LEAD THE FUTURE OF HEALTH INFORMATION 

Maria Caban Alizondo is a healthcare executive, educator, and nationally recognized leader in health information management and informatics. She serves as Director of Health Informatics & Information Management Services at UCLA Health and is also an Assistant Professor of Health Informatics at Rutgers University. With more than three decades of leadership experience across academic health systems, consulting, and healthcare operations, she has advanced major initiatives in EHR integrity, health data strategy, workforce development, and organizational transformation.

Dr. Caban Alizondo is a past President and Board Chair of AHIMA and a former President of the California Health Information Association. She is widely recognized for her thought leadership in health equity, AI in healthcare, leadership development, and the future of the health information workforce, with numerous national and international presentations, publications, and professional service contributions.

Mike Cordeiro is a healthcare interoperability strategist and thought leader with more than 20 years of experience in healthcare IT, including over 15 years dedicated to advancing real-world interoperability solutions. As Senior Director of Interoperability Market & Product Strategy at MEDITECH, he leads initiatives that help healthcare organizations securely exchange and leverage data to improve care coordination, operational efficiency, and patient outcomes. His work has influenced interoperability programs across the United States, Canada, and the UK, including large-scale health information exchange networks and data-sharing initiatives that enable more connected care.

A recognized voice in healthcare innovation, Mike actively collaborates with leading industry organizations and interoperability initiatives focused on advancing healthcare data exchange and digital transformation. A frequent speaker and moderator at major healthcare conferences, he is known for translating complex interoperability challenges into practical strategies that support whole-person care, reduce gaps in care, and help healthcare organizations realize the full value of connected health data.

Mrs. Davis has >30 years’ experience in the healthcare industry with emphasis on conformance testing, implementation, development, and management of information technology solutions and healthcare workflow requirements. She serves as the VP, Informatics, Conformance and Interoperability for the Sequoia Project that is a 501©3 not for profit organization based in Washington, DC. Her expertise includes connecting people, processes and technology to improve health care. She is responsible for driving the interoperability among health IT systems participating within projects, policy frameworks and networks. She is the Standards and Testing Lead for the Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) responsible for operationalizing the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA). In addition, she leads a group of experts from a wide range of stakeholders across the US to develop specific and pragmatic implementation guidance on improving data quality of the clinical content exchanged among networks and communities in the Data Usability workgroup under the Sequoia Interoperability Matters Forum. She also acts as the subject matter expert guiding the deployment efforts for the Data Usability Taking Root Movement and for the Image Exchange Use Case Implementation for Carequality.

Mrs. Davis is nationally known as a subject matter expert for healthcare standards, interoperability design and strategy for all healthcare stakeholders including consumers, hospitals, physician practices, public health, health information exchanges and vendors deploying health information technology to improve patient safety and quality of care. She is the recipient of the HIMSS 2022 Most Influential Women in Health IT award and the DirectTrust Interop Hero in 2021. She volunteers in several roles nationally and internationally. She was elected as IHE International Board Co-chair in December 2025 and has served on the IHE International Board of Directors since 2007 and within various committees and joint collaborations.

She also holds a co-chair position on the HL7 CDA Management Group.  She works closely with HL7 to provide a feedback loop from lessons learned to advance interoperability and to accelerate the implementation of HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) to address high value use cases and exchange knowledge and information during the development of documentation and testing tools.

She has served in many executive level positions previously, including as the CEO for Carespark, Inc., a regional HIE covering 17 counties with 8 in Northeast TN and 9 in Southwest VA and as the CTO for the Health Information Partnership for Tennessee (HIPTN).

William (Bill) Gregg, MD, MS, MPH, joined HCA Healthcare in 2014 and serves as Vice President of Clinical Data and Interoperability. In addition to his medical degree, Dr. Gregg holds an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned master’s degrees in Clinical Informatics and Public Health at Vanderbilt University and was a VA Quality Scholars Fellow. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics. At a national level, he is Co-Chair of the Sequoia Project’s Data Usability Workgroup whose charge is to identify practical solutions to make interoperability work better for clinicians and patients.

Prior to joining HCA, Dr. Gregg served as an Assistant Professor of Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University and was the Director of Population Health Informatics. He helped develop successful clinical programs and led software development in population health and clinical decision support. His primary focus is on system level integration of technology, interoperability, and processes to support transformation of clinical care in our rapidly changing healthcare landscape.

Faisal Hussain, MD, MS(HIIM), RHIA, CCDS, CDIP, CCS is a nationally recognized physician leader in Clinical Documentation Integrity (CDI), health informatics, and the clinical revenue cycle. With more than 13 years of experience across major health systems and healthcare technology organizations, he specializes in EMR‑embedded workflows, analytics‑driven operational redesign, and scalable CDI program development that strengthens documentation quality, transparency, and reimbursement integrity.

Dr. Hussain has received multiple national honors, including the 2023 ACDIS Diversity in CDI Award, the 2024 Solventum Summit Award for Analytics, the 2025 Solventum Summit Award for CDI Partnership & Innovation, and the 2026 UTHSC Outstanding Alumnus Award.

He has held senior leadership roles at City of Hope, MedStar Health, Wellstar Health System, Community Health Systems, and RWJBarnabas, and previously served in executive roles at CorroHealth and Reventics, Inc., where he led enterprise CDI modernization, advanced analytics initiatives, and interdisciplinary collaboration across HIM, finance, quality, and physician leadership.

A respected national voice, Dr. Hussain frequently speaks at leading conferences and contributes to industry dialogue on data transparency, clinical documentation integrity, and physician engagement. He is a frequent guest on major industry podcasts, including The ACDIS Podcast, AHIMA HI Pitch, Off the Record, HIPcast, and CIO Podcast. He currently serves on the ACDIS Leadership Council & ACDIS Physician Advisor Committee, and has previously served on the ACDIS Advisory Board and ACDIS Regulatory Committee.

Katherine is the Vice President, Strategic Partnerships for the Texas Health Services Authority with a focus on cross-industry facilitation of secure electronic exchange of health information. 

Katherine’s efforts are focused on leading the THSA Texas Interoperability Collaborative, tackling barriers to interoperability as a vendor agnostic convener for all healthcare participants. She is a passionate advocate for leveraging technology as a stabilizing force within the healthcare ecosystem.  

Dr. Patterson is a tenured associate professor. He serves as Administrative Director for Clinical AI at UW Health and Medical Director for Predictive Analytics on the UW Health Informatics teams. In these roles, Dr. Patterson works with hospital leadership to define artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, governance, and development. He has led efforts to develop predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms, as well as large language model (LLM) tools that have improved patient care and provider well-being.

In addition to his administrative roles, Dr. Patterson runs an active research program within the Department of Emergency Medicine, where he directs the Emergency Care Systems Lab. His personal research interests are in clinical informatics and geriatric emergency medicine. Through his work, Dr. Patterson aims to generate actionable using routinely collected clinical data to improve the quality and safety of emergency care for older adults. To achieve these goals, Dr. Patterson works in collaboration with investigators across UW–Madison, including the Wisconsin School of Business, College of Engineering, and the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics. His current work focuses on automated risk scoring to identify older adults at high risk for falling after emergency department visits and automating referral to interventions to prevent future falls.

Dr. Payne serves as the Chief Health AI Officer for BJC Health and WashU Medicine, and he is the founding director of their joint Center for Health AIHe also holds the Janet and Bernard Becker Professorship and is the founding director of the Institute for Informatics, Data Science and Biostatistics (I2DB) at WashU Medicine. Additionally, Dr. Payne is a professor of general internal medicine, computer science and engineering.

With over 300 publications, he leads a dynamic research group that addresses areas such as: 1) AI-driven methods for discovering and analyzing biomolecular and clinical phenotypes, 2) interventional applications of electronic health records and clinical decision support, 3) human factors and workflow optimization in healthcare IT, and 4) the development and assessment of data sharing and analytics platforms to support high-value, agile healthcare systems and research initiatives.

Dr. Payne is an elected fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI), American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI). He currently serves as president-elect of the AMIA, the leading professional organization in Biomedical and Health Informatics. Beyond academia, Dr. Payne is an active entrepreneur, founding multiple digital health companies and serving in advisory and governance roles with various health and life sciences companies and venture capital firms.

Dr. Joseph H. Schneider is a pediatrician who provides care for newborn babies as an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas and who teaches informatics at both the University of Texas Southwestern and at the University of Texas Dallas. He has an MBA from Columbia with 15 years of business experience prior to medical school including managing a medical device company.  He retired in 2016 from full-time informatics work after serving as the Chief Medical and Health Information Officer for several large healthcare systems.

Dr. Schneider was a co-author of the 2003 Continuity of Care Record standard, one of the first interoperability approaches. Having been a victim of identity mismatch several times, Dr Schneider is passionate about ensuring accurate health records. He co-chairs the Privacy-Enhancing Health Records Standards Workgroup of DirectTrust that is focused on creating a voluntary health identifier. He also volunteers with a number of other informatics and clinical organizations including serving on the Texas Newborn Screening Advisory Committee and chairing the Newborn Informatics Standardization Committee for the Texas Health Services Authority.

Rana Abuzir, RHIT, FACHDM, is a health information leader with 15+ years of experience in workforce development, program innovation, and industry leadership, including extensive work advancing AI adoption and education across the health information profession. As Director of Health Information Practice Advancement at AHIMA, she leads Communities of Practice across AI, Health Data Access and Use, Privacy & Security, and Revenue Cycle Management, driving education programs and contributing to AHIMA's Body of Knowledge that shape the future of the field. Her work has included launching AHIMA's first-ever AI Summit, spearheading the inaugural AHIMA Health Data & Informatics Summit, and leading a nationally recognized apprenticeship program funded by a $4.9M Department of Labor grant, credentialing 1,200+ health information professionals across 145+ employers nationwide.

A recognized voice in health information management, Rana actively engages with C-suite healthcare executives, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and international organizations including the Ministry of Health Malaysia. A frequent speaker at AHIMA component state association annual meetings and national conferences, she is known for bridging technical expertise with practical implementation, building cross-functional partnerships, and delivering evidence-based solutions that drive measurable impact for organizations and professionals across the country.

Jennifer Mueller is the Senior Vice President of Health Information Career Advancement & Academic Affairs at AHIMA. In this role, she leads initiatives to assess and meet the professional and training needs of the health information (HI) workforce. She oversees AHIMA’s CEU development, educational quality initiatives, and member career advancement strategies. In addition, she provides leadership for Academic Affairs and the Council for Excellence in Education, advancing initiatives that strengthen the profession through curriculum development, faculty support, workforce readiness, research, and efforts to build awareness of the field.

Previously, Jennifer served as the Vice President and Privacy Officer at the Wisconsin Hospital Association Information Center in Madison, Wisconsin. She has also held leadership roles such as Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Watertown Regional Medical Center. Her extensive experience includes a term as President of AHIMA and a three-year tenure on its Board of Directors.

Jennifer is deeply engaged in professional organizations at both national and state levels. Nationally, she is a member of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), holding Fellow certifications from both, as well as from the American College of Health Data Management (ACHDM). She is also a Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA) and a Senior Member of the Health Information and Management Systems Society (SHIMSS). In Wisconsin, Jennifer has served as a two-time Past-President of the Wisconsin Health Information Management Association (WHIMA), participates in the Wisconsin Chapter of HIMSS, contributes to the HIPAA Collaborative of Wisconsin (HIPAACOW), and held the role of Treasurer on the board of the Wisconsin Statewide Health Information Network (WISHIN).

Her accolades include WHIMA’s Rising Star Award, Motivator Award, Distinguished Member Award, and Professional Practice Mentor Award. Jennifer holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Information Management and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

 Lauren currently serves as AHIMA’s Chief Public Policy and Impact Officer. In this capacity, she is responsible for providing strategic and operational oversight over AHIMA’s advocacy and programmatic strategy to demonstrate mission impact. Prior to that, Lauren served as Vice President of Policy & Government Affairs at AHIMA, overseeing the organization’s policy and advocacy before Congress and various federal agencies. With two decades of healthcare policy experience, Lauren previously worked on Capitol Hill where she was actively involved in almost every aspect of a congressional office, including serving as Chief of Staff—a position that requires the ability to quickly synthesize multiple issues and adapt to constantly shifting priorities. Lauren received her JD from American University Washington College of Law and a Bachelor of Arts from Vanderbilt University. She is admitted to practice law in New York.  

Trayanna is the Director of Education for Data Analytics & Health Informatics at the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), where she develops educational programs that equip healthcare professionals with the knowledge and skills to advance data-driven, technology-enabled care.

With more than 16 years of experience spanning clinical nursing, health informatics, data analytics, and healthcare technology, Trayanna brings a unique perspective that bridges frontline patient care with enterprise informatics. She spent nine years as a clinical nurse and nurse informaticist at Duke University Health System before leading informatics initiatives for the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. Her expertise includes EHR optimization, clinical decision support, workflow transformation, interoperability, and data analytics.

Trayanna also serves as an Adjunct Clinical Nursing Instructor at Radford University, where she teaches future nurses best practices in electronic health record (EHR) documentation. She is a board-certified Nurse Informaticist (NI-BC) and Certified Health Data Analyst (CHDA). She holds a Master’s Degree in Nursing (MSN) with a concentration in Healthcare Informatics from Duke University.