Dr. Battisti is a Health Promotion Specialist, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and a former Assistant Professor and the Director of the Coordinated Program in Nutrition and Dietetics in the department of Nutrition and Dietetics at Marywood University, Scranton, Pennsylvania. She maintains a virtual practice as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist working with individuals and organizations interested in improving and maintaining their health. Her areas of research include both childhood and geriatric health and obesity. 

Kathryne (Kate) Fassbender accompanies those on their dementia journey. By magnifying the importance of creativity, faith, and human connection, she provides creative care, education, and innovative ways to look at how we live with dementia. Kathryne is a classically trained musician, visual artist, and theater maker, with an academic foundation in creative arts therapies. A native of Wisconsin, she now calls the East Coast home. Kathryne earned her B.S. in Art Therapy from Edgewood College, with continued education in Drama Therapy. After nearly a decade in Life Enrichment, she moved on to be an educator and speaker, working with families and professional care partners alike. Upon starting her own business, Kathryne found ways to balance both practicing her craft in arts and health and sharing with others the knowledge gained as both a professional and family carer. Kathryne, in addition to running two organizations of her own, serves on the Faculty of the Avila Institute of Gerontology. 

Ms. Pandolfi has seventeen years experience in the long-term care profession and is a licensed nursing home administrator in the state of Connecticut. She is a director with twelve years experience managing the national nursing home quality improvement projects, patient safety and care transitions projects at Qualidigm. Michelle helped create the Connecticut’s Culture Change Coalition in 2006 and maintains an active leadership role. She is a TeamSTEPPS Master Trainer and developed the long term care TeamSTEPPS curriculum under an AHRQ funded contract. She has spoken nationally about patient safety culture change and person-centered care in nursing homes. 

Michelle’s professional areas of specialization are in performance measurement, clinical systems improvement, root cause analysis, professional education, and patient safety. She is currently managing several nursing home quality improvement and patient safety projects that tie in with national priority areas. Some previous work of Michelle’s includes managing Alzheimer/Dementia Units in nursing homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island and she worked for the Alzheimer’s Association-Connecticut Chapter, for many years as a volunteer support group facilitator and as Director of Client and Family Services. She holds master degrees in Social Work Administration and Business Administration from the University of Connecticut. She holds a bachelor degree in Social Work from Providence College.

Kathleen A. Curran is Senior Director of Public Policy at the Catholic Health Association of the United States. Ms. Curran coordinates the development of public policy positions for the Association and works with other CHA staff to communicate CHA's public policy positions to Congress, the executive branch, the membership and other outside organizations. Ms. Curran has previously held positions at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the U.S. Department of Labor and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 

Prior to coming to Washington, D.C., Ms. Curran practiced law in Boston, MA, with the firm of Choate, Hall and Stewart. Ms. Curran is a graduate of University of Virginia School of Law and Yale University.

Shane is responsible for developing educational content and programs for AIG. His main project is the CARE (Compassion, Advocacy, Recognition, Excellence) Program, which is designed to provide leadership skills, education, and professional development to staff working in Carmelite homes.

Kathryne (Kate) Fassbender accompanies those on their dementia journey. By magnifying the importance of creativity, faith, and human connection, she provides creative care, education, and innovative ways to look at how we live with dementia. Kathryne is a classically trained musician, visual artist, and theater maker, with an academic foundation in creative arts therapies. A native of Wisconsin, she now calls the East Coast home. Kathryne earned her B.S. in Art Therapy from Edgewood College, with continued education in Drama Therapy. After nearly a decade in Life Enrichment, she moved on to be an educator and speaker, working with families and professional care partners alike. Upon starting her own business, Kathryne found ways to balance both practicing her craft in arts and health and sharing with others the knowledge gained as both a professional and family carer. Kathryne, in addition to running two organizations of her own, serves on the Faculty of the Avila Institute of Gerontology. 

Brian Ellsworth has more than 30 years of experience in health care financing, delivery, and policy from both payor and provider perspectives. He has worked at Optum (UnitedHealth Group) and as a policymaker in New York’s Medicaid program. His extensive provider experience includes positions at the American Hospital Association (AHA) and senior leadership roles at statewide associations of home health, hospice, and long-term care providers. At HDG, Mr. Ellsworth leads efforts to develop value-based payment approaches for skilled nursing facilities and home- and community-based providers, including the development of continuing care networks and analysis of bundled payment opportunities. 

His expertise includes the following: development of cutting-edge episodic and value-based payment systems; managed care strategy development for providers and payors seeking to bring value to the health care delivery system; development of regulatory streamlining and cost-saving proposals through leveraging technology and programmatic change; and analysis of legislative and regulatory proposals affecting all post-acute sectors and dual eligible managed care plans.

At Optum, Mr. Ellsworth led efforts to develop a mobile technology solution to improve quality and program integrity for home care and medical transportation providers. His experience also includes federal and state demonstrations on home health pay for performance, Medicare capitation for the chronically ill, and dual eligible integration. At AHA, Mr. Ellsworth analyzed the impact of payment and quality monitoring policies for SNFs, hospital swing beds, IRFs, LTACHs, home health, and inpatient psychiatric facilities. Throughout his career, Mr. Ellsworth’s thought leadership has resulted in a number of important refinements to post-acute, long-term care, and inpatient payment and quality monitoring systems for both Medicare and Medicaid. As a policymaker in New York, he led early efforts to develop managed long-term care plans for the dually eligible. He has served on federal and state technical advisory panels on a wide range of topics, such as long-term care financing reform, episodic reimbursement, and development of process and outcome measures for home health.