Board of Directors

The Center's board includes six members from each of the founding organizations:

John E. Billi, MD (chair)

Associate Vice President for Medical Affairs, University of Michigan
Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, U-M Medical School

John E. Billi, M.D. is the associate vice president for Medical Affairs of U-M, and associate dean for Clinical Affairs at the U-M Medical School, where he is a professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Education. He has devoted his career to studying and improving health services delivery, including the cost of care, the impact of changing reimbursement systems, evidence-based guideline uses, pharmacy appropriateness, performance-based differential reimbursement, and conflict of interest management. He leads the Michigan Quality System, which applies Lean Thinking to the continuous improvement of health care delivery at U-M. He serves on the board of the Michigan State Medical Society, where he chairs the Committee on Quality, Efficiency and Economics and the Essential Benefit Design Task Force. He co-chairs the Michigan Quality Improvement Consortium, which endorses common evidence-based guidelines across 14 Michigan health plans. In addition, he chairs the Evidence Based Medicine team for the Greater Detroit Area Health Council's Save Lives Save Dollars initiative.

Kevin L. Seitz, MSW (vice chair)

Executive Vice President, Health Care Value Enhancement, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

Kevin L. Seitz, M.S.W. is executive vice president of Health Care Value Enhancement for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Previously Seitz served as president and CEO of Blue Care Network of Michigan, the HMO subsidiary of BCBSM, and also as senior vice president of Subsidiary Operations for BCBSM. Prior to that, he had been vice president of Product Development for BCBSM and vice president of PPO and Ancillary Services, as well as the Planning and Policy divisions for the Blues. Before joining the Blues in 1991, Seitz was director of the Medicaid program for the State of Michigan. Previously, he was associate director of Human Services in the Fiscal Agency of the Michigan House of Representatives. He served as planning and research associate for the Michigan League for Human Services and also was a caseworker for the New York City Health and Hospital Corp. He serves on the Board of Directors of Tomorrow's Child, and on the Board of Visitors of the Michigan State University College of Nursing.

Darrell A. Campbell, Jr., MD

Chief of Clinical Affairs, University of Michigan Health System
Professor of Surgery, U-M Medical School

Dr. Campbell received his B.S. degree in zoology from Michigan State University in 1968, and graduated with distinction from George Washington University, receiving an M.D. degree in 1972. Subsequently, Dr. Campbell received his General Surgery training at the University of Michigan Medical School from 1972 through 1979. During this period, he spent two years as an investigator in the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, working in the laboratory of Ronald B. Herberman, chief of Immunodiagnostics. Following general surgery training, Dr. Campbell began his special interest in transplantation, a field which he has pursued and in which he continues to be actively involved. Dr. Campbell spent six months on sabbatical with Professor Sir Roy Calne learning the intricacies of liver transplantation in Cambridge, England, in 1986.

In recent years, Dr. Campbell has become interested in the related subjects of physician wellness and patient safety. He has lectured nationally on the subject of physician burnout, particularly among surgeons, and has more recently linked this interest to how burnout might affect physician performance. Dr. Campbell currently serves as a co-investigator on two NIH-funded grants, "Patient Safety in Surgery" and "The Effect of Health Care Working Conditions on Quality of Care." Dr. Campbell also sits on the executive committee of the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program.

Carmen R. Green, MD

Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, U-M Medical School
Director of Health Disparities Research Program, Michigan Institute of Clinical and Health Research
Director of Pain Medicine Research, University of Michigan Health System

Carmen R. Green, M.D. received a B.S. in biology from the University of Michigan-Flint and an M.D. from the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. She is the director of Health Disparities Research Program within the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research, a pain medicine physician at the Back and Pain Center, director for Pain Research, founding chair of the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) Pain Management steering committee, and former medical director for the Acute Pain Service at UMHS. She was one of seven recipients selected for the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship in 2006 and worked with the U.S. Senate on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and the Subcommittee for Children and Families. Green is nationally known for her research focusing on pain, health disparities, clinician variability in decision-making, and access to quality pain care. She was the founding chair of the American Pain Society's special interest group for pain and disparities, guest editor for Pain Medicine's special issue on the unequal burden of pain, serves on the editorial board for several journals, and has received many honors for her clinical care, community service, and research.

William H. Herman, MD, MPH

Stefan S. Fajans/GlaxoSmithKline Professor of Diabetes, U-M Medical School
Director, Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Center

William H. Herman, M.D., M.P.H. is the Stefan S. Fajans/GlaxoSmithKline Professor of Diabetes at the U-M Medical School and director of the Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Center, one of five such centers funded by the National Institutes of Health. He holds professorships in both the Metabolism, Endocrinology & Diabetes Division of the U-M Medical School's Department of Internal Medicine, and in the Department of Epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health. In 2006, he received the Kelly West Award for Outstanding Achievement in Epidemiology from the American Diabetes Association, for his significant contributions to the field of diabetes epidemiology. He has led or helped lead numerous large-scale studies of diabetes screening, diagnosis, prevention and treatment, including the Epidemiology of Diabetes Intervention and Complications (EDIC) study, and has led a computer-modeling project that uses real-world data to simulate and predict diabetes patterns and costs. In all of his work, he has used epidemiology to guide clinical and public health practice.

Joseph H. Hohner, MBA

Senior Vice President, Chief of Staff & Chief Information Officer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

Joseph H. Hohner is senior vice president, chief of staff and chief information officer (CIO) for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Mr. Hohner is an officer of the company and serves on the president’s Operating Committee. As chief of staff, Mr. Hohner is responsible for the Strategy and Performance Management Division which monitors competitive forces and changes in industry, facilitates the development of corporate strategy, works with the executive team to set corporate goals, drive strategy execution, and measure corporate performance. In this role Mr. Hohner is involved in almost all aspects of the business.

As chief information officer, Mr. Hohner leads our Information Technology Division and our Business Intelligence business area. Mr. Hohner has overall responsibility for information technology and business intelligence strategy and planning, project implementation, and operation of our information systems.

Mr. Hohner serves on the following:

Chair of BCBSM’s Health Value Council – a group of BCBSM executives who are developing and executing a multi-year strategy to improve the quality and cost of care in Michigan.
Staff liaison to the BCBSM Advisory Committee on Operational Efficiency, a sub-committee of the BCBSM Board.
Member of the BCBSM Performance Transformation Steering Committee.
Vice chairman of NASCO, a for-profit company that provides IT processing services for several Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans. Mr. Hohner also serves on NASCO’s Executive Committee and Finance Committee.
Board member of Blue Health Intelligence (BHI) — an organization made up of over 15 Blue plans that implemented and operates one of the largest healthcare data warehouses in the United States.
Board member of the Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation (CHRT) — a non-profit partnership between the University of Michigan and BCBSM to promote evidence-based care delivery, improve population health, and expand access to health care.
Commissioner on the State of Michigan Governor’s Health Information Technology Commission — a group of executives working towards improving the exchange of health information in Michigan.
Vice chairman of The Senior Alliance corporate committee — a not-for-profit organization serving the needs of senior citizens.

Prior to joining BCBSM, Mr. Hohner was a partner with Ernst & Young and Vice President at Capgemini Ernst & Young where he worked with health insurance companies and technology companies across the United States in the areas of strategy, information systems planning, business process reengineering, program and project management, and information technology solution implementation. While consulting he served in various roles including Midwest health insurance practice leader, medical management solution team leader, and ebusiness solution team leader.

Mr. Hohner earned his master’s degree in business administration from Eastern Michigan University and his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Michigan Technological University.

Eve A. Kerr, MD, MPH

Director, Center for Clinical Management Research, Ann Arbor VA HSR&D Center of Excellence
Director, Research Coordinating Center Quality Enhancement, Research Initiative for Diabetes Mellitus
Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Health System

Eve A. Kerr, M.D., M.P.H., is a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, director of the Center for Clinical Management Research, a VA Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence, and research director of the Diabetes Quality Enhancement Research Initiative. Dr. Kerr received her medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco and completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at University of California, Los Angeles. She subsequently completed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar's Program and received a masters of public health from UCLA. In 1996, she joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Department of Internal Medicine and the Ann Arbor VA Center for Clinical Management Research.

Dr. Kerr studies ways to develop and implement innovative methods to improve quality of care for patients with chronic illness. In particular, she studies ways to develop more clinically meaningful and valid performance measures that motivate quality improvement for patients at high risk for poor outcomes while minimizing potential for unintended consequences. Her studies use such clinically meaningful measures, as well as assessments of medication adherence, to motivate appropriate medication management, enhanced patient self-management, and better outcomes for patients with diabetes. Dr. Kerr has also been instrumental in development of the RAND QA Tools system, and in demonstrating a VA quality advantage relative to patients in the private sector. She has spoken nationally and internationally about performance measurement issues and translating quality improvement lessons from VA to other healthcare systems.

Robert Milewski, MSRPh, MBA, FACHE

Senior Vice President, Contracting and Hospital Relations, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

Robert Milewski, M.S.R.Ph., M.B.A., FACHE, is senior vice president of Contracting and Hospital Relations for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. He is directly responsible for registration and credentialing of all medical providers who deliver services to BCBSM's more than four million members. BCBSM contracts with approximately 140 acute-care hospitals in Michigan, 1,800 other medical facilities in the state and more than 20,000 Michigan physicians. He interacts with hospital leaders across the state. Before joining the Blues in February 2007, Milewski was president and CEO of Mount Clemens Regional Medical Center and associate hospital director at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. He served as director of Pharmacy and in other leadership posts at Children's Hospital of Michigan. Milewski began his career as a staff pharmacist at William Beaumont Hospitals in Royal Oak and Troy. He is a fellow and past regent of the American College of Healthcare Executives and chair-elect of the Greater Detroit Area Health Council. He also has served as board chair of the Michigan Healthcare Executive Group and Associates, a member of the Michigan Hospital Association Board, and on the board of Leadership Macomb.

Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, MD

Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, University of Michigan
Chief Executive Officer, University of Michigan Health System

On May 11, 2009, Dr. Pescovitz assumed her role as executive vice president for medical affairs at the University of Michigan and chief executive officer of the University of Michigan Health System. In this role, Pescovitz is responsible for the leadership and management of the Health System, which includes the Medical School, clinical services of the School of Nursing, the U-M Hospitals and Health Centers, and the Michigan Health Corp.

In her past role in the Dean's office at Indiana University School of Medicine, Dr. Pescovitz oversaw all research. The School generates nearly $260M annually in grants and contracts. She also administered the $155 million Indiana Genomics Initiative (INGEN) and contributed to the creation of the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. Since 2003, she had overseen the construction of over 700,000 sf of new research space at the School of Medicine. As president and CEO of Riley Hospital for Children, she lead an ambitious and wide-reaching strategic plan that included the fund-raising and construction of a $470M, 675,000 sf addition to the hospital. Riley is the sixth largest children's hospital in the country; if it were a free-standing institution, it would be ranked fourth in terms of extramural research funding. As interim vice president for research administration for Indiana University, Dr. Pescovitz was responsible for the research infrastructure at all eight Indiana University campuses.

She has published 180 manuscripts and books. Most of her research has been focused on elucidating the physiologic and molecular mechanisms responsible for disorders of growth and puberty with a focus on development of novel therapies for these conditions. She has served as president of the Society for Pediatric Research, the nation's largest pediatric research organization, president of the Lawson Wilkins (North American) Pediatric Endocrine Society, chair of the March of Dimes Grants Review Committee, a member of the Ad-Hoc Group for Medical Research Funding, the Board of the Hormone Foundation, the Board of the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions (NACHRI), and the Board of the Children's Miracle Network. She has served as a sub-editor or as a member of the editorial board of six scientific journals. She has served on numerous committees of the Endocrine Society and was chair of the 2002 Annual Meeting Steering Committee. She also served on numerous committees of the Pediatric Academic Societies, the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, NACHRI and Children's Hospitals Corporation of America.

In the wider Indiana community, she served on several BioCrossroads task forces, the selection support committee for the Indianapolis Zoo Prize, the Dean's Advisory Board of the Herron School of Art, the Board of the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University, the Board of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck, the Board of Clarian North Hospital, and the Central Indiana United Way Board, where she is also a member of its Executive Committee.

Lynda Rossi

Vice President of Public Policy and Social Mission, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

Lynda Rossi is vice president of Public Policy and Social Mission for BCBSM. In her role, Rossi is responsible for driving BCBSM's social mission strategy: To improve the health status and quality of care for all Michigan residents. Rossi joined BCBSM in 2007 from her position as deputy chief of staff for Strategic Initiatives for Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm. Prior to that, she was chief of staff for Lt. Gov. John D. Cherry, and also was his chief of staff when Cherry was Senate Democratic Leader. Rossi earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from James Madison College at Michigan State University. She is a board member of the Alliance for Advancing Non-Profit Health Care, Michigan's Children, Governor's Residence Foundation, Michigan Health and Safety Coalition and the Michigan Health Insurance Access Advisory Council. She also is a member of the National Coalition for Health Care.

Thomas L. Simmer, MD

Senior Vice President for Health Care Value & Provider Affiliation and Chief Medical Officer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

Thomas L. Simmer, M.D. is senior vice president for Health Care Value and Provider Affiliation and chief medical officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Simmer is responsible for contracting with more than 20,000 physicians who participate in Blue Cross Traditional and PPO plans, as well as directing medical policy. He is responsible for professional payment policies and programs to improve the quality, cost, and access to medical services. Under his leadership, BCBSM has implemented physician incentive programs to promote collaborative improvement programs for more consistent care for persons with chronic illness, and more cost effective prescribing patterns. Prior to 2006, Simmer was senior vice president for Health Care Programs and Provider Services and chief medical officer. Prior to joining the Blues in 1999, he served as vice president of Health and Medical Affairs and as medical director for the Health Alliance Plan. Simmer also served as associate program director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Henry Ford Hospital and was the recipient of several Distinguished Service awards. He is a member of the Michigan State Medical Society and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.

Douglas R. Woll, MD

Senior Vice President & Chief Medical Officer, Blue Care Network

Douglas R. Woll, M.D. is senior vice president and chief medical officer for Blue Care Network of Michigan, the HMO subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. His leadership has resulted in seven consecutive National Committee for Quality Assurance Excellent accreditations for BCN and two full Disease Management accreditations, as well as multiple awards for Disease Management, Pharmacy and Medical Infomatics programs. Prior to joining the Blues in 1998, Woll spent almost a decade at SelectCare, where he served as senior vice president and chief medical officer. He served as a senior staff physician at Henry Ford Hospital from 1980 through 1989. Woll is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, and was elected a fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1998. He is involved with several professional organizations, including the Quality Committee of America's Health Insurance Plans.