Officer for the coalition forces. After promotion and graduate school, Manis was assigned to The Pentagon in Washington DC where he managed information systems for the Bureau of Navy Medicine. With both enlisted and commissioned military service, Major Manis accepted an early military retirement in 1994.
Manis is a seasoned CIO with more than 25 years of IT leadership experience. He joined CHRISTUS Health from Sutter Health in 2019. Prior to his tenure at Sutter, Manis served as System Vice President of Administrative Services and CIO for Illinois-based Provena Heatlh. Prior to Provena, Manis served as Vice President of Information Services for Advocate Healthcare in Chicago and as Chief Technology Officer for Sterling Health in Miami, Fl.
Lee Leiber, MS, MBA is the Chief Information Officer for Baylor College of Medicine. He earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from University of Delaware, a Master of Science in Information Systems Technology from George Washington University and a
Master of Business Administration degree from University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He has prior experience as a researcher in applied research and significant IT experience in the non-profit healthcare and education areas
Doug Lawson currently serves as CEO of the CHI Texas Division, a $2 billion+ regional health system with 17 hospitals that stretches across the southeastern section of the state and includes CHI St. Luke’s Health in Houston, CHI St. Luke’s Health Memorial in the Lufkin-East Texas area, and CHI St. Joseph Health in Bryan/College Station and Brazos Valley region. He also serves as Senior Vice President for Catholic Health Initiatives, the Englewood, Colo.-based parent company of the CHI Texas Division.
Lawson began his healthcare career at Scott & White Memorial Hospital and Clinic in Temple, Texas, and served in Kansas City with the Saint Luke’s Health System and later in Huntington, West Virginia, for Cabell-Huntington Hospital. Following these leadership roles, Lawson returned to Texas and became president of Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Grapevine and was asked to serve as President of the organization’s North Texas Central Region and Baylor University Medical Center in 2015.
Lawson is a graduate of Texas A&M University where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in political science. He went on to complete a Master of Science degree in healthcare administration from Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, and a doctorate in philosophy from Dallas Baptist University. Lawson is also a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Frances Isbell is the Chief Executive Officer of The Healthcare for the Homeless – Houston (HHH), a Federally Qualified Health Center providing care for 8,500 people annually. As the inaugural CEO of Healthcare for the Homeless – Houston, Ms. Isbell has been instrumental in bringing together a large number of community-based agencies, healthcare clinicians, educational institutions and public organizations to forge a common strategic plan to effectively address the health needs of people experiencing homelessness. The primary aim of this consortium is to increase access to quality healthcare while concurrently reducing costly and ineffective service duplication. Since joining this endeavor in 1998, Ms. Isbell has received numerous local and national awards and recognitions for her work, and two of HHH’s programs have been cited as a national best practice.
Ms. Isbell holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Social Rehabilitation/Pre-Law and Behavioral Sciences, respectively. She currently serves as the Immediate Past President of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council and on the Board of Directors of the Hollyfield Foundation.
Clive Fields, MD, is a co-founder and the chief medical officer of VillageMD, a national primary care provider which partners with physician-led practices across the U.S. to help them transition to a value-driven model of care. He is president of its subsidiary, Village Medical, which provides primary care for patients at traditional free-standing practices, Village Medical at Walgreens clinics, at home and via virtual visits. VillageMD and Village Medical have grown to 22 U.S. markets and are responsible for more than 2 million patients. VillageMD is one of the largest participating providers in CMS’ new Direct Contracting program, serving an estimated 60,000 patients.
Dr. Fields has led Village’s team of more than 1,100 clinicians since 1991. He was honored by the American Academy of Family Physicians as the recipient of the 2018 Robert Graham Physician Executive of the Year Award. In 2020, he was named to Modern Healthcare’s 50 most influential clinical executives and was selected as one of the magazine’s 100 most influential people in healthcare for 2021.
Kevin Dillon serves as the Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston), in the Texas Medical Center. He has held several executive-level positions there, including Executive Vice President for Administration and Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer. He assumed responsibilities as Chief Operating Officer in September 2007 and was promoted to Senior Executive Vice President in January 2011.
Kevin has worked for UTHealth since 1996, during which time he has held a number of financial, administrative and operational roles. He currently has ultimate responsibility most of the non-academic operational areas of this $2.3 billion academic health component of the University of Texas System. He has a direct reporting relationship with all of the chief administrative officers in UTHealth’s six schools (i.e., Medical, Dental, Public Health, Nursing, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and Health Information Sciences), as well as the Dunn Behavioral campus and several research institutes.
Kevin is also the treasurer of UTHealth’s 2,300 provider healthcare corporation, “UT Physicians.” He serves on the executive committee of the board of the Texas Medical Center’s Thermo-Electric Corporation (TECO).
Prior to UTHealth, Kevin worked for Ernst & Young and Pennzoil Quaker State in a variety of accounting and financial roles. He is a CPA and achieved the Certified Internal Auditor and Certified Management Accountant Professional designations, earlier in his career. He frequently co-teaches an ethics-related elective course through the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at UTHealth.
For many years, Kevin was a board member, and ultimately board chair, of the Harris School, a therapeutic pre-school for special needs children. The Harris School is affiliated with the Galveston-Houston Psychoanalytic Institute.
Kevin graduated from UT-Austin with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in accounting and finance.
Dr. S. Nicholas Desai, DPM, MBA, is Chief Medical Information Officer at Houston Methodist Hospital, where he is also a board certified podiatric surgeon. Dr. Desai completed his postdoctoral surgical training at St Barnabas/Albert Einstein and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital Network. He completed his executive business education through Rice University and received his MBA from Texas Tech University with a focus on Health Care Management. He is a fellow of American College of Foot & Ankle Surgeons and member of American College of Healthcare Executives, Scottsdale Institute, ABPS, HIMSS, AMDIS, and CHIME.
Prior to joining Houston Methodist, Dr. Desai served as Director of Medical Informatics at Memorial Hermann Healthcare System.
As a noted leader in health IT, has worked intimately with multiple EHR vendors to develop content for multiple specialties. He remains active on clinical faculty for family medicine, surgical, and wound residency/fellowship programs. In addition to medical informatics and technology, his clinical research interests have focused around stem cell research in regenerative tissue science and advanced orthobiologics.
Dr. Desai is active on many community boards and organizations, including Fort Bend Cares and The Hope Endowment.
Dr. Buckwold is board certified in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Quality Assurance/Utilization Review. He earned his M.D. from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He is from Vancouver.
Stateside, Dr. Buckwold has spent the majority of his time in Texas, practicing internal medicine in San Antonio for 10 years in the late ’70s and ’80s, and working in Houston for the past 6 years.
Dr. Buckwold previously served as the corporate medical director for Unicare in Houston, responsible for clinical oversight for the company’s individual, small and large group PPO and HMO activities in southeast Texas and its Medicaid STAR/Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) plans in the Dallas area.
Prior to his role at Unicare, Dr. Buckwold served as medical director for both Evercare (part of United Healthcare) in Houston and for CIGNA in Nashville, Tenn.
In addition to his duties at CHC, Dr. Buckwold will continue to serve as a board member of the Texas Health Services Authority (to which he was appointed by Governor Rick Perry) and as moderator of the Texas Association of Health Plans medical directors’ conferences.
