Board of Directors
Executive Committee
The Society’s Executive Committee sets the overall agenda of the Society and leads the organization in its day-to-day activities. It is made up of Board Members and two members-at-large selected from the general membership of the organization. The current executive committee is:
- President – Danny Sands (ending 7/2012, then becomes past president for 1 year)
- Treasurer – John Grohol (ending 7/2012)
- Secretary – Deb Linton (ending 11/2012)
- President-Elect – Sarah Krug (3-year term, president beginning 7/2012)
- Past President – Alan Greene (ending 7/2012)
- Member-at-Large – Gonzalo Bacigalupe (ending 7/2012)
- Member-at-Large – Sue Woods (ending 7/2012)
Dave deBronkart
“e-Patient Dave” deBronkart was diagnosed in January 2007 with Stage IV, Grade 4 renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer) at a very late stage. His median survival time at diagnosis was just 24 weeks; with tumors in both lungs, several bones, and muscle tissue, his prognosis was “grim,” as one website said.
He received great treatment at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His last treatment was July 23, 2007, and by September it was clear he’d beaten the disease. His remaining lesions have continued to shrink.
An accomplished speaker and writer in his professional life before his illness, today Dave is
actively engaged in opening health care information directly to patients on an unprecedented level, thus creating a new dynamic in how information is delivered, accessed and used by the patient.
Alan Greene, M.D.
Dr. Alan Greene is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, the Founding President and the Co-Chairman of the Society for Participatory Medicine. He is on the board of directors of Healthy Child Healthy World and the Organic Center. He is the author of many popular health and parenting books including Raising Baby Green and Feeding Baby Green.
He has been featured in the New York Times and has appeared on CNN, The TODAY Show, Good Morning America – NOW, and NBC Evening News. Dr. Greene was honored as one of “the 100 most creative and influential innovators working in health care today” and was named the Children’s Health Hero of the Internet by Intel. He is the Founder of the pioneering consumer health website DrGreene.com that has touched millions of lives since its inception in 1995.
Cheryl Greene, MA
Cheryl Greene, MA, and her husband, Dr. Alan Greene co-founded DrGreene.com in 1995 to provide pediatric information to his patients. Very quickly parents from around the world found DrGreene.com and began using the site to research everything from development to common childhood illnesses to rare diseases to ways to keep their children healthy. DrGreene.com stresses the importance of great nutrition, the power of organics, and the role the environment plays in health.
With Cheryl’s leadership and innovation as Executive Producer, DrGreene.com has received many awards. The site now receives over 600K unique users monthly.
Cheryl is a founding member and on the Board of the Society for Participatory Medicine and Directors of X2 Healthcare Network. She is also a Senior Fellow at University of California San Francisco’s Center for Health Professions.
John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
John M. Grohol, Psy.D. is the CEO and founder of one of the leading mental health networks, Psych Central. He founded Psych Central in 1995 as one of the first mental health sites available that offered information about the symptoms and treatments of mental disorders, including interactive screening quizzes and self-help tools. It now receives over 1.6 million unique visitors per month, and is the home to over 170 support groups and 160,000 members. Psych Central was recognized by TIME.com as one of the 50 Best Websites of 2008.
Before focusing full-time on Psych Central in 2006, he worked for a number of e-Health firms, including drkoop.com, HelpHorizons.com and Steve Case’s Revolution Health, helping them with their own mental health centers and understanding the power and usefulness of online self-help support groups.
Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board for the journal CyberPsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding member, fellow and the first president of the International Society for Mental Health Online. He is also a founding member of the Society for Participatory Medicine and its treasurer. He is the author of The Insider’s Guide to Mental Health Resources Online (Guilford) and blogs regularly at PsychCentral.com.
John received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Nova Southeastern University in 1995 and his undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware. He lives with his wife and six cats north of Boston.
Sarah Krug
Sarah Krug is CEO/Executive Director of CANCER101, a patient advocacy organization she has been on the board of for two years, in a quest to help patients and caregivers navigate their cancer journey. Driven by the passion to make an impact after losing both parents to cancer, Sarah has held a variety of roles within healthcare.
She previously held the position of Global Education Director in the Medical Education Group at Pfizer, focused on establishing global health care improvement strategies and medical education standards worldwide. She also established the Global Investigator Initiated Research Program at Pfizer. Prior to joining Pfizer in 2001, Sarah spearheaded the development of the Pediatric disease management clinical pathways and conducted clinical research at Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center. She is also on the board of the Cancer Patient Education Network, and serves as Research Chair.
David Lansky, Ph.D.
David Lansky, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, oversees the efforts of the Pacific Business Group on Health to improve the affordability and accessibility of high quality health care.
Previously, Dr. Lansky was Senior Director, Health Program and Executive Director, Personal Health Technology Initiative for the Markle Foundation. He also served as President of the Foundation for Accountability (FACCT) from its inception in 1995. For more than twenty years, he has been a proponent of a more responsive health care system in which consumers are partners in their care and help shape the delivery of care. Dr. Lansky has been appointed to the HIT Policy Committee, which will make recommendations on the implementation of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure and electronic health record in accordance with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Additionally, he serves on the California Health Information Exchange Advisory Board. A nationally recognized expert in accountability and quality measurement, Dr. Lansky has served as a board member or advisor to numerous health care projects and programs. Some of these include the National Quality Forum, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, National Patient Safety Foundation, The Leapfrog Group, and President Bush’s 2002 Economic Forum.
Prior to FACCT, Dr. Lansky was a senior policy analyst for the Jackson Hole Group during the national health reform debate of 1993-94. He also led the Center for Outcomes Research and Education at Oregon-based Providence Health System. In this capacity he was responsible for outcomes research, measurement of consumer satisfaction, health risk and health status assessment, development of electronic member and patient records, and communicating with purchasers and the larger community about health care quality.
He received his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley and his undergraduate degree from Boston University.
Deborah Linton
Deborah Linton has 7 years of experience researching and applying collaborative technology to healthcare settings. She started working at the Center for Connected Health adapting mind-body medicine for delivery in a virtual world. She is currently working on a mHealth project that aims to improve the case management of at-risk pregnant teens. She also acts as the grants manager for Partners Healthcare and Siemens Medical Solutions‟ Research Council where she helps to promote initiatives in informatics and technology. Prior to working for CCH, Deborah conducted her undergraduate research examining the social and political perspectives of local youth in India, Nepal and Vietnam with particular attention paid to the role of civil society.
Carol Peckham
Carol Peckham is Director of Editorial Development for Medscape from WebMD. As part of this role, she manages Medscape’s Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, Cardiology, and Pediatrics sites. She has spent more than 30 years in medical publishing. Early in her career, she helped develop and launch Scientific American Medicine (later to become ACP Medicine) and then served as publisher. Before joining Medscape in 2004, she and a partner ran their own company, Nidus Information Services, for 10 years, which published Well-Connected, a series of in-depth reports for patients, distributed in print and on the Internet. She lives in New York City but frequently spends weekends upstate where she puts things in the ground and hopes they grow.
Danny Sands, MD
Danny Z. Sands, M.D. is senior medical informatics director for Cisco, where he provides both internal and external health IT leadership and helps key customers with business and clinical transformation using IT. His prior position was chief medical officer for Zix Corporation, a leader in secure e-mail and e-prescribing, and before that he spent 13 years at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he developed and implemented numerous systems to improve clinical care delivery and patient engagement.
Sands earned his baccalaureate at Brown University, a medical degree at Ohio State University, and a master’s degree at Harvard School of Public Health. He did residency training at Boston City Hospital and an informatics fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is an assistant clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and maintains a primary care practice in which he makes extensive use of health information technology.
Sands is the recipient of numerous health IT awards, sits on the board of the American Medical Informatics Association, and has been elected to fellowship in both the American College of Physicians and the American College of Medical Informatics.
Charles W. Smith, M.D.
Charles W. Smith, M.D. is the Founder, Chairman, and Medical Director of eDocAmerica, and is a board certified family physician with over 25 years of experience in practice.
He is the executive associate dean for clinical affairs at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and is professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine where he has been serving since 1989. In his role at UAMS, he also serves as the medical director for UAMS Medical Center and the physician director of medical informatics at the University. In this role, he is responsible for initiating and implementing software programs to assist physicians in the provision of care at UAMS. He is also responsible for the oversight of the quality of medical care provided at UAMS.
He has served as a national leader in family medicine, as editor of the American Family Physician, a national journal for family physicians, and has also served as the president of the American Board of Family Practice, which is the national certifying body for family physicians.
He recently served as the chair of the Group on Faculty Practice, a national organization of medical school faculty practice plans within the American Association of Medical Colleges. He is author of numerous medical journal articles and is co-author of a medical textbook, ‘The Handbook of Family Practice.’ He continues to conduct an active practice and holds regular office hours in the Outpatient Center of the University of Arkansas. His areas of special interest and expertise include sports medicine and fitness, skin disorders and stress-induced disorders.
Smith did his medical training at the University of North Carolina and, after practicing in Muscatine, Iowa, became director of resident physician training in Dayton, Ohio at Wright State University. In 1986, he relocated to Huntsville, Alabama, where he served as the chair of family medicine and dean of the School of Primary Medical Care at the University of Alabama in Huntsville a branch of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He came to Little Rock in 1989 to assume his current position at UAMS.
Indu Subaiya, M.D.
Indu Subaiya, MD, MBA is co-founder of Health 2.0: User Generated Healthcare, a
first-of-its-kind forum showcasing emerging companies in vertical search, social networking applications and web-based tools for consumer healthcare. Most recently she was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Physic Ventures, a consumer health and wellness investment fund. Prior to that she served as President of Etude Scientific, a consulting firm providing strategy, market assessment, and due diligence services to biotechnology and consumer healthcare companies. Indu also was Vice President of Healthcare and Biomedical Research at Gerson Lehrman Group where she facilitated due diligence research in the life sciences sector for investment fund managers. Earlier in her career she served as Director of Outcomes Research at Quorum Consulting, Inc. where she conducted Phase III-IV quality of life and pharmacoeconomic studies and advised life science clients on commercialization and reimbursement strategies. Indu received her MD from Stony Brook University School of Medicine at the State University of New York, an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and a BS in Science and Technology Studies from Cornell University.
Paul Wallace, M.D.
Paul Wallace, M.D. has focused his practice, teaching and research on evidence based medicine, technology assessment, performance measurement, and disease management. With Kaiser Permanente since 1989, he has led its Care Management Institute and worked with the organization‟s New Technology, Research, Guidelines and Diversity Committees. He now provides clinical leadership to Kaiser Permanente’s Health, Wellness and Productivity Management efforts. He has advisory and leadership roles with several national health care organizations including AcademyHealth, the Institute of Medicine, the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, The Center for Information Therapy, and DMAA:The Care Continuum Alliance.
Members at Large
Gonzalo Bacigalupe, EdD , MPH
Gonzalo Bacigalupe, EdD , MPH is Associate Professor of Family Therapy at the College of Education and Human Development, University of Massachusetts Boston and Ikerbasque Research Professor with the Basque Foundation for Science, at the Psychology and Education College, University of Deusto. He is also Associate Research Professor at the Family and Community Health Department UMASS Medical School.
Dr. Bacigalupe is Associate Editor of the Family Systems & Health and editorial board member of the Journal of Marital & Family Therapy, Journal Of Health Disparities Research and Practice, Qualitative Research in Psychology, AFTA Monograph Series, and BioMed Central Public Health. Bacigalupe has been active in the celiac patient support group community since 2004 when he was diagnosed with this common but little known autoimmune disorder.
Susan Woods, MD, MPH
Susan Woods is a general internist and researcher at the Portland VA Medical Center and is Assistant Professor at Oregon Health & Science University in the Departments of Medicine and Medical Informatics. At the Veterans Health Administration, she serves as Associate National Director eHealth, Office of Informatics & Analytics.
Susan cares about improving patient-clinician communication and consumer health information, and researches the use of personal health records and patient portals. As a champion of using technology to practice participatory medicine, she believes virtual access to health information enhances the patient experience and improves health. She encourages disruptive changes such as consumer transparency and full access to health information on her Shared Health Data blog.
