2024 Annual Meeting & Awards Luncheon

As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kate Walsh leads the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), which provides access to medical and behavioral health care, long-term services and supports, and key nutritional and financial benefits. She represents a team of more than 21,000 staff across 11 agencies and the MassHealth system, who work daily to provide services and programs for nearly 1 in every 3 Massachusetts residents.

Secretary Walsh leads one of the strongest health and human services operations in the country – a safety net that sustains some of Massachusetts more vulnerable children, adults, and older adults. Her goal as Secretary is to ensure that the safety net remains strong, flexible, and efficient for those who need it, and serves as a mechanism to elevate people those whose lives have taken a difficult turn.

Prior to her appointment to Governor Healey’s cabinet, Secretary Walsh served as CEO of the Boston Medical Center (BMC) health system for 13 years, overseeing an annual operating revenue of $6 billion. The BMC health system is comprised of a 514 bed, academic medical center that is the primary teaching affiliate of Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, as well as WellSense Health Plan, a Medicaid Managed Care Organization, and Boston HealthNet, a network affiliation of 14 community health centers.

Before her time at BMC, Secretary Walsh served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Chief Operating Officer for Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, and at Massachusetts General Hospital in positions including Senior Vice President of Medical Services and the MGH Cancer Center. Prior to her tenure at Mass General, she held positions in a number of New York City hospitals including Montefiore, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Saint Luke’s – Roosevelt Hospital Center and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.

Secretary Walsh received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Health degrees from Yale University. She has served as a member of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Boston Public Health Commission, the Massachusetts Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, Pine Street Inn, and Yale University.   

Aneesh Chopra is the Chief Strategy Officer at Arcadia, a healthcare data platform company,
where he advocates for interoperability and data-driven approaches that help providers, payers,
and employers make smarter decisions to succeed in the shift to value-based care.

Chopra’s influence and leadership in technology includes extensive experience in the public
sector. He served as the first U.S. Chief Technology Officer under the Obama Administration,
where he spearheaded initiatives to modernize the nation’s healthcare system using electronic
health records and health information exchanges. Chopra also served as Virginia’s Secretary of
Technology under Governor Tim Kaine.

As a public servant, Aneesh fostered better public-private collaboration, a theme central to his
2014 book, “Innovative State: How New Technologies Can Transform Government.” Chopra’s
significant contributions to the fields of technology and healthcare have cemented his reputation
as a forward-thinking leader committed to leveraging technology for the public good.

Chopra serves on the boards of IntegraConnect, Virginia Center for Health Innovation, and the
George Mason Innovation Advisory Council. He earned his master’s degree in public policy from
Harvard Kennedy School and holds a bachelor’s degree in health policy from Johns Hopkins
University.

Josh C. Mandel, MD is a physician and software developer working to fuel an ecosystem of health apps with access to clinical and research data. As Chief Architect for Microsoft Healthcare, Chief Architect for SMART Health IT, and Lecturer at the Harvard Medical School Department of Biomedical Informatics, Josh works closely with the standards development community to lay groundwork for frictionless data access, authorization, analytics, and app integration. Josh leads development of the SMART on FHIR specification (the basis for US Patient Access API capabilities that certified EHRs must support) and the SMART Health Cards specification (used by pharmacies, public health departments, and healthcare providers to issue verifiable records of vaccination status). Josh also launched the Clinical Decision Support Hooks project, supporting integration of external decision support services within the clinical workflow. During his service on the national Health IT Standards Committee, Josh showed a special interest in tools and interfaces that support software developers who are new to the health domain.