Moderator  
James Geracci, MD
Chief Medical Officer, Center for Digital Health and Innovation
Optum

Presenters
Larry Garber, MD
Medical Director for Informatics
Associate Medical Director of Research
Reliant Medical Group

Tamara George, MSN, RN, CCM, CMCN 
Director, Clinical Operations
Centralized Nurse Monitoring & Inpatient Care Management
Optum

Vernon Smith, MD
Chief Health Engineer
OptumHealth

Lo Fu Tan, MD, MS, FCFP, FAAFP
Senior Medical Director
Digital Health
Southwest Medical and Optum Mountain West Region
Part of OptumCare

About the Moderator
Dr. James Geracci is the chief medical officer for Optum Health Services’ Virtual Medical Group. He is responsible for strategy development, implementation and operational oversight of virtual health care services ensuring achievement of Optum’s goal of helping people live healthier lives and helping the health system work better for everyone.

Dr. Geracci is a senior physician executive with more than 27 years of health care leadership experience in both the civilian and military health care sectors. Most recently, he was a vice president/chief medical officer with Ascension Healthcare Texas. Prior to that, he served in various leadership roles in one of the largest and most complex health care enterprises in the world (the United States Army). He retired at the rank of colonel and has led military health care teams at all levels including as medical director of multiple large clinics, as department chief for the military’s largest primary care department, and as chief medical officer for an Army division and corps. Dr. Geracci is a proven effects-oriented leader experienced in building, developing and leading multidisciplinary teams capable of planning and executing comprehensive health services support in the most complex environments including multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.    

A disruptive innovator, he has effectively driven and led organizational change from the bottom up and top down in the largest civilian and military health care organizations. As Director of Prehospital Trauma Care for the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Joint Trauma System, Senior Combat Capability Developer for the Army Medical Department, Consultant to the Army Surgeon General for Operational and Deployment Medicine, and while serving on the DoD’s Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care, he helped to transform military medicine into a true learning health care system ensuring hard-learned lessons of the past 20 years of war are not lost but, rather, are codified in doctrine and policy.

A native of Las Vegas, Nevada, Dr. Geracci’s education includes degrees/certifications from Arizona State University, Uniformed Services University School of Medicine, US Army Command and General Staff College, and both University of Pennsylvania/Wharton and University of Texas/McCombs Schools of Business. He is certified by the American Board of Family Physicians and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Among his military awards are the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Medal, and the Order of Military Medical Merit. He has authored numerous scholarly articles/book chapters and presented lectures both nationally and internationally on various professional topics.

About the Presenters

Larry Garber, MD
Dr. Garber is a practicing internist and board-certified clinical informaticist. He is the medical director for informatics and the associate medical director of research at Reliant Medical Group, a 500-provider multispecialty group practice. He works extensively with ONC, HL7, DirectTrust and Carequality on national and international interoperability standards that interconnect our healthcare system. During the current pandemic, he led Reliant’s deployment of video visits, automated notification of COVID-19 results to patients, a COVID-19 screening program for Reliant’s 2,700 employees, automated loading and reconciliation of patient COVID vaccination data from the state into the Epic electronic health record (EHR), and personal health monitoring device integration into the Epic EHR. 

Tamara George, MSN, RN, CCM, CMCN
Ms. George is a registered nurse professional with 18+ years of clinical expertise in acute care and managed care settings. She is clinical leader with advisory and operational oversight experience in care management across Medicare, Medicaid and Commercial lines of business. She has a vast knowledge of clinical training, program development and implementation and monitoring/evaluating program performance. She has a strong track record of building and managing relationships with clients as well as internal and external partners. 
Her areas of expertise span the spectrum of care management, including field-based case management, transitional case management, discharge planning, readmission avoidance, emergency department avoidance/diversion, complex and chronic case management, disease management, utilization management, remote patient monitoring, medical/behavioral integration, patient/member activation and engagement, payer/provider partnerships and quality improvement. She holds a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), and she is currently pursuing the Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree. She is a certified case manager, a certified managed care nurse and is a member of the American Association of Managed Care Nurses (AAMCN). She resides in the metro Atlanta area and has served clients throughout the United States. 

Vernon Smith, MD
Dr. Smith is the chief health engineer for OptumHealth and a practicing emergency medicine physician with demonstrated expertise for data integration across the breadth of electronic health records, medical devices and the visual display of information. Prior to joining Optum, he was CMIO for Avera eCARE, a telemedicine provider based in South Dakota, and he was the director of medical informatics for Mayo Clinic, Rochester Department of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Smith is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He graduated from Colorado Technical University with a degree in computer engineering and has practiced his craft at companies such as Cray Computer Corporation and Quintiles Transnational. He graduated from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and completed his residency in emergency medicine at Mayo Clinic. He is board certified in emergency medicine and clinical informatics.

Lo Fu Tan, MD, MS, FCFP, FAAFP
Dr. Tan is the senior medical director of digital health at Southwest Medical and Optum Mountain West Region (part of OptumCare). He is a family physician with many years of experience in primary care, emergency medicine and urgent care. He continues to practice urgent care telemedicine and is committed to access for the underserviced, evidence-based practice, preventive medicine and population health.
His professional goal is to improve access to high-quality care, and he is currently focused on using telemedicine and other technological tools to help achieve this goal. Dr. Tan believes that digital health means the patient-centered application of the best available technology to advance the Quadruple Aim.

Activity planners
Sarah Chart, RN
Vice President
OptumHealth Education

Elizabeth Albert, MD
Clinical Activity Manager
OptumHealth Education

Disclosures of relevant financial relationships
In accordance with the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education's (ACCME) Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education, OptumHealth Education (OHE) requires all those in control of educational content to disclose their financial relationships with ineligible companies within the prior 24 months. Ineligible companies are defined by the ACCME as companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing health care products used by or on patients. Individuals must disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with ineligible companies and regardless of their view of the relevance of the relationship to the education. OHE ensures that the content is independent of commercial bias.

The activity faculty or planners have no financial relationships to disclose.