AHCA/NCAL Post-Acute Care Conference

February 22 & 23, 2024 from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm
Registration opens at 8:00 am
at the Ala Moana Hotel (Garden Lanai Room)
410 Atkinson Dr, Honolulu, HI 96814

OVERVIEW | CONFERENCE AGENDA | SPEAKERS | CONTINUING EDUCATION | LOCATION | COST | REGISTRATION AND PAYMENT

David Gifford, MD, MPH is a geriatrician who currently serves as Chief Medical Officer at the American Health Care Association (AHCA). He helped create the Quality Department at AHCA, which assists providers in their quality improvement efforts and works with administration officials on regulations and policies impacting the profession. He also established the Center for Health Policy and evaluation in LTC at AHCA and currently oversees AHCA’s Long Term Care Data Cooperative, a National Institute of Aging funded initiative to link EMR data from nursing homes to help improve care. Dr. Gifford also serves on the Board of the Baldrige Foundation and chairs the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs Geriatric and Gerontology Advisory Committee, a congressional chartered committee to advise the U.S. Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs on geriatric services for veterans.

He is a former Director of the Rhode Island State Department of Health from 2005 to 2011, where he received the National Governor’s Distinguished Service Award for State Officials for his management of the H1N1 influenza outbreak. Prior to that, he served as Chief Medical Officer for Quality Partners of Rhode Island, where he directed the CMS national nursing home-based quality improvement effort.  He holds a faculty appointment at Brown University Medical School and School of Public Health and served as medical director in several nursing homes in Rhode Island. He received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and conducted his geriatric fellowship at UCLA, where he also earned his Master’s in Public Health while a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar.

Holly Harmon, RN, MBA, LNHA, FACHCA brings both passion and a wealth of practical, real-world, clinical and operational experience to her role as Senior Vice President, Quality, Regulatory & Clinical Services at American Health Care Association (AHCA). Her extensive service in a wide array of settings including post-acute care, long term care, residential care, assisted living, independent living, a psychiatric hospital and occupational health have provided her with insights, knowledge, skills and innovative ideas which she exuberantly shares with others.

 At AHCA she oversees the quality, regulatory and clinical efforts. In this role, she has led AHCA’s national quality initiative that identified national priority goals and developed tools and resources for providers to achieve these goals.  She designed and launched AHCA’s infection preventionist certificate program, that has trained over 4,000 individuals nationally. In addition, she coordinates the development of staff training modules in AHCA’s online learning management system, which includes training of over 200,000 individuals as temporary nurse assistants during the pandemic. She also led AHCA’s advocacy and feedback to CMS and CDC on how clinical guidance needs to pay attention to the resident’s quality of life and gained meaningful changes in guidance for those who live and work in long term care.

 In addition to her vast clinical experience, Ms. Harmon has put her dynamic energy into leading the statewide Maine Culture Change Coalition/LANE as President, the Maine Partnership to Improve Dementia Care in Nursing Homes as Co-Chair, Vice-President of American College of Health Care Administrators, Maine Chapter and the Maine LANE Co-Convener for the national Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes Campaign. She also served as the Director of Quality Improvement & Regulatory Affairs at the Maine Health Care Association.  She currently serves on the Steering Committee of the national Moving Forward Coalition and on the Exam Committee for the National Association of Long Term Care Administrator Boards.

She puts her boundless energy and warm and energetic personality into training, education and presenting both, nationally and locally. She has made simplifying the complex world of long term and post-acute care policy and practice an art.