Karen Cox RN, PhD, FAAN

Chairman of the Board

Executive Vice President, Co-Chief Operating Officer, Children’s Mercy Hospital & Clinics

Dr. Cox serves as Executive Vice President and Co-COO for Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, a 314 bed academic pediatric medical center in Kansas City, MO. Dr. Cox led the organization to receive MagnetTM designation, becoming the first in Kansas and Missouri, and the third children’s hospital nation-wide. She serves as Assistant Dean for Clinical Partnerships at the University of MO – Kansas City. Cox is the first nurse to chair the National Initiative of Children’s Healthcare Quality (NICHQ). As a widely published journal and book chapter author in nursing workforce issues, she continues the work she began as a RWJ Executive Nurse Fellow in 1999 that led to the creation of a staff nurse work environment instrument, the Individual Workload Perception Scale-Revised (IWPS-R) now used throughout the US. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing where she serves as the Co-Chair of the Pediatric Expert Panel. In addition she serves on the National Advisory Panel for Nursing Education and Practice (NACNEP), a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) subcommittee.

Principal, Algodones Associates

Ms. Arango co-founded Family Voices, a national grassroots network that now has more than 45,000 families and friends working together to improve health and related systems for children and youth with special health needs. She was Executive Director of Family Voices for eight years and now serves on its board.  Ms. Arango continues her work as writer, speaker, and advocate for children, especially those with special health care needs. She champions families and family-centered care in many national forums, including: HHS Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality; Pew Commission on Foster Care; Heinz Family Foundation Awards Jury; Bright Futures Expert Panel; Editorial Board, Atlas of American Children; National Council on Disability Project; National Advisory Committee/ IHI Pursuing Perfection; Board of Directors, National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality/NICHQ; Board of Directors, Family Voices.

In New Mexico, she is co-founder and former President of Parents Reaching Out/PRO, the statewide organization of families who have children with special needs. She also serves on the Governor’s Developmental Disabilities Council, the Governor’s Medicaid Advisory Committee, and the Governor’s Health Reform Task Force. Ms. Arango is a board member of New Mexico Voices for Children, the Sandoval County Health Alliance, and El Pueblo Health Services, a rural primary care clinic.  She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Mexico and owns a family business in Wisconsin.

President and CEO of Arkansas Children’s Hospital 

A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Dr. Bates earned a BA from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and a MD from the University of Missouri School of Medicine.  He took his residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston, where he was Chief Medical Resident.  Dr. Bates was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and specialized in ambulatory medicine and emergency medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston before becoming involved in hospital administration there.  He was Senior Vice President at Children’s Hospital and Health Center in San Diego and administrator at Memorial Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, California, before taking his current position at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in May of 1993.

Associate Professor in Pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine

Dr. Bergman is currently a Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is actively involved in the re-design of clinical systems to improve access and patient-care and communication. Dr. Bergman attended Yale University and University of Illinois School of Medicine. He completed his residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar Program at Stanford. He has been involved in quality improvement and practical redesign for the past fifteen years and has chaired the AAP committee on quality improvement. Dr. Bergman was involved in the development of practice guidelines and is currently researching the use of telemedicine and web based tools for children with special healthcare needs. Dr. Bergman serves on NICHQ’s Board of Directors and is the past chair.

Thomas W. Chapman MPH, EdD

President and CEO, The HSC Foundation

Dr. Chapman has served as the President and CEO of the HSC Foundation, an operating foundation that manages a hospital and health plan, since 1998. Prior to his time at the HSC Foundation, Dr. Chapman was the President and CEO of George Washington University Hospital and Systems Network. His professional experience has focused on the management of business and strategy of large urban health enterprises; he has provided ongoing consulting to healthcare foundations such as the Robert Wood Johnson, Commonwealth Fund and Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. He also served as US Federal Court Monitor for Medicaid Program in the District of Columbia. Dr. Chapman received his Master’s degree from Yale University, and Doctorate from George Washington University.

James B. Conway MS

Board Clerk

Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement; Senior Consultant at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI)

From 1995-2005 Mr. Conway served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of DFCI. Prior to joining Dana-Farber, he had a 27-year career at Children’s Hospital, Boston in Radiology Administration, Finance, and as Assistant Hospital Director for Patient Care Services. His areas of expertise and interest include executive leadership, patient safety, change management, and patient-/family-centered care. He holds a Master of Science from Lesley College, Cambridge, MA. An adjunct Faculty member at the Harvard School of Public Health, Mr. Conway was the 2001 winner of the first Individual Leadership Award in Patient Safety by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). He is a member of the IOM Committee on Identifying and Preventing Medication Errors, a Distinguished Advisor to the National Patient Safety Foundation, and a member and Vice-Chair of the JCAHO Sentinel Event Alert Advisory Group.

Stephen Dance

Board Treasurer

Former Senior Vice President, Finance, and Chief Financial Officer, ViaCell, Inc.

Mr. Dance joined ViaCell as Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer in January 2004.  Prior to this, he was Senior Vice President, Finance at SangStat Medical Corporation, a biotechnology company, from April 1999 until December 2003, adding the additional title of Chief Financial Officer in December 2002.  Previously, Mr. Dance spent one year with Plantronics, Inc., a telecommunications company, where he was responsible for worldwide financial accounting, reporting and planning activities.  He spent 15 years with Syntex Corporation, a pharmaceuticals company (later part of the Roche group), in a variety of increasingly responsible finance positions including controller of US sales, marketing and manufacturing operations. Mr. Dance holds a CPA (California) and FCA (United Kingdom) qualification in accounting and spent seven years with Deloitte & Touche in both the United Kingdom and the United States.  He received his B.A. degree in French at the University of Leeds in England.

Roderick King MD, MPH, FAAP

Board Vice Chair

Leadership Staff, The Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital

Before arriving at the newly-created Disparities Solutions Center at MGH, Dr. King served for five years as Director of Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) Office of Performance Review Region One office. In this capacity he managed the Field Office and led a new effort in program evaluation of HRSA grantees in the six New England states. He was also part of the Kellogg Fellowship for Emerging Leaders and the Council of Excellence in Government.  He has led pediatric campaigns abroad, notably at the Ahotacrum Leprosy Camp and the World Health Organization’s Polio Eradication Project, both in Ghana.  Dr. King received his BS in Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, an MD from the Medical College of Cornell University and a Master in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Former Vice President, R&D (Ret), Procter and Gamble

Mr. Place served at Procter & Gamble for 37 years as a Manager and Senior Director in Research and Development; before retiring, his role was that of Corporate Vice President, Research and Development, Worldwide.  A retired Major in the British Army and past president of the Industrial Research Institute, Mr. Place also serves as a trustee for Cincinnati Children’s Medical Hospital Center.

Director, PROS, VCHIP

Dr. Wasserman is a NICHQ founder, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont (UVM) College of Medicine, and Director of Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS), the practice-based research network (PBRN) of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).  Since 1983 he has been a general pediatrician in the UVM Department of Pediatrics, teaching, providing primary care, and conducting primary care research focused on understanding and improving office-based pediatric primary care, with a special emphasis on preventive services and the prediction and management of behavior problems.  Dr. Wasserman currently serves on the advisory committee for the PBRNs of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association. Locally, he helped to create the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program – a practice-based quality improvement collaboration between UVM, Vermont primary care practitioners, and Vermont state government. Dr. Wasserman is an elected member of the American Pediatric Society and has served on the Board of Directors of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association (APA).  He received an MD from Jefferson Medical College, trained in pediatrics at UVM and Children’s Hospital Boston, and earned an MPH while a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Washington.

Joan Wood

Senior Vice President, Leadership and Organization Development, Genzyme Corporation

Ms. Wood is responsible for the overall development of Genzyme Corporation’s global biotechnology workforce. Her focus is in the areas of management and leadership development, and organizational development, diversity and college relations. Programs under her direction include Genzyme’s Mobilizing Talent initiative, and Genzyme’s MBA Management Development and Summer Internship Programs. Previously, Wood was Senior Vice President at Scudder Investments, where she led the Learning and Development function for Scudder’s U.S. Mutual Fund Group and oversaw customer education for the AARP family of funds. Ms. Wood also previously was Director of Curriculum Development for Service Delivery University at Fidelity Investments. Ms. Wood’s current special interest is in executive coaching, particularly in the areas of visionary and metaphoric thinking and conflict resolution.