MAHA Open Data Summit

Mark Gorton

President, MAHA Institute

Mark Gorton is the President of MAHA Institute, where he leads efforts to advance health freedom, transparency, and holistic solutions in public health. He is also the founder and Chairman of Tower Research Capital LLC, one of the world's leading computerized trading firms, which he established in 1998, and the founder and former CEO of LimeWire, the pioneering file-sharing company. A life-long advocate for livable streets, alternative transportation, and open government, Mark founded OpenPlans in 1999 and is a Founding Board Member of Reinvent Albany, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting ethical government and fair elections in New York. He also serves on the Board of Children's Health Defense. In 2022, he executive produced Four Died Trying, a documentary exploring the extraordinary lives and tragic assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy.

Dr. Donald Rucker

Chief Strategy Officer, 1upHealth; former National Coordinator for Health IT, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Dr. Donald Rucker is the Chief Strategy Officer of 1upHealth. As National Coordinator of Health IT at The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 2017 to 2021, Dr. Rucker led the writing of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's (ONC) 21st Century Cures Act Interoperability Rule, which enabled the modern healthcare app economy by requiring EHRs to have standardized FHIR APIs and provided patients with secure actionable electronic access to their data by implementing the Congressional prohibition of "information blocking." A board-certified physician with broad clinical experience including time at Kaiser Permanente, Beth Israel Deaconess, and the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rucker is a physician leader with national clinical informatics success. With a strong scientific, computational, and practical background in medical computing and decision sciences, he is the co-developer of the first Microsoft Windows-based electronic medical record in the world. Additionally, he designed the computerized physician order entry module that won the 2003 HIMSS Nicholas Davies Award as the best hospital computer system in the US. He holds a BA from Harvard, an MD from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA and MS in Medical Computer Science from Stanford.

Amy Gleason

Administrator, U.S. DOGE; Deputy Administrator and Chief Product Officer, OHTP, CMS

Amy Gleason is the Acting Administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service and Strategic Advisor to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), where she leads national initiatives to modernize healthcare technology and improve data interoperability. Previously, she served as Chief Product Officer at Russell Street Ventures, where she led digital health innovation at Main Street Health and CareBridge. Amy also served with the U.S. Digital Service at the White House, where she created the national COVID-19 database and led major efforts such as the Pandemic Ready Interoperable Modernization Effort (PRIME) and Data at the Point of Care. She began her career in nursing and has spent her career advancing healthcare through technology. Amy brings a deeply personal perspective to her work, shaped by her experience as a caregiver to her daughter, who was diagnosed with a rare disease at age 11.

Moderator

Dr. Nasim Afsar

Health Tech Executive; Author, Intelligent Health

Nasim Afsar MD MBA is a visionary healthcare executive dedicated to transforming health and care across the globe through innovative technologies, strategic partnerships, and scalable solutions. With deep expertise in operations, finance, digital transformation, and market strategy, she has consistently driven high-impact initiatives across the healthcare ecosystem. As the former SVP and Chief Health Officer at Oracle, Dr. Afsar led multiple business units, including the Health Transformation Office, where she partnered with delivery systems globally to advance clinical outcomes and operational excellence. She spearheaded Product Strategy, building a robust operational go-to-market framework, as well as leading Global Market Strategy & Entry. Additionally, she established a dynamic marketplace for Third-Party Partnerships. She founded and chaired the Oracle Health AI in Healthcare, Retail in Healthcare, and Payers Steering Committees, driving transformative innovation for customers. Her work has fostered critical alliances across the health and care ecosystem with delivery systems, payers, retail, pharma, food and beverage, and public health agencies, aligning and creating value in the broader healthcare ecosystem. Her 15 years leading healthcare systems include serving as Chief Operating Officer at UCI Health, with accountability for over $1B in revenue and 3000 employees. She led enterprise-wide inpatient and ambulatory operations, driving record-breaking growth in patient volume, surgeries, and tertiary care transfers. She also managed clinical support services, public safety, building and construction, and emergency management. She led the 10-year financial planning initiative and launched telehealth and hospital-at-home programs, ahead of industry adoption. She directed health system contracting, working closely with payers to bring new products to market. During COVID-19, she led emergency response efforts, including building a mobile field hospital, deploying large-scale testing, and establishing a high-volume vaccination program, ensuring rapid, efficient care delivery to the community. At UCLA Health, she served as Associate Chief Medical Officer and Chief Quality Officer, where she pioneered large-scale initiatives in population health, quality, safety, and patient experience. Her influence extends to national policy, having collaborated on multiple occasions with the White House, the National Quality Forum, National Academy of Medicine, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. A recognized leader in healthcare strategy, digital transformation, and operational excellence, Dr. Afsar has served on several boards, including Fight CRC, Patient Safety Movement Foundation, Oracle Health Foundation, Tiger Institute, and Society of Hospital Medicine, where she was President. A committed life-long learner, she earned her Bachelor's with Honors from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Biology and Art History, her MD from University of California, Davis, and her residency in Internal Medicine from University of California, Los Angeles. She received her MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. In addition, she has successfully completed multiple certificate programs including from Harvard University, IDEO, and Gallup. Dr. Afsar enjoys spending time with her family, is an avid reader, plays basketball, travels, and volunteers.

Amy Gleason

Administrator, U.S. DOGE; Deputy Administrator and Chief Product Officer, OHTP, CMS

Amy Gleason is the Acting Administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service and Strategic Advisor to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), where she leads national initiatives to modernize healthcare technology and improve data interoperability. Previously, she served as Chief Product Officer at Russell Street Ventures, where she led digital health innovation at Main Street Health and CareBridge. Amy also served with the U.S. Digital Service at the White House, where she created the national COVID-19 database and led major efforts such as the Pandemic Ready Interoperable Modernization Effort (PRIME) and Data at the Point of Care. She began her career in nursing and has spent her career advancing healthcare through technology. Amy brings a deeply personal perspective to her work, shaped by her experience as a caregiver to her daughter, who was diagnosed with a rare disease at age 11.

Dr. Carmen Messerlian

Founder & CEO, Vie Science; formerly Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Carmen Messerlian, PhD, is a reproductive and environmental epidemiologist, entrepreneur, and Founder and CEO of Vie Science, a health technology company building a new model of upstream reproductive health powered by integrated health data and personalized intelligence. Dr. Messerlian spent more than a decade at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where her research examined how environmental, behavioral, and biological factors across both partners shape fertility, pregnancy, and the health of future generations. Her work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and spans epidemiology, biomarker science, environmental health, and reproductive medicine. Through Vie Science, Dr. Messerlian is translating this research into a consumer-centered platform that integrates fragmented reproductive, clinical, biomarker, wearable, behavioral, and environmental data to help individuals and couples better understand and act on their health before conception. Her work sits at the intersection of health data access, patient empowerment, privacy, precision prevention, and the responsible use of data to improve individual and population health.

Isaiah Nathaniel

CPHIMS; Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Delaware Valley Community Health, Inc.

Isaiah Nathaniel is a successful business executive, entrepreneur, film producer and director who is the Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Delaware Valley Community Health, Inc., an FQHC that serves the underserved with healthcare regardless of their ability to pay. Isaiah is also the owner and CEO of Calcom Technologies, a premier information technology company based out of Philadelphia, Pa. He is also the owner and CEO of MadOptics Productions, a film production company that focuses on films, sports, and photography. Isaiah recently received national press for participating in a webinar with US News and World Report on Improving Health Equity and Access Through Telehealth and New Technologies. He also received national attention from media outlet, Tech Target, for the successful pivot of Healthcare IT operations during the COVID-19 pandemic using hyper-convergence technology. Isaiah was awarded the 2021 Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Changemaker award. He is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems and an official member of the invitation only Forbes® Technology Council.

Dr. Raymonde Uy

MD, MBA, ACHIP; Medical Director of Health Informatics, NACHC

Raymonde Uy, MD, MBA, ACHIP is a Physician Informaticist at the National Association of Community Health Centers. Dr. Raymonde Uy supports the clinical informatics needs of projects funded by the CDC and others on nationwide community health center health information technology and population health concerns. Prior to joining NACHC, Dr. Uy served as a clinical informatics consultant and visiting professor in Clinical Informatics with academic and industry stakeholders in both the United States and the Philippines. Dr. Uy also works as a scientific reviewer for both the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) & the International Medical Informatics Association and is a member of The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's Health Information Technology Advisory Committee and Adopted Standards Task Force. Dr. Uy earned a dual MD/MBA degree: Doctor of Medicine and Master of Business Administration, and completed his postdoctoral fellowship in Biomedical Informatics at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Dr. Uy is a diplomate of the inaugural AMIA Certified Health Informatics Professional class, and is the commissioner of the health informatics certification committee.

Moderator

Ryan Howells

Principal, Leavitt Partners

Ryan Howells is a nationally recognized digital health policy and interoperability expert based out of the Leavitt Partners Washington, D.C. office, who regularly works with the White House, Congress, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Since 2016, Ryan has led the CARIN Alliance, which has advanced consumer-directed exchange using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) application programming interfaces (APIs). CARIN's work has been implemented in production across the U.S., named as an "industry best practice" in multiple federal regulations, and received a World Changing Idea Award by Fast Company magazine. Ryan also works with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) to advance digital quality measures, the Utah Governor's office on their statewide FHIR interoperability pilot, and with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) on public health data modernization. Ryan is a previous General Manager of a digital health product company and current board member for multiple health care companies. He also serves on the CMS Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) governance board, Carequality steering committee, ONC's FAST Identity Tiger Team, and the steering committee of the Vaccination Credentialing Initiative. Ryan has a Master of Health Administration from the University of Southern California and a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University. He lives in Athens, GA, with his wife Alison and 5 children.

Dr. Nicole Kleinstreuer

Deputy Director for Program Coordination, Planning & Strategic Initiatives, NIH

Nicole C. Kleinstreuer, Ph.D., is the NIH Deputy Director for Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives. In this role, she leads the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI) within the NIH Office of the Director, which oversees trans-NIH programmatic research and strategic policy initiatives, including the NIH Common Fund and offices focused on women's health, data science, AIDS research, disease prevention, behavioral and social sciences, dietary supplements, and tribal health, among others. Dr. Kleinstreuer is internationally recognized for her leadership in developing innovative, human-relevant research strategies that advance public health protection. Prior to her current position, she served as Director of the National Toxicology Program Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM), within the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). She also served as Executive Director of the congressionally mandated Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) and as the US National Co-Coordinator for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Test Guidelines Programme. In these roles, she led interagency and international efforts to promote new approach methodologies (NAMs), reduce animal testing, and integrate computational modeling, artificial intelligence, and systems toxicology into regulatory science. Her work spans translational bioinformatics, predictive modeling, and quantitative risk assessment. She has authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications and received numerous honors, including the 2019 Society of Toxicology Achievement Award and the 2025 Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award, as well as multiple NIH Director's and NIEHS Merit Awards. Dr. Kleinstreuer holds B.S. degrees in biomedical engineering and applied mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Canterbury. She completed postdoctoral training in computational toxicology at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and held adjunct faculty appointments at Yale University and UNC Chapel Hill. She is deeply committed to mentorship, public health protection, and scientific innovation that enhances the translation of biomedical research to real-world impact.

Dr. Jonathan Ketcham

Former Chief Healthcare Economist, White House Council of Economic Advisers; Distinguished Research Professor, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University

Jonathan Ketcham is the Earl G. and Gladys C. Davis Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Economics at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. From 2025 to 2026 he served as Chief Healthcare Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, advising on healthcare economic policy across the Department of Health and Human Services and its operating divisions, including the FDA, CMS, NIH, and ARPA-H. He is also the founder of Margin Health, which works with leaders across private industry, government, and financial markets to navigate the regulatory, reimbursement, and adoption pathways that shape the translation of healthcare innovation into operational and commercial deployment. His research sits at the intersection of health economics, consumer behavior, and public policy. Using causal-inference econometric methods applied to survey, experimental, and large-scale real-world data, his work examines how incentives, information, and institutional design influence decision-making by payers, providers, and patients. His scholarship has appeared in leading journals across economics, medicine, and health policy, and he has served as principal investigator on multiple R01 grants from AHRQ, with additional research support from NSF, NIH, EPA, and private foundations. At ASU he has previously held faculty appointments in Marketing and in the School of Health Management and Policy, teaching courses spanning marketing research, healthcare economics and finance, business statistics, and health policy. He has also held visiting appointments at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Hoover Institution. Prior to joining the White House, he served as Principal Economist at Amazon, advising on employee benefits strategy and healthcare economics.

Dr. Donald Rucker

Chief Strategy Officer, 1upHealth; former National Coordinator for Health IT, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Dr. Donald Rucker is the Chief Strategy Officer of 1upHealth. As National Coordinator of Health IT at The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 2017 to 2021, Dr. Rucker led the writing of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's (ONC) 21st Century Cures Act Interoperability Rule, which enabled the modern healthcare app economy by requiring EHRs to have standardized FHIR APIs and provided patients with secure actionable electronic access to their data by implementing the Congressional prohibition of "information blocking." A board-certified physician with broad clinical experience including time at Kaiser Permanente, Beth Israel Deaconess, and the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rucker is a physician leader with national clinical informatics success. With a strong scientific, computational, and practical background in medical computing and decision sciences, he is the co-developer of the first Microsoft Windows-based electronic medical record in the world. Additionally, he designed the computerized physician order entry module that won the 2003 HIMSS Nicholas Davies Award as the best hospital computer system in the US. He holds a BA from Harvard, an MD from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA and MS in Medical Computer Science from Stanford.

Dan Brillman

Director of Medicaid & CHIP; Deputy Administrator, CMS

Dan is the Director of Medicaid and CHIP and Deputy Administrator at CMS, with extensive experience in health care technology, reform, and care delivery models, advancing cross-sector coordination, data interoperability, and analytical insights. Previously, Dan was the CEO and Co-Founder of Unite Us, the nation's largest outcome focused technology infrastructure that connects health care, government, and community-based services to coordinate care in real-time for millions of Americans. Dan is also a Military Officer of the Air Force Reserves, serving for over 17 years and completed multiple combat deployments as a pilot in Afghanistan and Iraq, for which he earned multiple air medals and bronze campaign stars. Dan continues to serve as a Major, with assignments at Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) as a Joint Strategic Liaison Officer and as an Admissions Liaison Officer. Dan earned a Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School and a BA in Political Science from Yale University, and began his career in consulting and finance as well as entrepreneurial work with Scout Ventures, a venture capital firm in New York City. Dan resides in Washington, DC, and Philadelphia with his wife and two children.

Moderator

Dr. Jaime Bland

DNP, RN-BC; Co-Founder & CEO, Aquila Health

Dr. Jaime Bland, DNP, RN-BC, is co-founder and chief executive officer of Aquila Health, an Omaha-based healthcare data platform that unifies clinical messages, claims feeds, genomic records, and epidemiological reporting into a single environment so clinicians and public health agencies can act on complete information. Aquila launched publicly in March 2026 with state and federal contracts already underway, and its architecture pairs machine learning with clinical human-in-the-loop review. Before founding Aquila, Dr. Bland spent nearly a decade as president and CEO of one of the largest health information exchange networks in the United States, serving Nebraska and Iowa. Under her leadership the organization connected more than 1,100 care sites and supported data coordination across five states and over six million lives. She also expanded it beyond its original exchange and prescription drug monitoring roots, launching an advisory arm, a charitable foundation, and a statewide healthcare collaborative. Her path to health IT began at the bedside. She started as a staff nurse in Omaha, then spent roughly nine years in Doha, Qatar, six of them supporting the U.S. Army clinic and host-nation hospitals, before helping open a women's and children's hospital and implement a national health record there. She later worked on VA primary care transformation and with an ACO clinically integrated network. She holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice from Creighton University and is board-certified in nursing informatics. Her peers have recognized that record directly: Civitas Networks for Health honored her with its Leadership Excellence award, given to leaders who organize a community around a shared goal and deliver measurable impact across a region. She remains a frequent voice on interoperability and public health data at the national level.

Dr. Matthew McCarville

Chief Information Officer, State of Nebraska

Dr. Matthew J. McCarville is chief information officer for the State of Nebraska, appointed by Governor Jim Pillen in April 2024. He leads the Office of the CIO, an enterprise IT organization of roughly 300 employees, and oversees the state's applications and infrastructure alongside an annual appropriations budget of approximately $200 million. His mandate has centered on retiring obsolete systems and delivering cost savings to taxpayers: when he arrived, state systems ran almost entirely on on-premise mainframe, and he has since led Nebraska's move into a cloud environment while advancing work in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. He has also built out the state's technology talent pipeline, launching a statewide IT internship and Nebraska's first statewide IT apprenticeship program, which is GI Bill-qualified and designed to train exiting military members and the broader public in AI, data, and cybersecurity. McCarville came to the role with cross-sector experience spanning government, higher education, and industry. He previously served as CIO and assistant vice chancellor of information technology services and operations at the University of Colorado Denver, and held senior education, data strategy, and AI leadership roles at a global technology consulting firm. In the public sector, he served as chief data officer for the State of Florida, working across state agencies, 67 counties, 12 universities, and 28 colleges. Earlier in his career he was a data analytics and strategy consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and managed operating systems and practices at Union Pacific Railroad. A Nebraska native raised in Omaha, he earned all of his degrees from Creighton University, including a Doctorate in Business Administration in business intelligence and analytics, an MS in the same field, and an MBA in strategy and management. He holds additional executive credentials from MIT and Georgia Tech, speaks nationally on leveraging data in the public sector, and continues to teach data analytics as an adjunct at multiple universities.

Jim Smith

Former Nebraska State Senator; Chief Strategy Officer, Platte Institute

Jim Smith serves as Chief Strategy Officer at the Platte Institute, a Nebraska policy organization focused on expanding economic opportunity across the state. A former member of the Nebraska Unicameral, he represented Sarpy County's District 14 from 2010 to 2018 and chaired both the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee and the Revenue Committee. His legislative record includes companion bills LB610 and LB960, which together funded one of the largest infrastructure investments in state history, valued at more than $1.2 billion through 2033. Before his current role, he led Blueprint Nebraska, a statewide economic development initiative. Outside of public service, Smith spent roughly 15 years as a small business owner and investor and more than 25 years in the utility industry across Louisiana, Texas, and Nebraska. He earned an accounting degree from the University of West Florida and an MBA from Creighton University.

Kim Witczak

Drug Safety Advocate; former Consumer Representative, FDA Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee

Kim Witczak is an international drug safety advocate, speaker, and Consumer Representative on the FDA Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee, where she served three consecutive terms from 2016 to 2025. Her work began after the sudden death of her husband, Woody, in 2003. He died by suicide just five weeks after being prescribed Zoloft for insomnia, despite having no prior history of depression or mental illness. In the aftermath, Kim filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Pfizer that helped expose internal documents on suicide risks and other harms. Over the past two decades, Kim has become a leading voice in drug safety reform. She played a key role in pushing for the addition of black box warnings on antidepressants in 2004 and 2006, and has testified before Congress and the FDA on issues of transparency, risk communication, and informed consent. Through her organization, Woodymatters, and years of advocacy, Kim has brought real-world experiences into national conversations on drug safety. She continues to challenge the overprescribing of these drugs and advocates for a system grounded in transparency, accountability, and truly informed decision-making, ensuring that pharmaceutical harms, especially from psychiatric drugs, are no longer minimized or hidden.