Who We Are
As an organization, we have an experienced team of experts that can provide comprehensive consultation related to telehealth, planning, implementation, operationalization, and sustainability |
Dale Alverson, MD, FAAP, FATA
Founder, CEO, and Managing Member of TOUCH-TSC Dale is a graduate of University of Michigan Medical School (cum laude), completed pediatric residency at University of Colorado, and neonatology Fellowship at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and was on faculty at UNM from 1982-2020 and served as Neonatology Division Chief from 1988-1997. He is now Professor Emeritus and Regents’ Professor at the University of New Mexico, where he served as the Strategic Telehealth Consultant for the Center for Telehealth, and was involved in the planning, implementation, research, and evaluation of Telemedicine systems for New Mexico. He is also the Chief Medical Informatics Officer at LCF Research, managing the state-wide health information exchange assisting in their efforts to address the development and meaningful use of health information technologies, adoption of electronic health records, and integration with telemedicine. In 2007, the UNM Center for Telehealth was given the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) President's Institutional Award for its efforts in advancing telehealth locally, nationally, and internationally. Dale is a former President of the American Telemedicine Association, a member of their College of Fellows, and has long been involved in collaborative international programs to advance Telehealth globally. He is also widely published, a frequent presenter at national and international conferences, and a respected consultant on issues related to health information technologies and Telehealth. He is a founder and prior chairman on the Board of the New Mexico Telehealth Alliance that provides a platform for public-private collaboration and formation of a Telehealth network of networks in the state. After a distinguished career in Pediatrics, with a specialty in Neonatal Intensive Care, as well as involvement in telehealth for over 25 years, he has recently fully retired from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, and is now able to devote significantly more time to digital health and telemedicine to HIAI-TOUCH projects around the world and build collaborative working relationships. His decades of dedication to effective teaching and mentoring, both in lecture and clinical settings, contributed to the production of numerous talented physicians. Dale translated these talents into the team building and engagement skills necessary to blend Telehealth solutions into the medical architectures in international communities burdened with healthcare disparities and minimal availability of professional medical staff. Dale has been involved in Telemedicine projects in Ecuador, Nepal, Ukraine, Iran, countries in Africa, and several other countries, assisting them in the planning and design of realistic and appropriate integration of telemedicine into their health systems. Brian Bingham, BFA, MPl Collaborative Director International Project Management, Planning, and Program Implementation Masters of Planning (MPl), Urban & Regional Environment, University of Southern California Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Environmental Psychology, School of Design, California Institute of the Arts Summary of Experience: The core knowledge, skills, and professional experience he delivers to any international development project focus on metropolitan strategic planning, tourism destination planning & marketing, comprehensive health planning, and project management. From a home base in Tokyo for 12 years, he built his career on continuous planning and project management work in developing countries. Fully half of his 43-year career to date has found him working for and with Japanese consulting firms advising government ministries, international aid organizations, and private companies in the development of new towns, desert communities, metropolitan areas, regional and national tourism programs, and healthcare industry organizations at various scales – on projects often funded by Japanese Government overseas grant-aid mechanisms or international technology transfer programs. The most significant of all his international project experiences was the Integrated Capital Development Plan (ICDP) for Baghdad. That was an extensive master planning effort, for which, seven Japanese planning and engineering consulting firms and Japanese banks joined to form the Japanese Consortium of Consulting Firms (JCCF) to contract with the Iraqi Government to engage in strategic development planning, project management, and program implementation to guide the future of the Iraqi capital region. During his 6+ years on that project, he worked closely with the Japanese Project Manager as an integral member of the JCCF management team to implement all aspects of the project to satisfy the terms of the main contract under wartime conditions in Iraq. He has worked as master planner, national development strategist, project/program manager, marketing consultant, health industry planner, and tourism planner providing advice to professional service firms including architects, engineers, real estate developers, municipal, state, and national governments, and economic development assistance agencies in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Augusto Ittig, MD Collaborative Director Telemedicine Expert Dr. Ittig is an emergency medicine physician and surgeon based in Argentina. He has vast experience with telemedicine systems designed to provide support to rural and remote communities. He has worked extensively in the development, planning, and implementation of telemedicine that serves companies and their employees based in remote mines, petroleum extraction, damns, and at sea. He is a founder and current president of RISAD, The Ibero-American Network for Digital Health, designed to further develop appliactions for medical services, education, research and evaluation of telehealth in in Latin America, Spain and Portugal and in collaboration with other countries, such as in the United States. he also works extensively with other related telehealth associations in Latin America and he has presented at many international conferences. Kenneth Kempner, MS Collaborative Director Telehealth System Design and Implementation As a Supervisory Electronics Engineer and Staff Scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, Ken worked in the telemedicine field for five decades before his retirement in late 2018. His NIH career began with development of real-time electrocardiogram (ECG) arrhythmia analysis software, and he was co-inventor of the first battery-powered ECG Telephone Transmitter for physician monitoring of ECG rhythms in home-bound pacemaker patients. He was the Project Officer supervising the creation of NIH’s first Medical Intensive Care Unit. It consisted of five computerized subsystems integrated into NIH’s research hospital: General Patient Monitoring; Cardiac Catheterization; Respiratory Mass Spectrometry; Nuclear Medicine Gamma Camera Imaging; and Cardiac Ultrasonography. Ken introduced automated diagnostic electrocardiography as Project Officer for the installation of a modified commercial ECG Diagnostic System into the NIH Clinical Center. He supervised customization of this Rule-Based Expert System to include the Cardiology Consultation Service’s diagnostic criteria. Finally, Ken designed the ECG System’s interface to the Clinical Center’s Electronic Medical Record System, allowing automated download of ECG Order Requisitions and upload of ECG Final Diagnoses. More recently, he supervised the development of an advanced telemedicine architecture known as the TELESYNERGY® Medical Consultation WorkStation. This system allows multiple facilities to collaborate using the unique “Same Room Paradigm,” which causes changes made to radiology images at one site, to occur simultaneously at all sites within multi-site conferences. TELESYNERGY® was deployed within the island of Ireland at six Radiation Oncology Centers, at the King Hussein Cancer Center in Amman, Jordan, and at additional radiation oncology facilities within the contiguous U.S. Ken’s present interests now focus on the use of off-the-shelf hardware and software components to create high-performance medical imaging-based Telehealth Systems in support of accurate diagnosis of clinical disease, and triage of disaster and accident victims. This technology is crucial in remote population centers with minimal access to medical facilities and with inadequate physician coverage. Point-Of-Care (POC) ultrasound and POC microscopy are central components in these Telehealth Systems, since they eliminate the necessity of travel for initial diagnostic image acquisition and review, therefore, minimizing time delays until diagnosis leads to the beginning of treatment. Pedro Ramos Contreras, MD Collaborative Director Telemedicine Expert Pediatrician-Pediatric Nephrologist Head of Telemedicine MONTERREY, NUEVO LEON, MEXICO Diploma and Certified in Telehealth. Basically, carrying out their activities from Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. Starting activities in telemedicine since 2010. He has been Head of the Department of Telemedicine from the Secretary of Health of the State of Nuevo León receiving recognition of the best practices in Telehealth granted by the Pan American Health Organization and the Inter-American Development Bank and the Ministries of Health in Latin America. Coordinator of the 2014 Americas Region Congress in Monterrey, Mexico. Director General and founder of the Digital Magazine of e-health Mexico, carried out jointly with Cenetec from Mexico. He also participates as associate editor of the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, USA. He has been a member of the American Telemedicine Association and an assistant and participant in many international meetings of the same ATA in Toronto, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Orlando, and Chicago USA. He has also been a member of ATALACC participating as a lecturer. He has organized and participated as a lecturer in multiple Congresses in Mexico City and in various states of the country. Likewise, Speaker on Telehealth at multiple International Congresses in Peru, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Argentina, and Spain. Designated teacher and researcher of the research program of the Research Center in Economic Teaching. Also, he is a Member of the Ibero-American Network of Mobile Technology in Health (RITMOS) and founding member of the Ibero-American Digital Health Network (RISAD). Paola Santana, MS Collaborative Director Organizational Psychologist Master of Science in Industrial / Organizational Psychology with over 13 years of experience in behavioral health, case management and advocate (English and Spanish) in the mental health and educational field. Background experience as bilingual project grant management, presenting mental health awareness workshops for parents and professionals, advocating for children in schools to support their behavior needs at school. Clear knowledge of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders (DSM-5), organize reports and maintain client’s records by HIPAA regulations. She has worked in the field, visiting clients at home, school, district offices and judicial hearings on behalf of my clients who are fighting to receive behavioral health services, along with home and community services. Her experience with schools, clinics, health professionals and care facilities have given her pertinent information about the patient needs and thus be a better advocate for the best possible care available. John Lucas, MD Collaborative Member Health Care Administration Fellow of the American College of Physician Executives with over 30 years’ experience in leading hospitals, integrated health systems and physician group practices in the USA, Asia, and Africa. He has also served as a Malcolm Baldrige Examiner and a Joint Commission International Surveyor and performed multiple healthcare consulting engagements in African and Middle Eastern countries. Most recently he worked in Vietnam as CEO of the Franco-Vietnamese Hospital (FVH) and then City International Hospital (CIH). He is Board Certified in Preventive and Family Medicine. Margaret (Maggie) Gunter, PhD Collaborative Director Medical Sociologist Maggie Gunter, PhD, is a health services researcher, medical sociologist, and healthcare innovator whose current position from 2019 until the present has been Senior Advisor for Population Health and Outcomes Research for SYNCRONYS (formerly known as LCF Research), a respected non-profit health data and research organization based in Albuquerque, which staffs New Mexico’s statewide health information exchange (HIE) network. Dr. Gunter was President of LCF/SYNCRONYS for more than two decades from 1991 until her retirement in 2013, during which time she and her LCF staff incubated and operated the HIE beginning in 2004. Beginning in October, 2013 until her return to LCF in 2019 (now renamed SYNCRONYS), Dr. Gunter served as Director of Medical Outcomes Research for Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute (LRRI), an independent, private non-profit research institute that specializes in the prevention, treatment, and cure of respiratory disease, but also conducts biomedical research and outcomes research in other disease areas. Over her extensive career in healthcare and population research and in implementing and evaluating health innovations using quantitative and qualitative methods, Dr. Gunter has had the opportunity to help lead a number of groundbreaking yet practical programs to address key issues in the healthcare delivery system, in such areas as disease and case management, managing population health, innovative use and analysis of claims data and other healthcare utilization data, data analytics and risk adjustment, and promoting the meaningful use of health information technology. Dr. Gunter’s research has emphasized (1) the design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions and innovations to improve health care quality, cost effectiveness, and patient outcomes in “real-world” settings; and (2) the creative and effective use of large population-based healthcare databases in answering key health research questions. As a medical sociologist, she has had a long-term interest in identifying, understanding, and addressing health disparities (racial/ethnic and socioeconomic), and she has worked to improve the availability of person-level health care data with information on race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status to support accurate population-based assessment and improvement of health disparities. She also has a central interest in interventions that are culturally tailored to the target audience. Jeremy Stueven, MD MBA Collaborative Member Telemedicine and Artificial Intelligence Expert Dr. Jeremy Stueven is a medical doctor with training in Emergency Medicine. He has 13 years of clinical experience in both the Emergency Department and in telehealth Urgent Cares across the US. He’s had a passion for telehealth since medical school and now practices exclusively in telehealth. He has medical licenses in 35 US States. He’s Board Certified in Emergency Medicine. He has expertise in digital health, telehealth, healthcare finance, quality of care and artificial intelligence. He has publications in the Journal of Medical Quality. He has an MBA with healthcare emphasis and healthcare administrative experience. He has founded and co-founded multiple start-ups, having been both CEO and CFO of healthcare companies. He has served as an advisor to venture capitalists on investment in healthcare innovation. He currently serves as CEO of Vitazi.ai, which is a US company that's delivering next generation medical diagnostics through artificial intelligence. He is a pioneer in medical diagnostics that utilize artificial intelligence, currently solving population screening problems. He sees AI as a vital component to international telehealth programs and believes AI will play a vital role in solving healthcare access, cost and inequality problems. |
