The 5th Annual World Health Care Congress is pleased to welcome a team of distinguished health care experts to its blogging team. Each of our bloggers will be posting live reports from the conference floor throughout the three-day event.

Lola Butcher is a health care policy and business reporter for several trade publications. Trained as a business reporter, she was a staff writer for American City Business Journals for 11 years and, before that, for daily newspapers in Missouri and Texas. Lola also worked at Midwest Research Institute, an independent not-for-profit research organization, as a research analyst and corporate communications manager. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism and has two master’s degrees—English and public administration—from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Kris Dunn has used his more than decade of experience in HR to craft his thoughts in his personal blog, the HR Capitalist, one of the featured blogs for the publication Workforce Management. VP of HR for SourceMedical, a software company focused on serving the booming outpatient market. Prior to joining the team at Source, he was a Regional VP of HR for Charter Communications.

Alfred J. Fortin, Ph.D., is a Senior Vice President for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Plan of Hawaii and has worked in health care for over 35 years. Fred oversees strategic policy development, legal affairs and related areas for the Blue plan, the largest health plan in Hawaii. He has also served as the Plan’s Vice President, Office of Policy and Planning and Vice President of Community Relations. These positions involved broad oversight of community and government relations, and media communications. In addition, Fred has an extensive background in health and human services, ranging from mental health crisis intervention, to child abuse prevention, to research on AIDS in Africa. He was the recipient of a national fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in 1986 to study AIDS in Kenya. From 1989 to 1991 Fred was an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Hawaii ’s John A. Burns School of Medicine and an adjunct professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Hawaii. Fred earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts, a master’s degree in clinical social work from the University of Connecticut and a doctorate in health politics from the University of Hawaii.

Vijay Goel, MD, is the CEO of HealthShoppr, which focuses on improving consumer ability to shop for healthcare providers and services that meet their needs. He previously served as a consultant at McKinsey & Co, where he worked with payors, providers, banks, and employers to think through the implications of healthcare consumerism.

Jennifer McCabe Gorman is a Netherlands-based blogger for Health Management RX, which is dedicated to sharing information about the healthcare/hospital industry in an op-ed format that sparks discussions among clinicians, constituents, consultants, pundits, and administrative/executive professionals.

John Moore is an analyst at Chilmark Research, a health-centric firm focusing on personal healthcare technology that will enable the home to become the future center of health.

Joe Paduda is a principal at Health Strategy Associates, and runs the Managed Care Matters, which focuses on managed care for group health, workers compensation & auto insurance, covering health care cost containment, health policy, health research, and medical news for insurers, employers, and healthcare providers. Joe is the principal of Health Strategy Associates.

Jay Parkinson, MD, has taken a novel approach to providing a form medical care that once wasn’t all that novel – the house call. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Parkinson is a “virtual” doctors or sorts, chatting with patients by e-mail, instant messages, video, phone and visiting their homes to administer care. Parkinson’s approach to health care has landed him coverage in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and a recent cover article in Health & Hospital Networks, and several other national outlets.

George Van Antwerp is the author of the Patient Centric Healthcare Blog. It is generally focused on marketing related issues from a patient perspective. After working in healthcare, his opinion is that most companies today think of patients as claims. George advocate that healthcare needs to be more like consumer products and think differently about how they interact…both for their own personal benefits and for the patients. He is also a vice president at Silverlink Communications in Burlington, MA.