National Committee for Quality Assurance

Esther Emard became the Chief Operating Officer of NCQA in 1999. She is responsible for all aspects of business planning and operations in supporting of the organization's strategic plan. She serves as Chair of the Leadership Team and Management Team for the organization. She also directly oversees Finance & Administration, Product Development, Product Delivery, Information Technology, Information Systems and Products in addition to Communications, Marketing and Customer Support services.

Ms. Mudd is currently Vice President for Product Delivery at the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). In this position, she is responsible for the delivery of NCQA's nine accreditation and certification programs and three physician recognition programs. She also oversees the Policy unit which is responsible for the maintenance of standards and HEDIS measures, policy development and clarification, and standards interpretation. The Policy unit also manages the HEDIS Compliance Audit Program and the HEDIS Software Certification Program. Ms. Mudd joined NCQA in 1995 as the Assistant Vice President of Education and Training. Prior to joining NCQA, Ms. Mudd was Director, Quality Improvement, Health Services Quality Management for Aetna Health Plans, a division of Aetna Life and Casualty. In this position, she headed the Health Services Quality Management Department and was responsible for health services quality strategy development, HMO QM program development, implementation, and oversight, credentialing policy development and credentialing operations support, and the NCQA accreditation initiative for Aetna's 24 HMOs. During her tenure at Aetna, she began serving as an Administrative Surveyor for NCQA. Ms. Mudd has also held positions in the corporate offices of two national managed care organizations. In these roles, her responsibilities included implementing HMO and PPO QI programs on a national level, developing clinical risk management programs, and overseeing the implementation of a centralized credentialing program.

Phyllis Torda is Vice President for Product Development at the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). She is responsible for NCQA's efforts to develop new ways of evaluating the quality of health care provided by organizations and professionals. She is currently focussing on new programs by which NCQA would evaluate care at the provider level. This includes a diabetes provider recognition program; a cardiovascular provider recognition program; a program to evaluate how physician practices perform certain functions and performance measures for physician organizations. Ms. Torda has been at NCQA since 1995. At NCQA major initiatives under her direction have included developing performance-based accreditation of managed care organizations that takes into account organizations' HEDIS results; developing accreditation and certification programs for disease management programs; developing accreditation for preferred provider organizations and developing consumer-friendly health report cards. She has been responsible for NCQA's contracts with federal and state government. Prior to coming to NCQA, Ms. Torda was Director of Health and Social Policy at Families USA, a consumer advocacy group focusing on health reform issues. Ms. Torda has worked for over 20 years on health policy issues, particularly those relating to vulnerable populations. She has completed all requirements except the dissertation for a Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin (Madison).

Richard Sorian is NCQA's Vice President for Public Policy and External Relations. Mr. Sorian manages NCQA's government relations efforts, develops public-private partnerships to advance health care quality and works to encourage the ongoing integration of NCQA Accreditation standards and performance measures into state regulatory and licensing strategies. He also oversees NCQA's communications and marketing activities. Prior to joining NCQA, Mr. Sorian was the Director of Public Affairs and Senior Researcher for the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), a nationally recognized health policy research organization. Mr. Sorian previously served as Project Director and Senior Researcher at Georgetown University's Institute for Health Care Research and Policy , where his research focused on consumer empowerment, quality improvement, and HIV/AIDS policy. From 1993-1998, Mr. Sorian served in the Clinton A dministration as an advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala. In 1997-98, he was Deputy Director of the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry , which developed a Patients' Bill of Rights and recommended steps to improve health care quality . Mr. Sorian has written extensively on a variety of health care policy issues . From 1985-93 he was Editor of Medicine & Health , an influential publication covering U.S. health policy development. He is the author of three books including "The Bitter Pill: Tough Choices in America's Health Policy," (McGraw-Hill, 1989). Mr. Sorian is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Robert E. Kaplan, MHA is Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) of NCQA. He is responsible for the design, development, implementation and operation of all automated information systems within NCQA. Bob has more than 26 years of experience in the health care industry with the last eight years as CIO of NYSE and NASDAQ listed health care firms including WebMD Envoy, National Preferred Provider Network (NPPN), and PHP Healthcare Corporation. He started his career at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1977 and has worked in more than 500 health care organizations and hospitals in the last two decades on health care information system projects including hospital information systems implementations, ambulatory electronic medical records implementations, and innovative web-based applications for PPO's and clearinghouses. He specializes in fault tolerant solutions using redundant processors, disk, and telecommunications.