CEO
Enhanced Care Initiatives (ECI)

Dr. David Chess is a geriatrician, internist, and entrepreneur with 20 years of experience working to improve the quality and cost of the health care delivery system. As the founder and CEO of Enhanced Care Initiatives, Dr. Chess has focused on creating the most robust engines to drive health outcomes for our most costly and impaired populations. He also serves as President of Project Patient Care (PPC), a non-profit (501(c) 3 patient advocacy organization he founded in January 2000. PPC’s goal is to create a set of measures that help guide improvements to our healthcare system. Unbiased measures will be the engine and catalyst for better healthcare decision-making. In 2004, PPC was awarded a grant from the Connecticut Health Foundation to develop a Health Care Barometer for the State of Connecticut.

Dr. Chess co-authored a paper with David Nash and his team at Department of Health Policy, Jefferson Medical College entitled “Pharmacy Utilization and the Medicare Modernization Act” A Review of the Literature, published in the Millbank Quarterly in spring 2005.

Dr. Chess received his Medical Degree from Creighton University School of Medicine, performed his Internal Medicine Internship and Residency at Albert Einstein School of Medicine, and was Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at Bridgeport Hospital. He is an Alpha Omega Alpha recipient, among numerous other academic achievements. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine.

Lena Chow, MBA

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
JYT Health Media Corporation

Lena Chow is chairman and chief executive officer of JYT Health Media Corporation (Palo Alto, CA and Shanghai, China), a healthcare communication and information company in China. She is a strategist, marketer, communicator and entrepreneur with 20-plus years experience in biotechnology and healthcare. She founded Lena Chow Advertising, one of the top 50 U.S. healthcare agencies and a specialist in transformational products instrumental in shaping the future of biotechnology and healthcare. Euro RSCG Worldwide acquired the agency in 1999, and Lena Chow continued as president and later as chairman and chief strategic officer until the fall of 2003. During her tenure, the agency created markets, revitalized brands and increased sales for market leaders and new ventures alike.

Lena Chow is a founder of Women In Biotechnology Foundation, a member of the Development Board of the Association of Friends of Institut Pasteur, Hong Kong, and a member of the Ethics Committee of the Chinese Medical Doctors Association, Beijing, China.

Lena Chow received her BS in chemistry from the University of Hong Kong and her MBA from Santa Clara University. She did graduate studies in biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Halpern is a respected community leader with deep roots in the Philadelphia area. She has been active in numerous cultural and charitable activities for many years, including the Women’s Committee of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts and the Host Family Program through the Friends of the Curtis Institute of Music. Ms. Halpern served as a board member of the Main Line Reform Temple and started its senior citizen program. The volunteer activity that Ms. Halpern cites as the most personally significant, however, is the work both she and her husband, Dr. Barry Halpern, have done for the Parkinson Council of Delaware Valley.

Dr. Halpern was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the early 90s. Since then, the Halperns have devoted themselves to raising awareness and resources to find a cure for this debilitating disease. In 2000, Ms. Halpern helped found the Parkinson’s Golf Classic which has raised millions for research and which helps fund the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center at Pennsylvania Hospital, the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research/Udall Center for Parkinson’s Research at Penn Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and the National Parkinson’s Foundation.

Ms. Halpern is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Education (ED’59. Early in her career she worked as a medical social worker at Hahnemann Hospita. Later Ms. Halpern trained as a paralegal and went on to handle real estate transactions, domestic relations cases, and estates and trusts for a small law firm. She left her paralegal practice when she became active in Lower Merion politics, helping Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky win election to the United States Congress in 1992. She was then hired by Representative Margolies-Mezvinsky and given primary responsibility for all constituent services involving health care issues in her congressional district. Ms. Halpern served as a Democratic committee-woman in Penn Valley for 35 years, only retiring from that post when she and her husband moved to Philadelphia. She has served on many Democratic campaign committees for various political candidates and has organized fundraising events as well as issues forums.