Dr. Legorreta's work has contributed significantly to the development of real-world outcomes research, quality of care metrics and other cost-effective analysis. His current projects with the managed care and pharmaceutical industries include health and pharmaceutical economics, health care demand, and assessment of new medical technology. Dr. Legorreta has developed and implemented health services research applications to measure medical care and resource consumption disparities, and has implemented quality improvement projects for the leading health plans and employers throughout the country. Dr. Legorreta’s research in trauma care reimbursement was utilized to modify the categorization and reimbursement for the Major Significant Trauma DRGs in the state of New York. Dr. Legorreta has extensive experience in developing and implementing performance-based reimbursement models, which have been adopted by leading national payers. Dr. Legorreta has published original research on breast cancer, asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, among other topics- in over 50 peer-reviewed medical journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, Archives of Internal Medicine, Diabetes Care, Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and the American Journal of Public Health. In addition to his medical training at Mexico State University School of Medicine, Dr. Legorreta earned his master’s degree in public health from the Yale University School of Medicine, Division of Health Services Research. Dr. Legorreta was Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York and he is currently an Adjunct Professor at UCLA’s School of Public Health, Department of Health Services.

Prior to Health Benchmarks, Zak’s overall responsibilities include oversight of the Regence Health Outcomes Management and Analysis. He also lead Clinical Performance Management department (CPM), development, refinement and promotion of analytic methods for clinicians profiling; active involvement in implementation design and execution of performance measurement initiatives such as the development of P4P, performance networks, provider and member data sharing, and quality improvement activities.

Prior to CPM, Zak was the Assistant Director of Physician and Ancillary Contracting responsible for understanding and managing medical cost issues, negotiating complex and competitive contractual relationships with providers according to prescribed guidelines in support of regional network strategies, and managing provider compensation/ reimbursement and pricing activities.

As an Internist and an administrator, he has worked in the local healthcare industry for the past 16 years holding positions where technical and analytical expertise, clinical experience, creative abilities, interpersonal and communication skills are used for promoting and improving the efficiency of the healthcare system.

Zak earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Trinity Western University in British Columbia, Canada. He earned his M.D. from The London Hospital Medical College and completed his MBA at Seattle University. He is a member of the Healthcare Financial Managers Association, and a member of the Medical Disaster Preparedness Committee for the City of Mercer Island.

Dr. Chen finished her internal medicine residency at UCLA Medical Center. She has recently completed four years of health services research fellowship at UCLA, two as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and two as a National Health Services Award fellow. As part of her fellowship training, she earned a Masters in Health Services at the UCLA School of Public Health in 2007. During her fellowship she has conducted several studies including examining racial/ethnic disparities in use of preventive services and receipt of cancer treatments. In addition, she had also evaluated the cost and cost-effectiveness of insuring minority children in California.

Karen Hsu currently oversees the day-to-day operations of the Health Plan Programs line of business at HBI. Ms. Hsu has a background in business operations with experience working in both the local government and managed care environments. Prior to joining HBI, Ms. Hsu was a Project Manager at Health Net, Inc., where her experience included investigating and implementing several quality assurance initiatives within the company’s Health Plan Operations Department. Currently at HBI, Ms. Hsu provides oversight to HBI’s talented project team comprised of consultants, researchers and clinicians to work closely with health plan clients in areas including quality indicator development, performance-based incentive programs, and hospital profiling. Ms. Hsu also leads internal quality assurance and policy development work efforts. Ms. Hsu received an MPH in Health Policy in 1997 and an MBA in 2004, both from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Dr. Zhao is Research Project Lead at Health Benchmarks. He has been involved with various health outcome studies in HBI. Dr. Zhao conducted his doctoral studies in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where he was awarded the prestigious UCLA Chancellor’s Fellowship. As a part of his graduate training he has worked on disease areas including cancer incidence and mortality, infant mortality and birth defects (preterm and low birth weight). He has worked with the UCLA Department of Epidemiology and Center for Occupational and Environmental Health as part of his training to provide advanced statistical analyses for several projects.