Professor, Harvard Business School

Regina Herzlinger is one of the most significant voices in health care reform today. She is known as the “Godmother” of consumer-driven health care—a term she coined and a movement she helped create— that brings choice, information and control to consumers, along with more focused and integrated care to improve quality at reduced cost.

An important researcher and analyst, she was an early predictor of the unraveling of managed care. Her solutions for structuring, financing and delivering health care are innovative. She provides health care professionals with a business model that offers a chance to provide better care, streamlined administration and compensation based on merit and performance. Among her many appointments and awards, Herzlinger was selected as one of “100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare” by Modern Healthcare in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

King County Executive; Chair, Puget Sound Health Alliance

King County Executive Ron Sims is widely acknowledged as one of the most effective and dynamic regional government leaders. Recently, he has emerged as an innovative health care leader whose initiatives are reforming health care in the Puget Sound region and gaining national recognition.

As the first Chair of the Puget Sound Health Alliance, Sims has overseen more than 110 public and private organizations of all sizes joining the Alliance, the first regional collaborative effort in the country to bring all relevant stakeholders together at once. Sims has also been an ardent supporter of child health care and oral health issues and policies, and in 2006 created a task force of child health experts, including the Washington Dental Service Foundation, to examine strategies to expand health and dental insurance and access to care for children in King County, WA.

Professor, Chair, Department of Pediatric Dentistry, University of Washington School of Dentistry

Dr. Berg is Professor and Chair for Oral Health in the Department of Pediatric Dentistry at the University of Washington in Seattle and is a board-certified pediatric dentist. He is on the Board of Trustees of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and is Past President of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry Foundation. Berg is the author of numerous manuscripts, abstracts and book chapters including subjects on restorative materials for children. His current research interests include the development of early childhood caries risk assessment and intervention programs.

Chief Dental Officer, Delta Dental of Massachusetts

Dr. Compton has been responsible for quality improvement effort sat Delta Dental over the past decade. Compton has helped guide the creation of an oral health foundation, a research dental center and an oral health institute, all focused on improving oral health. He is a leader in the movement to make dental benefits more evidence-based in the Delta Association, is Co-Director of the DSM-Forsyth Center for Evidence-Based Dentistry, and has been a leading force in changing the Medicaid program in Massachusetts.

Professor, Dentistry and Health Policy and Management, Columbia University Medical Center; Founding Director, Children’s Dental Health Project of Washington, DC

After 20 years of clinical private pediatric dental practice, Dr. Edelstein’s career shifted to health policy when he served as a 1996–97 Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in the Office of the U.S. Senate Minority Leader. Edelstein worked with the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services for five years as an oral health consultant to the Administrator of HRSA, served as Chair of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Workshop on Children and Oral Health, and authored the child section of the Surgeon General’s Report.

Professor, Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences, University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Featherstone's research over the past 30 years has covered cariology, including fluoride mechanisms of action, caries risk assessment and prevention, de- and re-mineralization of the teeth, salivary dysfunction, and laser effects on dental hard tissues with emphasis on caries prevention and early caries removal. In 2000, he received the Int'l Assn for Dental Research distinguished scientist award for research in dental caries, and received the T.H. Maiman Award for Excellence in dental laser research from the Academy of Laser Dentistry in 2002. Also in 2002, the European Caries Research Organization awarded him the Zsolnai Prize for his lifelong contributions to caries research.

Executive Director and Co-founder
of Institute for Oral Health;
Vice President, Dental Director for Washington Dental Service

Dr. Inge leads the educational and collaborative efforts of Institute for Oral Health, and for Washington Dental Service works to promote improvements in network development, provider relations, and clinical policy. For the ADA, as Associate Executive Director, Division of Dental Practice, Dr. Inge provided strategic leadership in policy development and implementation; prior to that he was Aetna Dental’s Chief Dental Officer, where he oversaw Aetna’s dental clinical quality and utilization management programs. Dr. Inge also has 15 years of private practice experience.

Program Director, Central Washington Family Medicine

Dr. Maier practices as a family physician in Yakima and is Program Director of Central Washington Family Medicine Residency, training doctors to practice in rural and underserved settings. He is also a clinical associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Univ. of WA, Co-Chair of the Group on Oral Health for Society for Teachers of Family Medicine. His interest and expertise in oral health come from leading a successful fluoridation campaign and implementing a novel oral health curriculum for physicians in training.

Chief Dental Program Consultant, State of California Department of Health Services

Dr. Noel advises the Department of Health Services on administration, dental policy and quality assurance for the statewide Medicaid Dental Program (Denti-Cal), which has served an annual maximum of 6.7 million beneficiaries and reached a budget of $850 million. He is a faculty member of the UC San Francisco School of Dentistry and is an adjunct professor at San Diego State University. Noel has served as an ADA spokesperson and as a consultant to the ADA Council on Dental Practice.