Karen M. McIntire, Dr. Steve Tierney, James Spillane

Karen M. Mcintire, is the Senior Director of Human Resources for Southcentral Foundation. Karen McIntire joined Southcentral Foundation (SCF) in 1996. She plays a key supporting role in strategic planning and development. Karen is responsible for the development and management of human resources policies, programs, and procedures related to recruitment and employment, compensation and benefits, employee relations, human resources information systems, safety, and other associated programs. Karen played a key role in the application that led SCF to become a Baldrige award-winning organization. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with emphasis in marketing from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Fairbanks, Alaska. She is certified as a Professional in Human Resources. Karen is of Yup’ik-Aleut descent. She presents nationally and internationally on whole-system improvement, customer focus, workforce improvement, innovation, and SCF’s Nuka System of Care.

Steve Tierney, MD, is the Senior Director of Quality Improvement for Southcentral Foundation’s Malcolm Baldrige Award-winning Nuka System of Care. Steve joined SCF in 1995 as a primary care physician. He became one of the key physicians who helped lead the transformation to a relationship-based customer-owned health care system. He also played a key role in developing the robust data mart that helps SCF’s integrated care teams interpret complex data for internal comparisons and external comparisons against HEDIS benchmarks, where the organization scored in the 90th percentile for many of its services. Steve is trained as a family physician and an acupuncturist. He received his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland. He still maintains an active family medicine practice in SCF’s Anchorage Native Primary Care Center. Steve presents nationally and internationally on transforming primary care, data integration, clinical quality program design, and complementary medicine integration efforts.

James Spillane, is an IHI Improvement Advisor and Clinical-Information-Specialist. He has a passion for Tribal Self-Governance, design thinking, behavioral economics, digital culture and of course, gamification. He works hand-in hand with organizations by using clinical information systems and patient centered models to improve quality measures, reduce cost and improve overall satisfaction and experience.