Bios

François de Brantes
National Coordinator, Bridges to Excellence

François de Brantes is the National Coordinator for Bridges To Excellence (BTE). In that capacity, Mr. de Brantes is responsible for supervising the implementation of BTE programs in different regions in the country. He is also responsible for creating and developing new programs for BTE such as the emerging Internal Medicine Care Link in collaboration with the American Board of Internal Medicine and the Spine Care Link in collaboration with the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Prior to that, Mr. de Brantes was Program Leader for healthcare initiatives at GE, responsible for developing and implementing GE's Active Consumer strategy.

Mr. de Brantes earned a Masters in Finance and Taxation at the University of Paris IX - Dauphine, and he earned an MBA at the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College.

Guy D’Andrea
Senior Consultant, Bridges to Excellence

Guy D’Andrea has worked in health care policy and quality for 15 years. Mr. D’Andrea serves as Senior Consultant to the Bridges to Excellence program and focuses largely on helping coalitions to implement BTE programs. He is the founder of Discern Consulting, which focuses on health care-related strategy and project management. At Discern, his consulting projects have included national implementation of physician and hospital pay-for-performance programs, policy development, and strategic planning. For seven years, Mr. D’Andrea led product development and government affairs for URAC, a private accreditation organization. Prior to joining URAC, Mr. D’Andrea held leadership positions in health care policy and legislation at the American Association of Health Plans (now AHIP), the American Managed Care and Review Association, and the Maryland Association of HMOs.

Mr. D’Andrea received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and earned dual Masters of Business Administration degrees from Columbia University and the London Business School, where he graduated as the valedictorian of his program.

Jessica DiLorenzo
Program and Operations Leader, Bridges to Excellence

As Program and Operations Leader, Jessica DiLorenzo is responsible for developing the operational framework and the implementation of Bridges to Excellence programs. In her role, Jessica focuses on supporting markets that are interested in pay for performance, adapting implementation strategies that work at the local level, supporting the markets in engaging all stakeholders to reward providers for better performance and introducing new programs. Her focus on market implementation strategies will expand to the Prometheus Payment program in 2006. Jessica appears in front of many audiences across the country speaking on behalf of the BTE program.

Prior to her current role with BTE, Jessica was the Health Care Initiatives Team Leader for General Electric Company. She was responsible for the operations of company-wide health care strategies, which included BTE, in addition to Active Consumer Programs, Prometheus and the Global Health Index.

Jessica graduated from the State University of New York, Albany with a Bachelors of Arts and Sciences in Sociology and received her Masters of Arts in Communications from the College of St. Rose.

Elisa Garafano
Project Leader, Bridges to Excellence

As Project Leader for Bridges to Excellence, Elisa Garafano is responsible for external communications which include program outreach initiatives and the BTE website. Elisa also provides support on the regional implementations and organizes BTE related conferences and meetings. In addition, she takes a large role in the research and content development of BTE toolkits.

Prior to her with work with BTE, Elisa worked for the eHealth Initiative on a variety of community related programs. Her work also includes time spent as an analyst focusing on M&A between Japanese and US companies within the healthcare technology sector for Morgen, Evan and Co. and as a Writer for Institutional Fixed Income products at AllianceBernstein.

Elisa graduated from Providence College with a BS in Health Policy and Management.