Presenters

	James Geracci, MD Chief Medical Officer, Center for Digital Health and Innovation
	Brian Heimer, MD Medical Director, Virtual Health, RMD Southern Indiana, American Health Network
	Sarita Nori, MD Staff Dermatologist and Director of Tele-dermatology, Reliant Medical Group
	Moderator: Sonia Samagh, MD, MBA, Vice President, Center for Digital Health and Innovation

About the presenters

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 have not been lost but rather 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.  

Dr. Brian Heimer is a passionate family physician with over 21 years of experience who has committed himself to the reinvention of the patient care experience through the adoption and propagation of all things virtual care. Working tirelessly towards achieving the Quadruple Aim, he serves as the medical director for virtual health at American Health Network, which is part of Optum. He is also the regional medical director for Southern Indiana and Kentucky. Brian is an Optum Care senior partner and has been involved in national leadership for many years. 

He partnered closely with Anthem and state legislators and campaigned successfully to rewrite laws that enabled telemedicine to be performed in the state of Indiana. Dr. Heimer was responsible for planning, developing and implementing a robust multispecialty telemedicine program, which he continues to oversee daily across multiple platforms. 

Dr. Heimer is engaged in trial of new technologies and is actively piloting prototype remote patient monitoring devices as well as new modalities for patient interaction such as experimental exam room artificial intelligence and ambient recording. He continues to be involved in the community and remains active in both inpatient and outpatient care. He is motivated to reduce the total cost of care by transitioning to value-based medicine. 

Dr. Heimer holds multiple directorships and remains a multi-year county medical society president and multi-year chief of staff at Baptist Health. He is actively involved in health care legislative review, the Indiana State Medical Association and the strategic recruitment of practices and physicians. He is also committed to performing clinical research as a principal investigator with emphasis on endocrinology, pulmonary disease, oncology and obesity.

Dr. Sarita Nori is a staff dermatologist and director of teledermatology at Reliant Medical Group, which is part of Optum Care. She is also a teledermatologist for Arista MD, Dermatologist on Call, and Teladoc. Previously, she was the staff dermatologist at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, where she piloted an internal, physician-to-physician teledermatology program with an average volume of 20 to 35 cases each day. 

Dr. Nori is passionate about telemedicine and has personally seen its value for both clinicians and patients. She has been able to treat patients rapidly via telemedicine using photos from patients’ smartphones. When patients either could not come into the office or would have had to wait a long time for an in-person appointment, she was able to provide rapid, convenient diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Nori hopes that, not too far in the future, a nationwide teledermatology practice would be possible so that patients and providers could have their dermatology questions answered within 24 hours.  

Dr. Sonia Samagh is a founding member and vice president of The Center for Digital Health (CDH) and Innovation at OptumHealth, a part of UnitedHealth Group. She holds an MBA from Stanford University and an MD from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. She has worked for the past 10 years at health care organizations, leading medical groups through value-based care transformation and serving in corporate strategy, operations and venture roles. She led and implemented digital health strategy and innovation efforts across Optum, including digital health product development, corporate partnerships and clinical re-design for coordinated in-person and virtual care delivery. 

As a part of CDH, Dr. Samagh is incubating and launching digital health products and services across telemedicine, eCare / remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics, care at home, and virtual care delivery including artificial intelligence/machine learning, asynchronous care and clinical decision support.

Previously, she led the Optum Digital Response Team, which included 115 teammates rapidly deploying telehealth solutions and remote patient monitoring across the country, adding over 15,000 providers onto video visit platforms in 8 weeks and completing over 1.3 million virtual visits in 2020 with patients accessing their own Optum provider virtually. Dr. Samagh also led cross-enterprise innovation partnerships and corporate venture health care technology investing, including direct early-stage health tech investments.

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.

Dr. Sarita Nori has disclosed that she is employed by Teladoc, MD Live and Arista MD. The remaining activity faculty or planners have no financial relationships to disclose.