Team Member Hospital: UMMC

Dr. Saurabh Chandra is the Chief Telehealth Officer at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) and Project Director of the National Center of Excellence for Telehealth, one of only two federally designated telehealth centers of excellence in the United States.

Trained initially in medicine in India, Dr. Chandra earned a PhD in Life Sciences, completed postdoctoral training at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, and pursued clinical training in Internal Medicine and Critical Care at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. His career spans academic medicine and large health systems, including serving as Enterprise Medical Director of Telehealth at Northwell Health in New York, where he led the system’s telecritical care response during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At UMMC, Dr. Chandra provides strategic and operational leadership for the Center for Telehealth, advancing innovative, evidence-based virtual care models while ensuring alignment with the institution’s missions of clinical care, education, and research. A lifelong learner and physician-executive, he recently completed an MBA from Millsaps College. Outside of work, he enjoys embracing Mississippi’s culture and traditions, especially its distinctive spirit of Southern hospitality.

Kyle currently serves as the Telehealth Administrator for the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He provides administrative and financial oversight to ensure appropriate and effective allocation of funds for the Center of Excellence grant.

Dr. Tearsanee Davis has dedicated her career to patients in rural areas and innovative solutions to the widespread lack of health care. The Director of Clinical Programs and Strategy for the UMMC Center for Telehealth, she is a subject matter expert on telehealth initiatives to improve access to care in rural areas, improved outcomes, and reduced healthcare costs. Dr. Davis was selected as the first nurse practitioner to serve as a Mississippi Rural Health Fellow where she has direct access to the governor and state legislators to effect change in legislative policies in Mississippi. Dr. Davis’s leadership and research has had a direct impact in diabetes care and mental health through innovative telehealth initiatives in Mississippi as well as across the nation. Dr. Davis has taken her leadership and knowledge to universities at multiple levels across the nation to introduce students as well as experienced providers to the implementation of telehealth across health care. She has presented her rural telehealth work before multidisciplinary groups and conferences nationally and internationally. Dr. Davis currently serves many leadership roles in different committees, including Mississippi Telehealth Association, American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) Telehealth and Health Association Rural Health Fellow and the American Nurses Association. In 2020, she received the AANP State Award for Excellence and was inducted as an AANP Fellow. In 2021, she was named one of 70 visionary leaders by the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing. Dr. Davis has publications that span nurse practitioners in e-Health and telemedicine to telemedicine in rural Mississippi that have garnered recognition with numerous awards. 

Greg Hall is currently the Director of Information Technology with the Center for Telehealth at the University of Mississippi Medical Center where he has worked for the past 22 years. He helped to establish TelEmergency, a telehealth program that supports rural Emergency Departments across the state of Mississippi that saw its first patient in 2003. He is serving as the technical lead for the HRSA Telehealth Center of Excellence designation.

Hollie works closely with HRSA and its partners to collaborate in the day-to-day coordination, management, and oversight of TCOE program management activities and program resources. She provides support to the Project Director with planning and execution of overall strategy, performance reporting, change management, and risk management. She coordinates sustainability and evaluation efforts for telehealth programs within the COE, providing strategic guidance on growth opportunities, federal initiatives, and potential partnerships with industry and other associations/organizations to ensure long-term sustainability. She also promotes TCOE project activities and deliverables with internal and external stakeholders. Hollie's been at UMMC since 2014, but joined the Center of Telehealth in November 2022. 

Dr. La’Kitha Hughes' works closely with the UMMC Telehealth Center of Excellence as a Grants Accounting Manager to support the grants team, TCOE budgets, projects, project implementation, and Principal Investigators (PIs,). Prior to joining the UMMC Team in 2021, La’Kitha served as the associate director of Facilities and Construction Management for sixteen years at another Mississippi Institution for Higher Learning with extensive project management experience and an extensive budgetary and finance background. La’Kitha recently received her PhD in Educational Leadership, Higher Education, has a MS in Technology from Mississippi State University, and a BS in Business Administration (Management).