Briana Contreras

Articles by Briana Contreras

In this week’s episode of Tuning In to the C-Suite podcast, MHE's Senior Editor Peter Wehrwein and Associate Editor Briana Contreras spoke with CEO of Syntellis Performance Solutions, Kermit Randa. In the discussion they talked about a recently released survey by Syntellis called the 2021 Healthcare Financial Trends Survey report, which highlights how finance leaders pivoted in 2020 and the way they will continue to evolve in 2021.

MHE's Peter Wehrwein talks with Lloyd Dean, CEO of CommonSpirit Health, and Valerie Montgomery Rice, M.D., FACOG, president of Morehouse School of Medicine, in this new episode of MHE Talks: Improving Patient Access podcast series. The three discuss the lack of Black physicians in the United States. Of the 22,000 medical school applicants in the U.S. every year, only 1,600 are Black. Dean and Rice created a program that seeks to cross barriers of healthcare and racial disparities by offering more opportunities for students of color in medical school programs.

Briana Contreras of MHE spoke with Josh Claman, CEO of Rimidi about the strong need for a permanent remote patient monitoring, or RPM, reimbursement reform, and how our health industry can come together to influence this change. The two also discussed the benefits of RPM technology for underserved, uninsured or Medicaid populations, and the benefits of RPM during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode, Briana Contreras of MHE spoke with Dr. David Moen, president of Prospero Health Partners. The two discussed how Prospero is closing a gap in the healthcare system by taking care of patients with chronic, serious health issues, who are not yet in hospice care, but are prone to frequent, costly hospital admissions. They also talked about the skyrocketing demand for in-home care and telehealth during the pandemic, especially for seniors with advanced illnesses and compromised immune systems.

Thomas P. Leist, MD, PhD, says doctors working with patients diagnosed with SPMS don't necessarily have prognostic biomarkers to detect SPMS. The best prognostic biomarkers they have currently are MRI and potentially neurofilament light. He adds their techniques need to improve in order to harness the full benefit of potentially individualizing care to the most optimal fashion in a given patient.

Briana Contreras of MHE spoke with Manik Bhat, founder and CEO of Healthify – a company that works with managed care organizations to integrate social determinants of health (SDoH) into the healthcare ecosystem. Manik and Briana spoke about how the need to address SDoH has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic began and what the importance of addressing these social and economic issues are during and after the pandemic. They also touched on how SDoH contribute to the spread of viral diseases, but worsen the issues for individuals already struggling.

MHE's Briana Contreras spoke with Amy Dirks Stevens, EVP of Digital Strategy Performance and Practice Lead at AVIA health, for this week's episode of Tuning Into the C-Suite. The two talked about automation in health systems and how it can be a solution to challenges such as budget issues and creating more efficiency in the workplace. Also discussed were areas where health system leaders can begin to leverage artificial intelligence.

The continuous battle in cancer research has unfortunately fallen a bit to the backseat due to healthcare's main focus on beating COVID-19 wildfires. To bring its needed attention back up on the ladder, Marie Lamont, president and COO of Inteliquet, a clinical trial software company, shares what took place in the drop of oncology-related activity and what can be done to improve.

In this week’s episode, MHE's Briana Contreras spoke with Anthony Gabriel, M.D., MBA, chief operating officer at Radiology Partners. Anthony shared the importance of health entities having physicians in the C-Suite, or executive levels in their health organizations, as Radiology Partners does. He and Briana also discussed what type of training a health professional needs to get to this level and some decisions he’s made as a health professional in the C-Suite.

This week on Tuning into the C-Suite, listeners are tuning into the next feature of the Meet the Board Series where Managed Healthcare Executive Senior Editor Peter Wehrwein and Associate Editor Briana Contreras speak with MHE’s Board Member Kevin Ronneberg, M.D. Kevin is vice president and associate medical director for health initiatives at HealthPartners, an integrated, nonprofit provider and health insurance company located in Bloomington, Minnesota. During the conversation we got to learn more about Kevin, personally, and how he and his family are doing during the pandemic and his thoughts of the current issues healthcare is facing today.

MHE's Briana Contreras spoke with Matthew Michela, President and CEO of Life Image, the world’s largest medical evidence and image exchange network. The two delved through the specific steps each type of healthcare organization - from health systems, payers and IT companies - must follow to comply to meet the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) new interoperability and patient access rules.