Two Los Altans Join El Camino Hospital Board

Three new directors joined the expanded El Camino Hospital Board Thursday, bringing the board to nine members.

The new appointees are Dr. Neal H. Cohen, Dr. Jeffrey Davis, M.D., and Nandini Tandon, Ph.D. The expansion is part of the hospital’s goals to apply to create more depth of subject matter expertise in the areas of finance, quality and policy.

The new hospital board members were appointed by the El Camino Hospital District Board of Directors and are expected to begin serving on the hospital board in the coming months.

 “Drs. Cohen, Davis and Tandon bring years of clinical and business expertise that will further strengthen the Board’s expertise not just in finance, quality and policy, but also add a new dimension to our knowledge in hospital/physician relations, managed care, population health and disease management,” said John Zoglin, chairman of the El Camino Hospital District Board of Directors. 

“Beyond these areas, their understanding of the dynamic health care market in Northern California will help us continue providing high-quality care for our patients in a rapidly changing health care environment.”

Dr. Davis, a resident of Los Altos, has more than 15 years of care management/disease management experience.  He is the chief medical officer of Avivia Health, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kaiser Permanente that focuses on population health/disease management services for large employers and regional health plans.  He also is medical director, National Sales and Account Management at Kaiser Permanente. 

In addition to his current employment, Dr. Davis also serves on the Board of the Care Continuum Alliance, a Washington, DC-based research and policy organization focused around population health issues, as well as the Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed journal, Population Health Management. 

Dr. Davis has experience in both the academic and business arenas. Immediately after his clinical/research training he took a full time teaching position as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and then as an adjunct associate professor at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. 

Upon his return to California, he served as senior vice president and chief medical officer at the San Jose Medical Group. Subsequent to that, he held the position of chief medical officer/VP of medical affairs and national client relations at LifeMasters Supported SelfCare, Inc., a national disease management organization headquartered in South San Francisco. Dr. Davis received his B.A from Princeton University, his M.D. from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and he completed his pediatric residency and clinical fellowship in medical genetics at the UCSF Medical Center.  He also received his M.P.H. (epidemiology) from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Tandon, also a resident of Los Altos, brings 20 years of experience with a decade as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and a decade with deep operational background helping build companies in the biotechnology, diagnostics, medical devices, pharmaceutical and semi-conductor industries across various stages of development, from research to commercialization. Dr. Tandon is presently focusing her investments in health care in the U.S. and emerging markets. She has served on the boards of a dozen plus new technology venture-backed companies with acquisitions of her portfolio companies by Pfizer, Gilead Sciences, Amgen, Biogen-IDEC, Cephalon and Millipore. 

She most recently served as managing director at Lumira Capital, focusing on investments in biopharmaceuticals and medical devices, opening and heading their office in Palo Alto.  

Prior to joining Lumira, she was a partner at RBC Capital Partners, founder and president of BayBio Tech Link, chief business officer at Zyomyx Inc., vice president at Hyseq Inc., and has held various positions of increasing responsibility at Chiron Corporation, Glaxo, Inc. and Micro Electronic Center for North Carolina. 

She is on the Advisory Council for the Stanford University School of Medicine Career Center and Springboard and serves on the advisory boards of University of California, Berkeley Center for Emerging & Neglected Diseases, C21 BioVentures and TiE Global Board, Trustee. Dr. Tandon holds a patent in semiconductor and received her Ph.D. in biochemistry with Phi Lambda Upsilon from Duke University and her B.A. in chemistry cum laude with Phi Beta Kappa from Hollins University in Roanoke, Va. 

Dr. Cohen is a professor of anesthesia and perioperative care and medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine, where he spent 19 years as director of Critical Care Medicine at UCSF Medical Center.  He serves as vice dean for academic affairs, where he isresponsible for risk management, regulatory affairs, compliance and the leadership of all professional services agreements that govern UCSF’s partnerships with other institutions. 

Additionally, he is director of International Service at UCSF Medical Center, which provides care to international patients, particularly in the Pacific Rim.  He has authored numerous articles and presented lectures on the care of critically ill patients, practice management, industry relations and its impact on innovations in health care, compliance and regulatory affairs. 

He earned an M.D. from UCSF School of Medicine, an M.P.H. from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.S. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin.  He completed his internship in the Department of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine and his residency and fellowship in anesthesiology at UCSF.

In addition to the three new hospital board members, that advise the hospital’s Board of Directors to include an additional 15-18 individuals.  The recruitment process should be completed by the end of June.