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The Leapfrog Group Announces New Board Members

Contact: 
Melissa Danforth, Director, Communications & Membership
mdanforth@leapfroggroup.org
202 292 6707

WASHINGTON, DC: May 3, 2010 – Leapfrog Board Chair David Knowlton announces election of five new members to The Leapfrog Group’s Board of Directors, effective June 17, 2010, bringing the total number of board members to 14. The Board also announces a new non-voting Board liaison representing the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), joining other agency board liaisons from the Office of Personnel Management and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS).

The Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org) is a national organization using the collective leverage of large purchasers of health care to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality, and affordability of health care for Americans. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey allows purchasers to structure their contracts and purchasing to reward the highest performing hospitals. The Leapfrog Group was founded in November 2000 by the Business Roundtable and is now independently operated with support from its purchaser and other members.

“Leapfrog’s influence and success over our first ten years has grown considerably and made a real difference, and these board members bring the leadership and vision we need for our second decade,” said Knowlton.

Cristie Upshaw Travis, Chair of Leapfrog’s Board Governance Committee, which brought forward the slate of nominees, added, “This was a highly competitive recruitment, because it is a critical moment in Leapfrog’s history. Health insurance reform was only the beginning; Leapfrog focuses on what happens at the bedside, where the problems are rampant. These new board members were selected because they bring new thinking, boldness, and innovation toward assuring that someday Americans will get the quality of health care they need and deserve.”

The Leapfrog Group Board also confirmed their new slate of officers: David Knowlton, President & CEO, New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute as Chair (re-elected); Keith Reissaus, Community and Workplace Initiatives, Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, Inc. as Vice-Chair (re-elected); Frank Johnson, Executive Director, Employees Health and Benefits, State of Maine as Secretary; William Finck, Consultant as Treasurer; Jill Berger, Vice President, Health and Welfare Plan Management and Design, Marriott International as Immediate Past Chair, and Elizabeth Casteel, Managing Director Employee Benefits, Health and Communication, Federal Express as Chair of the Governance Committee.

The New Board Members

David Goldhill (Santa Monica, CA)
President & CEO, GSN
David Goldhill has emerged as a leading national consumer advocate of patient safety since authoring a powerful cover story in The Atlantic in September 2009, “How American Health Care Killed My Father.” He has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of GSN, a multimedia entertainment company formerly called “Game Show Network,” since 2007. In his role at GSN, which is jointly owned by DIRECTV and Sony Pictures Entertainment, he oversees all aspects of the company’s operations.

Susan C. Reinhard (Washington, DC)
Senior Vice President, AARP Public Policy Institute
Chief Strategist, Center to Champion Nursing in America (2007-present)
Susan Reinhard is a top leader at AARP, heading up policy research for this nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that is one of the largest and most influential in the country. She is also a nationally noted nursing leader with a long career of leadership in academic settings, and founded AARPs to Champion Nursing in America.

Laurel Pickering (New York City)
Executive Director, New York Business Group on Health (NYBGH)
Laurel Pickering oversees the New York Business Group on Health’s health insurance exchange, HealthPass and has held national leadership positions at National Committee for Quality Assurance, National Business Coalition on Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The New York Business Group on Health is one of Leapfrog’s oldest and most active regional roll-outs and presents over two million covered lives.

Becky Dunk (Cedar Rapids, IA)
Senior Manager, Health and Welfare Benefits, AEGON USA, LLC
Becky Dunk is the Chair of the Iowa Health Buyers’ Alliance, one of Leapfrog’s regional roll-outs, and manages health and welfare plans and is responsible for the design, pricing, and administration of the employee benefit plans for the 14,000 employees and 3,000 retirees of the various AEGON affiliates. She has been active in the roll-out and assertive in encouraging hospitals to participate in The Leapfrog Hospital Survey.

Martin J. Hatlie (Chicago)
CEO, Coalition for Quality and Patient Safety of Chicagoland; President, Partnership for Patient Safety; Program Director, Consumers Advancing Patient Safety
Martin Hatlie is an international leader in consumer advocacy of patient safety, and among his accomplishments served as the founding executive director of the National Patient Safety Foundation, co-founded Consumers Advancing Patient Safety as a pathway for engaging patients as partners, and worked extensively with the World Health Organization to develop a network of patient champions that advise its World Alliance for Patient Safety.

P. Jon White, MD (Washington, DC) (Nonvoting Board Liaison)
Director, Health IT Portfolio, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Dr. White received his M.D. from the University of Virginia and trained as a resident at Lancaster General Hospital in Pennsylvania, where he received the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP)/ Mead Johnson Award for Graduate Education. He has experience in healthcare IT development and implementation in the ambulatory and acute settings and was most recently CMIO and associate residency director of Lancaster General