KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Leah Binder
Leah Binder is President & CEO of The Leapfrog Group, representing employers and other purchasers of health care calling for improved safety and quality in hospitals. She is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and other top tier publications. Leah has been named on Becker’s list of the 50 most powerful people in healthcare and is consistently cited by Modern Healthcare among the 100 most influential people and top 25 women in healthcare.
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Under her leadership, The Leapfrog Group launched the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, which assigns letter grades assessing the safety of general hospitals across the country. She has also fostered groundbreaking innovations in the annual Leapfrog Hospital Survey including partnerships to eliminate early elective deliveries, central line-associated bloodstream infections and safe use of health technology.
She has served on numerous national boards and councils, including the Institute of Medicine Collaboration on Patient Engagement, the Health Care Financial Management Association Leadership Advisory Committee, PCORI Health Systems Advisory Panel, AARP’s Champions for Nursing Strategic Advisory Council, the National Priorities Partnership Board.
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Prior to her position at The Leapfrog Group, Leah spent eight years as vice president at Franklin Community Health Network, an award-winning rural hospital network in Farmington, Maine. She previously worked as a senior policy advisor for the Office of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in New York City and started her career at the National League for Nursing, where she handled policy and communications for more than 6 years.
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Leah has a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and two master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, one from the Annenberg School of Communication and the other from the Fels Institute of Government.
Stephen Burrows
Stephen Burrows is a comedic storyteller. This multiple award-winning writer/director/performer has been reinventing stereotypes and challenging expectations in film, television, commercials and theatre for over two decades. His original voice - coupled with his edgy, character-driven humor - has made his work a favorite around the world, where his range in comedy is as diverse as the locations of his shoots - London, Rome, Tokyo, Glasgow, Bangkok, New Zealand, South Africa and Milwaukee, Wisconsin to name a few.
After graduating from The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Burrows began his career in Chicago joining Second City Director Del Close as a member of the famed, groundbreaking improvisational comedy group, Baron's Barracudas.
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He then moved behind the camera, relocating to L.A. and making his first film, "The Soldier of Fortune" - a short about his actual appearance and subsequent humiliation on "The Wheel of Fortune" game show. The film went on to win a slew of festival awards. From there, Burrows became a writer and performer for the legendary comedy troupe, The Groundlings, leading to stints on everything from "Seinfeld" to "America's Funniest Home Videos" to over 200 TV spots - including a litany of appearances on the Super Bowl.
After writing an original screenplay for 20th Century Fox, Burrows made his directorial feature film debut with "Chump Change", bowing at the prestigious AFI Film Festival to rave reviews. It then played to sellout crowds at the HBO Comedy Fest in Aspen, winning the Audience Award / Best Feature. It is there Miramax Films acquired "Chump Change" for distribution.
Burrows then went on to win over 75 awards for writing/directing television commercials on five continents - including the Cannes Lion, a plethora of Addy and Telly awards - not to mention the New York Festivals Grand Gold for the iconic Accuserv "Paper Tray" - a spot which now resides in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in NYC.
Burrows then went viral with the award-winning "Glass Nickel Pizza Anthology", where popular demand prompted Burrows to take his creation a step further, resulting in "The King Kaiser Show" - an award-winning ($12,000!) television sitcom about a show within a show within a show.
In a complete career 180°, Burrows dropped out of show business to take care of his mother, who had gone in for a routine partial hip replacement and came out in a coma with permanent brain damage. For real. The insane years that followed - fighting for his Mom’s life and for medical and legal justice - became Burrows latest feature, the award-winning, critically acclaimed HBO documentary film, “Bleed Out”.