Sandeep is experienced entrepreneur with focus on healthcare technology. He gets the inspiration to mentor and volunteer at WHIT from his two beautiful daughters. Currently, he is CEO of 2 healthcare startups – DevCool Inc. and HiPaaS Inc. He is also investor and board member for few other startups. He has been featured on CNBC, Fox and Bloomberg network as a Healthcare innovation leader. He has been a speaker at various Healthcare technology conferences. Sandeep’s passion is to help make technology ideas real and has himself walked the steep climb. Linkedin Profile (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-startup-venture-key-lessons-i-learned-hard-way-sandeep-deokule/)
Duncan Scrymgeour Lewis, MPH
After graduating from UCLA, Duncan began a career in healthcare. After working as a project manager for both HealthNet and Wellpoint, Duncan was hired by Kaiser Permanente, where he stayed for the next ten years, serving as the National Manager for Content Development and Strategic Reporting. While at Kaiser Permanente, Duncan was accepted into the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s Executive MPH program, where he graduated in 2005 as the Foley & Lardner Fellow.
Duncan spent 2006 through 2010 in communications and online strategy roles at the Saban Pediatric Research Institute at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Providence Health Systems, and finally at Cedars-Sinai. While recovering from a car accident, Scrymgeour decided to change careers and pursue a long-held dream of teaching secondary education. He entered CSUN and was awarded a teaching credential in English Language Arts, Social Studies, and General Science. In 2013, Duncan became a member of the faculty at John F. Kennedy High School. Kennedy is a Title I and Title III school within the Los Angeles Unified School District. In his first year, Duncan was asked to become the Coordinator for the school’s Biomedical, Health and Fitness Academy and subsequently took a fourth teaching certification in Career Technical Education within the Health Science and Medical Technology Pathway. The Academy sought to prepare an ethnically-diverse and gender inclusive student body for matriculation to higher education and into careers in healthcare. For the Class of 2016, both the Valedictorian as well as the Salutatorian were members of the Academy and will enter UCLA on their way to becoming clinicians.
After participating in a number of Special Education integration projects, LAUSD’s new Superintendent for the Northwest Division, Vivian Ekchian designated Kennedy as the school site for a new magnet school designed around a medical theme. After working with the school’s administration designing curriculum and hiring a faculty, Duncan is now the Lead Teacher and Career Technical Education Coordinator for the Kennedy Medical Magnet for the Gifted (Highly-Gifted, and High-Ability Student), which will open in fall of 2016. The school has a maximum enrollment cap of 465 students who have been designated as gifted by LAUSD. Part of the Kennedy Medical Magnet’s mission was designed to serve the district’s underrepresented populations by preparing students for careers in medicine specifically and healthcare more generally.
Debbie Rieger
Debbie Rieger brings extensive experience in all aspects of healthcare from Health Plans, physician offices to hospitals, technology, health information exchange, strategic planning and project management, including more than 30 years of management and operations experience. Ms. Rieger has served in many capacities as a consultant. She is currently working as an Interim CIO at Colorado Access. She has experience as an Interim Executive Director of the LA Care and LA County Health Information Exchange. Ms. Rieger served for eight years as VP for Information Technology with Catholic Health Initiatives. Prior to that she was VP for Clinical Services at Park City Solutions, Midway, Utah, where she was responsible for all aspects of building and operating a consulting practice. She was VP Operations for Eclipsys Corporation in Tucson, which provided decision support, enterprise master patient index (EMPI), and integration and oncology software. At Per Se Technologies (McKesson) in San Jose, she was VP of Operations for the scheduling software vendor.
Ms. Rieger was named a 2016 Premier 100 Technology Leader by Computerworld.
Ms. Rieger earned a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Medical Technology from South Dakota State University and a Master of Operations Degree from University of Phoenix.
Melissa Scrymgeour
Melissa Scrymgeour is the Chief Information and Strategy Officer at Gold Coast Health Plan. Ms. Scrymgeour joined GCHP in November 2012 and is responsible for all technology and information security functions across the Plan including data analytics decision support and project portfolio management, along with organizational strategic planning.
Ms. Scrymgeour has a diverse IT and business background, having held progressive leadership roles in corporate, private and public sectors. Immediately prior to joining GCHP, Ms. Scrymgeour worked for Harbor Freight Tools where she was responsible for application development support of corporate and retail business systems. During her 15-yr. tenure with Health Net, Ms. Scrymgeour held business and IT leadership roles supporting enterprise operations and sales systems for both commercial and senior product lines. Ms. Scrymgeour also served as an IT account executive for Health Net, responsible for IT portfolio planning, oversight, and delivery for its largest commercial book of business.