About the Workshop Panel
Each P2P workshop has an independent panel of five to seven members with diverse professional and personal perspectives. Panel members attend the workshop, where they listen to and ask questions about presentations from expert speakers. Then the panelists write a report that summarizes the workshop and highlights research gaps and future priorities. The recommendations in the panel’s report are for use by the broader research community. Panel reports are not policy statements of the NIH or the federal government.
Workshop and Panel Chair
Mary Wakefield, Ph.D., R.N.
Dr. Mary Wakefield is a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University, Washington, DC and the University of Texas at Austin. She currently serves on a number of nonprofit advisory boards including the Macy Foundation and the Medical Advisory Board of the University of Washington.
Dr. Wakefield has served in both the legislative and executive branches of government, most recently in a temporary appointment as Counselor to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Becerra, advising on the Unaccompanied Children Program. Previously, she was appointed by President Obama to the position of HHS Deputy Secretary. Her responsibilities included management of HHS, a department with a $1 trillion budget and 80,000 employees. In this role, she also led strategic Department-wide initiatives in key health policy areas, with particular focus on health and human service programs for underserved populations, including strengthening health programs for American Indians and Alaska Natives and improving data analysis to better support the health of rural populations. Prior to this, President Obama appointed her to lead the $10 billion Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). At HRSA, she led program improvements to build healthier communities, increase health equity, expand access to primary care, and support health services to people in rural areas. Dr. Wakefield’s public service career also includes over 8 years working in the U.S. Senate, including as Chief of Staff to two North Dakota senators.
Dr. Wakefield is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. She co-chaired the recently released National Academy of Medicine’s Consensus Study Report on “The Future of Nursing, 2020-2030.” Additionally, she was a member of the Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine) committee that produced the landmark reports “To Err is Human” and “Crossing the Quality Chasm.”
Her prior service includes serving on President Biden’s transition team, membership on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, member of the National Advisory Committee to HRSA's Office of Rural Health Policy, and Chair of the National Advisory Council for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Panel Members
Joanne Mather Conroy, M.D.
Dr. Joanne Mather Conroy was selected by the Board of Trustees in June 2017 as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H) and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health (D-HH).
As CEO of New Hampshire’s only academic health system, Dr. Conroy has overseen significant positive changes, including a dramatic turnaround in the D-HH system’s financial performance, the announcement of two major new expansion projects, and a strategic planning process that will guide the organizations into the future.
From fiscal year 2017 to 2018, D-HH reversed a $7 million operating deficit, posting a positive margin of $47 million in FY18—a $54 million turnaround. The health system is now in its third consecutive year of positive financial performance.
Dr. Conroy is a committed leader in advancing equity in the workplace. She is a co-founder of Women of Impact, a nonpartisan group of 60 female health care leaders representing all sectors of the health care industry across the nation. She was also instrumental in D-HH becoming one of the founding signatories of the TIME’S UP Healthcare initiative, which aims to increase safety and gender equity in the health care industry.
She was named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” by Modern Healthcare in 2018 and was included on their inaugural listing of Women Leaders Luminaries in 2019.
Prior to joining D-H and D-HH, Dr. Conroy served as CEO of Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, MA, and as Chief Health Care Officer for the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, DC. She has also served as Chief Medical Officer, Vice President of Academic Affairs, and Executive Vice President of the Atlantic Health System based in Florham Park, NJ, as well as President and Chief Operating Officer for the Morristown Memorial Hospital (now called Morristown Medical Center) in Morristown, NJ. She held several academic and administrative leadership positions at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), including President of the MUSC medical staff, Associate Vice President for Medical Affairs, Executive Medical Director, and Senior Associate Dean of the MUSC College of Medicine.
She received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Dartmouth College. Dr. Conroy received her medical degree from MUSC, where she completed her residency in anesthesiology, serving as Chief Resident for 1 year.
Velma McBride Murry, Ph.D.
Dr. Velma McBride Murry holds the Lois Autrey Betts Endowed Chair and is a Vanderbilt University Chancellor Appointed University Professor in the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Peabody College in Nashville, TN. She is Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, Community Engagement Research Core, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and is President of the Society for Research on Adolescence and President Elect of the International Consortium of Developmental Science Societies. Dr. McBride Murry serves on numerous boards and governing councils, including the National Academy of Medicine, Foundation for Child Development, Society for Research on Child Development, and consultant to the Chang Zuckerburg Initiative. Dr. McBride Murry is one of the 100 newly-elected members to the 2020 Class of the National Academy of Medicine.
Dr. McBride Murry’s research focuses on examining the significance of context to everyday life experiences of African American families and youth; specific consideration is given to processes through which racism, and other social structural stressors, cascade through families to influence parenting and family functioning, quality of life, and developmental outcomes and adjustment among youth, including mental and physical health.
Research from her longitudinal research studies informed the design, development, and implementation of two randomized controlled trials to test their efficacy in preventing youth risk behavior engagement. The Strong African American Families (SAAF) and Pathways for African Americans Success (PAAS) programs not only prevented and averted sexual risk behaviors and substance/drug use but also demonstrated spillover effects on the enhancement of educational-related outcomes and reduction in behaviors that place youth at risk for violence engagement during critical developmental periods—middle childhood through high school.
Dr. McBride Murry is a member of several professional societies and has authored multiple publications in the fields of adolescent development and risk vulnerability and avoidance, parenting, and consequences of systemic racism on African American families and communities. She is currently pursing avenues to disseminate her evidence-based preventive intervention programs to test their efficacy and effectiveness in real-world settings, including schools and primary health care settings.
Sara L. McLafferty, Ph.D., M.A.
Dr. Sara McLafferty is Professor of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She obtained her B.A. in geography from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa. Her research investigates geographical inequalities in health and access to health care and employment opportunities for women, immigrants, and racial/ethnic minorities in the United States. She has also worked on the development and application of geographic information system (GIS) and spatial analysis methods in exploring health inequalities and access to health care. Her books include “GIS and Public Health” (with Ellen Cromley), “A Companion to Health and Medical Geography” (with Tim Brown and Graham Moon), “GIS and Environmental Health” (with Julianna Maantay), and “Location Strategies for Retail and Service Firms” (with Avijit Ghosh). Her research articles have appeared in a wide range of geography, public health, epidemiology, and urban studies journals. She serves as Associate Editor of “Health and Place,” and she was recognized as a Fellow of the American Association of Geographers in 2020.
Robert P. Moser, M.D.
Dr. Robert Moser is the Dean at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, Salina branch and Clinical Professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center Department of Population Health, and Department of Family Medicine. As an experienced rural family physician, Dr. Moser is committed to supporting rural health systems in adopting evidence-based guidelines into clinical practice reflecting the challenges of limited resources. Dr. Moser has served as the primary investigator in several federal grants supporting his interest in developing effective models of care in rural health care, including serving as the Executive Director of a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center award creating the Kansas Heart and Stroke Collaborative (now the University of Kansas Health System Care Collaborative). His work includes supporting locally-expanded use of telehealth into rural models of care, particularly telebehavioral health, and remote patient monitoring. He provides training at Kansas rural health systems involving all local health care team providers and helps develop metrics to guide performance improvements to address rural health disparities.
Jayashri Sankaranarayanan, Ph.D.
Dr. Jayashri Sankaranarayanan is an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Science at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). She has over 20 years of scientific research leadership experience and expertise in health care and pharmacy administration to inform medical and health policy decision making in the delivery of patient-centered health care. She is a former Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice from the University of Connecticut (UConn). Previously, she was an Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice at UNMC. As faculty, she has developed and taught several courses on the health care systems in the United States and other countries, pharmacy roles, health insurance (Medicare, Medicaid), health policy, health outcomes research, and pharmaco-epidemiology. Early in her career, she worked at several multinational pharma companies in India in the Medical Services function leading medical information, clinical trials, regulatory drug approval, and medico-marketing efforts to support early pipeline and marketed products in various therapy areas.
Dr. Sankaranarayanan’s research initiatives at UNMC and UConn using health economics and outcomes research, and real-world evidence have contributed to advancing the evidence-base on research gaps, access, quality, cost, effectiveness, and efficiency of treatments and services in the patient-centered delivery of health care. She has led and collaborated in the conceptualization, design, conduct, interpretation, and dissemination of several data-driven multidisciplinary clinical and observational (retrospective/prospective) research studies—national and regional across the rural-urban continuum. Her research has covered multiple therapy areas including psychiatry, cancer, diabetes, cardiology, and infections in various practices (i.e., hospital, intensive care unit, outpatient, primary care, and community). She has actively engaged in health (clinical, economic, and patient-reported) outcomes research of drug utilization, health interventions, innovations, policies, and programs from different stakeholder perspectives (i.e., patients, providers, payers, health policy makers including hospitals and local health departments). She has evaluated current trends, determinants, and outcomes of real-world medication use, and of pharmacy services including telepharmacy delivery models, health information technology, and mobile health applications, as well as policies across different geographies. She has also worked on the development, validation, and application of patient-reported measures and outcomes such as self-management and treatment adherence behaviors, patient preferences, patient assessment of in-hospital communication about medicines, patient health-related quality of life, and health status. Dr. Sankaranarayanan has over 50 national and international conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications in a wide range of disciplines (i.e., critical care medicine, medical research, clinical therapeutics, cancer, pharmacy practice, managed care, drug safety, pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research, rural health, and telemedicine and e-health). Her research and publications have received several awards including a best New Investigator Award from the International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research and a Drug Therapy Research Award from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. She has served on the editorial board of several journals and has been recognized as one of the top reviewers by the Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy journal and the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy.
Dr. Sankaranarayanan holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy and a Master of Pharmacy degree from the University of Mumbai in India, and a Ph.D. from Purdue University in the United States.
Rebecca Slifkin, Ph.D., M.H.A.
Dr. Rebecca Slifkin is a Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Health Policy and Management (HPM) at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. She spends half of her time working with the North Carolina Medicaid program and has been involved in the evaluation of telehealth efforts during the COVID pandemic. Prior to joining HPM, she directed the Office of Planning, Analysis and Evaluation within the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). She served as HRSA’s policy lead on Affordable Care Act implementation and was also responsible for performance measurement activities, Government Accountability Office engagements, intergovernmental affairs, trans-HRSA research and evaluation, agency-wide policy analysis, and liaison with other HHS operating divisions.
From 2000–2010, Dr. Slifkin directed the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focused on a broad array of subjects, including critical access hospitals, pharmacy and Medicare Part D, the 340B program, Medicaid managed care, public health departments, access to care for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and Medicare reimbursement issues including analysis of the wage index and the occupation mix. She has substantial experience leading quick turnaround projects aimed at a policy audience, and she has consulted with agency and congressional staff numerous times on the potential impact of legislative policies. During this time, Dr. Slifkin was also a member of the Rural Policy Research Institute Rural Health Panel, a national panel committed to producing objective analyses of the impacts of public policy on rural people and places.