Sg2 Experts

As part of the enterprise and physician strategy practice on Sg2’s Intelligence team, Casi works with strategy leaders, boards of directors and executive teams to understand the impact shifts in the health care environment will have on their organizations.

Casi has specific expertise in enterprise strategy planning and execution, value-focused health care organizations, health care disruption, and how venture capital and private equity are impacting the broader health care landscape. She serves as a faculty member of Sg2’s strategic planning course, providing workshops and presentations for members in service of developing all types of health care leaders into more strategic and future-oriented thinkers. Casi is a blue-sky thinker and enjoys collaborating with leaders to consider a multitude of strategic options, focusing on the innovations and strategies that will have the most impact to their community and mission.

Prior to joining Sg2, Casi acquired over 10 years of health care experience, predominantly spent in operational and program development roles in large health systems. Much of that time was spent focused on financial turnarounds, value-focused operations, leveraging analytics for performance, and innovations around new care models and programs to meet market needs. She has worked with numerous clinical service lines including orthopedics, neurosciences, primary care (including pediatrics), mental health, hospital medicine, and medical specialists such as urology, podiatry, and dermatology. Most recently, Casi worked for a pediatric mental health start-up, and prior to that she worked with the executive team at Ochsner Health as a leader and chief of staff in its strategy office. She brings a widely varied background and perspective to her role at Sg2 and is excited to join a team that will continue to predict the future of health care.

Casi received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa and a masters of health administration and masters of business administration (corporate finance) from the University of Iowa. When she is not forecasting the future of health system strategy, Casi enjoys exploring new places and getting outdoors. Her base of operations is ever-changing—ask her where her current home base is when you meet her.

Meghan manages new product conceptualization and launch efforts for Sg2’s Analytics offerings. She and her team collaborate with market leaders on innovative applications of traditional and novel health care data assets and the translation of these assets to health care provider solutions. In recent years, her focus has been on the translation of complex health care claims data for System of CARE optimization and advanced market insights.

A founding member of the Sg2 team, Meghan has served in a variety of roles, expanding Sg2’s expert content related to growth, performance, innovation and clinical care as well as developing multiple proprietary analytic offerings and Sg2U educational curricula.

Before joining Sg2, Meghan served in management roles with nonprofit health care companies, including the Alliance for Healthcare Strategy and Marketing and the Illinois HomeCare Council. She also brings design engineering experience from her time at Greatbatch Scientific, where she was involved in the creation of early magnetic resonance imaging–compatible endoscopic instrumentation and implantable devices.

Meghan received a BA in pre-medicine and industrial design from the University of Notre Dame, where she served as an Andrews Scholar with regular observational rotations in cardiothoracic surgery, neurology and anesthesiology.

Based in Sg2’s Denver office, Darcy manages and leads a team of consultants and directors responsible for delivering specialized consulting services to hospital and physician group practice members. She also personally consults with hospital executives, physicians and physician group practice administrators on implementing health care reform initiatives, with a heavy concentration in bundled payments and hospital/physician strategic alignment models, such as gainsharing and comanagement. She brings more than 20 years of experience in health care consulting and has worked with more than 125 hospitals nationwide.

Prior to joining Sg2, Darcy spent 4 years with TRG Healthcare Solutions, partnering with active hospital and physician group practice participants in CMS’s Bundled Payments for Care Improvement initiative. Her consulting focused on creating strategies for succeeding under episode payment models, developing gainsharing programs to align with provider partners, and developing care redesign initiatives to improve quality and outcomes.

Additionally, Darcy worked for Healthgrades and was responsible for consulting with hospitals on the impact of transparency, quality ratings, health care consumerism and improving quality outcomes. She also worked with GE Medical Systems, where she was trained in Six Sigma and was responsible for analyzing market share data trends.

Darcy received her bachelor of science in communications with a minor in business from the University of Texas in Austin, TX. She and her husband live in Evergreen, CO, and enjoy hiking, boating, skiing and taking long drives in the beautiful Colorado Rocky Mountains.

Lisa has 25 years of experience in a variety of areas within the health care industry, including strategic planning and marketing, academic medical center administration, and clinical research.

As part of the founding team at Sg2, Lisa has helped many Sg2 national and regional health system clients and prospective clients leverage Sg2’s analytics and forward-focused research since 2001. Lisa assists health system leadership in understanding how key trends, such as the continued migration to risk-based payment, growth in ambulatory care and the emergence of a retail-based health care marketplace, impact crucial strategic decisions and growth initiatives.

Before joining Sg2, Lisa was vice president of marketing solutions at Solucient, LLC, a health care information business (now Truven Health Analytics). She was responsible for developing the organization’s expertise and spectrum of marketing services, with a focus on one-to-one relationship marketing. Lisa also served as vice president for account management at Sachs Group before working with Solucient, LLC. She led teams of account managers who were responsible for working with clients in the areas of strategic planning and marketing.

Lisa’s initial experience was at Rush University Medical Center and the University of Chicago Medical Center in hospital administration. She began her career as a published researcher in the department of pharmacology at the University of Michigan.

Lisa has both master of business administration and master of health services administration degrees along with a bachelor of science degree in microbiology from the University of Michigan.

As part of Sg2’s Intelligence team, Stephanie brings 20 years of clinical and public health expertise to the behavioral health service line, where she assists clients with behavioral health business strategy and program development decisions. She is particularly skilled in psychiatric facility assessment and planning as well as ED throughput, and she is knowledgeable in the areas of inpatient and outpatient mental health and substance abuse program operations, Certificate of Need processes, and environment of care issues.

Stephanie has over a decade of clinical mental health and substance abuse experience working with both children and adults. For the last 10 years, she has worked as a health care consultant in the fields of behavioral health, infection control and quality improvement with companies such as Diamond Healthcare and Premier Healthcare. Additionally, she has been a key strategic member of several federal contracts related to improving the health care of the American public.

Stephanie currently is a doctoral student completing her studies in public health with a focus on behavioral health care. She holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Canisius College, where she was a long-time member of the National Counseling Honor Society Chi Sigma Iota, and a master of public health with a concentration in epidemiology from Florida International University.

As a member of Sg2’s Intelligence team, Ryota contributes to the development and delivery of orthopedics and spine offerings. He contributes to publications, web seminars, the annual development of Sg2’s Impact of Change^® forecast and other analytical tools. In his time at Sg2, Ryota has also focused on payment- and policy-related topics, including alternative payment models, site-neutral payment, and MACRA.

Prior to joining Sg2, Ryota worked as a research lab assistant at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine. His work primarily supported research discerning the role of transcription factor nkx2.5 in cardiovascular development. Ryota contributed to 5 peer-reviewed articles based on this research. He also interned at a health center in Nicaragua, where he focused on understanding the wide-ranging public health challenges of a community with limited infrastructure and resources.

Ryota earned his BA in biological sciences with a physiology concentration from Northwestern University.

As a member of the Sg2 Consulting team, Igor works with life sciences organizations to develop market access and commercial strategies. His engagement experience focuses on market research and analytics, customer and market segmentation, and value proposition development. During his time at Sg2, Igor has also worked with health systems to develop enterprise strategic plans, service line plans and facility plans.

Prior to joining Sg2, Igor was a management consultant with Capgemini Consulting’s life sciences practice. At Capgemini, Igor helped life sciences organizations develop innovative go-to-market strategies and commercial models to engage evolving customer groups, such as integrated delivery networks and retail pharmacy corporations. He also helped companies improve critical business processes, such as annual brand planning and promotional material review.

Igor received an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He earned a dual BA in economics and Spanish from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

As a consulting principal on Sg2’s Life Sciences and Industry team, Susan leads strategic engagements with pharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostics manufacturing companies to provide
market insights and direction to their most strategically important growth areas.

Susan’s extensive experience includes working in life sciences contract research and health service delivery organizations across the US and Canada. This background provides her a comprehensive view of customer needs, values and preferences that she shares with Sg2 members.

Before joining Sg2, Susan led global scientific and technical teams at ACM Global Labs and PPD, Inc, developing service strategies to support new therapeutic products and devices in clinical development. Prior to her work in clinical trials, she was an associate technical director of biochemical genetics and genomics with Labcorp.

Susan earned a PhD in human genetics from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada; a master of health administration degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and a BS with honors from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Canada.

As a principal on Sg2’s Consulting team, Melissa manages complex strategic engagements with academic medical centers, national health systems, regional health systems and community hospitals. She is a trusted advisor to health care executives, answering challenging questions related to market relevance, sustainable growth, strategic partnerships, major investments and disruption/innovation.

Melissa has more than 20 years of health care provider and industry experience, with expertise in strategy and business development, service line leadership, solution development, hospital operations and finance.

Before joining Sg2, Melissa served as regional vice president of oncology for Sarah Cannon and HCA Healthcare in two divisions: Medical City Healthcare (HCA North Texas Division) and Methodist Healthcare (San Antonio Division). At Medical City Healthcare, she was responsible for developing the vision, strategy and tactical plans for the largest oncology service line in HCA. Under her leadership, HCA built a destination strategy, opened the first Sarah Cannon Cancer Hospital in Texas, grew market share and increased margins by double digits each year. Previously, Melissa worked at Cardinal Health in a variety of roles ranging from strategy and business development to account management and consulting to an internal start-up. She led teams that worked directly with large health systems and academic medical centers across the US. She also held leadership roles at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston and at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Melissa holds a master of health care administration and a bachelor of journalism from the University of Missouri. She is board certified in health care administration as a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Melissa also serves as a board member for Cancer Support Community North Texas.

As a senior member of Sg2’s service line thought leadership team, Jayme draws on her experiences working with health system and service line leaders to develop key insights for Sg2’s Life Sciences and Industry members. She supports client needs across a broad range of service line initiatives, including structuring, strategic planning, workforce alignment, technology adoption and care delivery innovation. Jayme is an esteemed thought leader in care at home, behavioral health and the neurosciences; while working on-site with clients, she has lead assessments that guide prioritization of program development and investment in these critical services.

During her 21-year tenure within Sg2’s Intelligence delivery team, Jayme has developed the initial content for many service lines and topic areas, including care at home, behavioral health, neurosciences, women’s health, surgical services and post-acute care. She is a seasoned speaker regularly appearing in Sg2’s Executive Summit conference series, Sg2 Webinars and has been invited to speak at national conferences on both neurosciences and behavioral health topics. She has been a keynote speaker at Medtronic’s Neurosciences Summit, NERVEs, BRAINs and the Ambulatory Association of Behavioral Health.

Before joining Sg2, Jayme worked with Technomic International’s pharmaceutical group and Abbott Laboratories’ drug-coated stent program. These experiences extended her field of expertise to include drug development, marketing and regulatory issues.

As a part of her master’s and doctoral work at Columbia University, Jayme studied and researched the molecular mechanism of disease. Her examination of basic cellular function can be applied to numerous diseases, including diabetes, Alzheimer disease, viral and bacterial infections, and cystic fibrosis.

Jayme remained at Columbia University as a National Institutes of Health–funded postdoctoral fellow to research the function of neuronal proteins—molecules implicated in numerous diseases. In her postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago, she examined the role of presenilin in Alzheimer disease. Jayme has a BS in chemistry from the Colorado School of Mines.

Paula Zalucki is an associate principal within Sg2’s enterprise and physician strategy practice. She has more than 25 years of experience in consulting and senior leadership roles in medical groups, large integrated delivery systems, academic medical centers and community hospitals.

Paula has extensive expertise in physician alignment, strategic planning and operational improvement. Her clients appreciate her ability to instill focus and strategic commitment to attain operational targets, optimize patient access and improve financial performance.

Prior to Sg2, Paula led enterprise initiatives focused on engaging physicians in provider productivity, patient flow redesign and the transition from volume- to value-based payments. Paula also led engagements to realign physician leadership, optimize medical directorships and strengthen accountability within the physician enterprise. She has held several executive positions within multihospital systems, including vice president of physician services and chief strategy officer.

Paula holds a BS in biological sciences from the University of Houston and an MBA from Rollins College in Winter Park, Fl. She is board certified as a Fellow in both the American College of Healthcare Executives and the American College of Medical Practice Executives.

As part of the Intelligence team, Kate leads the development and delivery of Sg2’s neurosciences, spine and orthopedics offerings, working closely with clients to provide comprehensive research- and analytics-driven strategic intelligence.

In her current role, she has contributed to projects including the annual development of Sg2’s Impact of Change® forecast, numerous white papers and service line–focused consulting engagements. She has been an invited speaker at national meetings for organizations such as the Neurosurgery Executives’ Resource Value and Education Society and the Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology as well as at Medtronic’s Neuroscience Healthcare Executive Summit. She regularly speaks at planning retreats, web seminars and other events on trends related to the neurosciences and spine landscape, evolution of stroke care, and more. Previously, Kate supported Sg2’s behavioral health intelligence projects and publications on a range of enterprise strategy topics.

Prior to joining Sg2, Kate worked at Rush University Medical Center in emergency management, where she supported Joint Commission compliance, patient and employee safety, emergency preparedness, and business recovery via weekly interdisciplinary Environment of Care rounds, policies and procedures development, and audit assistance to accrediting bodies. She also held a business strategy graduate role at SPM, a health care marketing and branding firm, where she supported business objectives and advised strategy through industry and market research and thought leadership content development. Before transitioning into health care, Kate enjoyed a variety of roles in the arts with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Christie’s Auction House, Daniel Weinberg Gallery and others, and she remains a fan.

Kate earned an MS in health systems management from Rush University in Chicago, IL, and received her BA from the University of Southern California.