Speakers Design For Child Health Equity 2018

Emily Whitgob, MD, MEd is a fellow in Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine. Before entering the field of medicine Dr. Whitgob was a special education teacher with dual certification in elementary school general and special education elementary and carries her commitment to inclusion into her clinical work. Her educational interests include teaching learners about the experience of people with disabilities in and out of the medical setting. During fellowship she has researched the academic outcomes of children involved in the Child Welfare System. Dr. Whitgob also leads research and speaks nationally about how physicians and medical trainees respond when they are discriminated against by patients and families.

Myra Altman, PhD grew up in South Africa and moved back to the US to attend college at Dartmouth, where she discovered a love for psychology. She went on to complete a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis and a clinical internship at VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Myra’s research and clinical work have focused primarily on health behavior change, and she is particularly interested in applying her background in psychology to innovate and implement systems changes that improve population health and wellbeing. She is currently a post-doctoral design fellow at Stanford’s Clinical Excellence Research Center where she is working on a “Late Life” health care delivery model that improves outcomes and patient experience while significantly reducing costs.

David Bergman, M.D., is an associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. His research has been focused in the areas of practice guidelines and quality improvement, the redesign of clinical services, and the use of Web-based patient portals to treat chronic illnesses and the resulting impact on doctor–patient communication. Dr. Bergman serves as chairman of the board of the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality and is a former chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Quality Improvement. He is also a member of the executive committee for Child and Adolescent Health Measurement. Dr. Bergman remains clinically active and is actively involved in providing well-child care to children. He received an M.D. from the University of Illinois School of Medicine.

Margaret Laws is President and CEO of HopeLab where she leads a multidisciplinary team combining behavioral science, user-centered design and partnership with innovators to create technology products to help improve health and well being for teens and young adults.

Prior to HopeLab, Margaret spent 17 years at the California HealthCare Foundation in a number of roles, including Director of Public Financing and Policy and Director of the Innovations for the Underserved program. She founded the CHCF Health Innovation Fund, a mission-focused fund investing in health care technology and service companies that improve access to and lower costs of health care.

Margaret holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and an A.B. in English Literature from Princeton University. She serves on the boards of Health Leads and Project Glimmer and is an adviser to United States of Care, Consejo Sano. and advises a number of early stage health care services and technology companies.