Becker's asked C-suite executives from hospitals and health systems across the U.S. to share their team or system's biggest achievement this year.
The 69 executives featured in this article are all speaking at the Becker's Healthcare 15th Annual Meeting on April 28 - May 1, 2025, at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.
To learn more about this event, click here.
If you would like to join as a speaker or a reviewer, contact Mariah Muhammad at mmuhammad@beckershealthcare.com or agendateam@beckershealthcare.com.
For more information on sponsorship opportunities or vendor access-only badges, contact Jessica Cole at jcole@beckershealthcare.com.
As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who will speak at our conference. The following are answers from our speakers at the event.
Question: What has been your team or system's biggest achievement in 2024?
David Lubarsky, MD. Vice Chancellor of Human Health Sciences and CEO of UC Davis Health (Sacramento, Calif.): At UC Davis Health, we’re rechanneling the joy back into medicine based on several achievements in 2024, with more to unfold in the years ahead. This includes building a new paradigm of patient care (our Vision 2030) through innovative technology, a robust construction program ($7.5 billion, 600 capital projects), and workforce planning to meet regional healthcare needs for the next 50 years – all cultivating our position as a nation-leading model workplace.
We’re exploring the leading-edge uses of AI (AI Scribe is among 50 AI apps launched in clinical care so far), staying connected to the needs of our communities through our Anchor Institution Mission, serving as a valued partner for multiple FQHCs, and providing services the community needs but that are not typically associated with large financial margins.
As always, humans come first in patient care. These achievements underscore our focus on using technology to improve what humans can do, bringing better quality outcomes and data-driven excellence to our care. With AI, doctors and nurses must always make the decisions, and the patient can be even more engaged in care decision-making, creating a true partnership that’s never existed before in healthcare. Luke Skywalker didn’t have to do it alone. Providers don’t have to, either.
Marschall Runge, MD, PhD. Dean of the University of Michigan Medical School; Executive Vice President of Medical Affairs at University of Michigan; CEO of Michigan Medicine (Ann Arbor): Building a fully integrated, statewide network has been a longstanding goal at Michigan Medicine. Now, with UM-Sparrow in our network, teams from Ann Arbor, Lansing, and Grand Rapids have effectively managed key operational and IT integrations. Yet our greatest success lies in our collaborative clinical programs, which have transformed access and elevated care quality across Michigan, especially in advanced neurosurgery, stroke and cardiovascular treatment, and children's health. While there is still work ahead, these achievements mark a major step toward a cohesive, unified system. My sincere congratulations go out to everyone who made this possible.
James G. Terwilliger. President of Puget Sound Market at CommonSpirit Health (Chicago); Senior Vice President of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health: We are continuing on the journey to fully integrate as one health system since the merger of Virginia Mason and CHI Franciscan in 2021, and this year we reached a major milestone by combining our two transfer centers into one under the umbrella of our Mission Control command center. The decision to prioritize this step was driven by our commitment to operational excellence and our desire to provide the highest quality care. It allows us to eliminate duplication of effort, enhance communication, and more effectively manage the flow of patients into and across our health system to ensure they receive the right care at the right time and in the right place. As a result, our patients now benefit from faster, more coordinated care, with access to the full breadth of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health's world-class providers and care sites through a single point of contact. It also allows us to better serve our community partners, who can now rely on a single, streamlined process for referring patients.
Cliff A. Megerian, MD. CEO of University Hospitals (Cleveland): University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center’s distinction as Ohio’s only hospital on U.S. News & World Report’s inaugural list of Best Regional Hospitals for Equitable Access marks a defining achievement for 2024, affirming the University Hospitals’ system mission to serve all patients, especially those in historically underserved communities. Only 2% of U.S. hospitals earned this recognition, reflecting the dedication of our caregivers and volunteers to providing equitable, high-quality care. This award, alongside our 2024 Dick Davidson Nova Award from the American Hospital Association, highlights our community health achievements — particularly through the UH Food for Life Markets®, which has successfully helped patients lower blood pressure, improve A1C levels, and experience healthier pregnancies. Further demonstrating our commitment, UH invested $707 million in community health initiatives in 2023, with $522 million directed toward traditional community benefits as defined by the IRS and $185 million covering unreimbursed Medicare costs. In fulfilling our founders’ vision that “the needy are the most worthy,” we proudly demonstrated our commitment to improving healthcare access for all again in 2024.
Shelly Schorer. CFO of California Division at CommonSpirit Health (Chicago): In 2024, our team's most significant achievement was our ability to swiftly adapt to challenges and adjust our strategies to stay on course toward our objectives. This ongoing challenge is something our teams worked on every day, requiring resilience and flexibility. So far this year, our commitment to diligence has enabled us to consistently meet our goals, showcasing our ability to navigate through uncertainty while maintaining focus on our collective goal. As we move forward, we will continue to embrace change and use it as an opportunity for growth and innovation.
Peter Banko. President and CEO of Baystate Health (Springfield, Mass.): Our biggest achievement in 2024 was strengthening our commitment to Baystate with a two-year $225 million transformation plan for the organization. Our ongoing aggressive execution on six transformation levers — half revenue (strategic growth, clinical access and throughput, and revenue cycle management) and half core operations improvements (corporate overhead, external spend, and workforce management) — will return our 141-year organization to strong growth and further our leadership position in Western Massachusetts and beyond. It also enables more than $1.2 billion investment into our caregivers, information technology, ambulatory, and key service line expansion.
Michael Weiner, DO. Chief Medical Officer of MSU Health Care at Michigan State University (East Lansing): This year at Michigan State University Healthcare, our biggest achievement has been the impactful, organizationwide collaboration of our Diabetes Task Force-demonstrating the power of teamwork across our Big Ten academic medical center.
Driven by our quality team, this initiative has significantly improved outcomes, with reductions in hemoglobin A1c levels, increased retinal exams, and expanded foot care — surpassing national benchmarks.
In support, our neurology department created a dedicated retinal care team, while our surgical colleagues formed a specialized foot care team.
Endocrinology has taken a leadership role, with our pharmacy team supporting hemoglobin A1c goals through advanced injectable medications.
Primary care and specialty providers have leaned in, delivering long term improvements in cardiac, renal and vascular outcomes for the Mid-Michigan community we are honored to serve.
Danielle Scheurer, MD. Chief Quality Officer of MUSC Health System (Charleston, S.C.): One of our proudest achievements for MUSC Health is improving our employee engagement. Having high employee engagement is critical to achieve all other missions. With all the challenges and disruptions in healthcare today, keeping our team members engaged requires intentional and persistent work. MUSC Health is very proud of how we have weathered these challenges with sustained improvements in employee engagement.
Monique Diaz, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer of Physician Enterprise West at CommonSpirit (Chicago): In 2024, CommonSpirit Health achieved a remarkable stride in AI adoption and innovation. Our biggest achievement has been the successful launch and rapid adoption of "Insightli," our internal AI assistant. Insightli has empowered over 6,000 users across our system, handling over 125,000 prompts for a diverse range of tasks, from content creation and data analysis to streamlining workflows and providing clinical insights. Beyond Insightli, we've accelerated AI implementation across various departments, including clinical care, revenue cycle, and supply chain, with a focus on delivering enhanced patient experiences and operational efficiency. This rapid progress underscores CommonSpirit's commitment to leveraging AI's transformative potential for the benefit of our patients and healthcare ecosystem.
Ebrahim Barkoudah, MD. System Chief and Regional Chief Medical Officer of Baystate Health (Springfield, Mass.):
- Quality and Safety Dashboard Innovation: Implementing comprehensive quality and safety dashboards marks a milestone in our delivery system for 2024. These sophisticated platforms leverage advanced real-time analytics to revolutionize patient care monitoring and decision-making processes. By integrating live data streams with intelligent analytics, our team created an agile environment where healthcare providers can make swift, informed decisions based on real-time insights. The system's ability to automate data collection and reporting has significantly reduced administrative burden, allowing our clinical staff to focus more on direct patient care. The dashboards' scalable architecture accommodates department-specific needs while maintaining a cohesive organizational overview, effectively breaking down information silos and enhancing cross-departmental collaboration.
- Patient Flow Governance Enhancement: The second major achievement centers on revolutionizing patient flow governance, resulting in measurable improvements in clinical operations efficiency. By implementing a systematic approach to patient movement throughout our facilities, the team has optimized resource utilization and significantly reduced bottlenecks in service delivery. Key improvements include LOS reduction, resulting in LWBS in the ED, and increased bed turnover efficiency. The new governance structure incorporates real-time bed management systems, predictive analytics for patient admission patterns, and automated discharge planning protocols. This integrated approach has enhanced patient satisfaction, led to more efficient staff allocation, and reduced operational costs. The system's ability to predict and manage patient flow has proven valuable during peak demand periods, enabling proactive resource allocation and maintaining high-quality care standards even under pressure.
- Physician Engagement in Revenue Cycle Integration through Care Capture Rounds: The third significant achievement involves successful physician engagement in revenue cycle management. The key to this success has been our strategic focus on physician involvement in documentation and coding decisions, leading to a marked improvement in CMI accuracy and higher satisfaction rates among medical staff. Through regular feedback sessions and physician-led clinical documentation, we have ensured that our documentation practices align perfectly with clinical workflows while capturing the true complexity of patient care. This collaborative approach has fostered a culture of clinical documentation integrity, improving CMI accuracy and reducing query response times. Physicians have become active partners in the revenue cycle process, contributing to more precise coding that could improve reimbursement outcomes. The engagement strategy has also led to better documentation quality at the point of care, reducing retrospective queries and administrative burdens. This physician-centric approach maintains focus on our primary goal of delivering exceptional patient care while ensuring appropriate reimbursement for the complexity of services provided.
Robert Fields, MD. Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer of Beth Israel Lahey Health (Burlington, Mass.): As a young system, our biggest achievement has been the high degree of integration work that has occurred in the last year. The teams have accomplished this with a spirit of camaraderie and creativity that I truly am grateful for. In the last year, we have integrated our credentialing office, population health operations, emergency management, infection prevention and are well on our way to integrating our community physician practices into one Beth Israel Lahey Medical Group. While we have much more to do as part of our transformation, we have taken major steps towards 'systemness' and building resiliency at BILH.
Omar Hasan, MD. Chief Quality Officer of MaineHealth (Portland): We are fortunate to have decreased harm events in our healthcare system by almost 9% in one year. This was made possible through systemwide engagement in improving patient safety and the personal commitment, compassion, and hard work of thousands of MaineHealth care team members.
Nicholas Nussbaum, MD. Director of Medical Affairs and Community Services of Adams Medical Group at Adams Health Network (Decatur, Ind.): We have shattered all preconceived notions of what is possible regarding rural obstetrics. In an era where even providing OB services in a rural area is supposed to be impossible, we are adding providers, increasing volumes (+200% in a 2 year period and + 50% year over year vs. 2023), and setting quality metric standards that most would dismiss as obvious typos (100% of patients with at least 1 postpartum visit prior to 8 weeks, 2.8 postpartum visits on average prior to 12 weeks, 15% c-section rate at a hospital that does not offer VBACs, etc.).
How is all of that possible? Accept that all of your prior underlying assumptions are wrong and start from scratch based on numerical and logistical realities instead of insisting that "this time is different" and forcing the same-old failing "solutions" on the problem. I'm not trying to be secretive about how this was done, it's just too detailed to include all of it in this space. Anyone who would like to discuss it further is welcome to reach out. The numbers are real, and we didn't bankrupt the organization to achieve them — which might actually be the bigger achievement in some ways.
Jay S. Grider, DO, PhD. Chief Physician Executive of University of Kentucky (Lexington): We are very excited about our board mandated work around creating clinical workforce, clinical quality and addressing care access gaps for the citizens of Kentucky through the Advancing Kentucky Together affiliate network with UKHealthCare and growing network of health systems in our region.
William Davis. President of Illinois Region at Deaconess Illinois (Evansville): 2024 has been an exciting year for our healthcare system, and I'm so proud of the many achievements. One achievement of note is the implementation of Epic in three of the facilities in my region. In addition to converting our EMR, we transitioned our main HR platform, the Quality/Risk platform, and several other bolt-on systems that needed to be updated. Moving to platforms that will now interact with other healthcare organizations will allow us to provide more informative care for patients, which is a big deal for our communities. I'm so proud of our teams that had the patients and stayed focused on improving the care delivery model throughout the region.
Anita Harris-Brown, DNP, RN. Vice President of IS Clinical Applications and Chief Nursing Informatics Officer of Information Services at Cincinnati Children's Hospital: Our greatest accomplishment in 2024 has been focused on enhancing both our people and processes to enable digital transformation, especially in provider wellness. This includes strengthening our governance platform to align priorities with the organization’s strategic goals. By leveraging the expertise of our clinical informaticians, we have been able to identify operational and clinical problems and find optimal technological solutions. We have integrated Gen AI into our EHR, employed real-time action perspective dashboards, and utilized virtual platforms to support care delivery, effectively addressing workforce shortages.
Shephali H. Wulff, DO. System Vice President of Quality and Safety at SSM Health (St. Louis): Our Quality and Safety team has had a year of change and transition with new leaders and new structures. The team has been extraordinary in embracing that change with excitement and renewed commitment to providing safe and effective low-cost care for all. We are working to develop an integrated quality team with aligned goals with signals from our regulatory compliance and safety event data all focused on quality improvement. We have seen sustained improvements in hospital acquired infections with most ministries performing in the top quartile of their Vizient cohorts in the safety domain and improvements in the prevention of severe hypoglycemia, a new safety measure for us as an organization.
Thomas Maddox, MD. Vice President of Digital Products and Innovation at BJC HealthCare (St. Louis)/Washington University School of Medicine: Keeping our eye on innovation while navigating significant internal structural changes and cost reductions.
Carman Ciervo, DO. Chief Physician Executive of Cooper Health System (Camden, N.J.): Our biggest achievement in 2024 was the complete integration of behavioral health in our primary care practices. This has made our clinicians ability to handle their patient's mental health needs in a more comprehensive manner.
Melody Cockrum. Human Resources Director of Indy Suburban Region at Indiana University Health (Indianapolis): At IU Health we have been challenged by turnover for the last few years but in 2024 we are achieving our goals. We have implemented several initiatives geared at retaining team members and increasing engagement.
My team's greatest achievements this year:
1) We held a tenured team member Appreciative Inquiry Summit in which we invited several team members with 15+ years of tenure to focus on the positives of their roles, the times in which they were happiest, most engaged and felt most valued at work. We then asked the group to assist us in recreating the environment and the perks that they felt would take them back to those happy times.
2) My team created a Leadership Academy made up of great leaders, new leaders and some leaders who had some opportunities. We bring them together for a full day each month for lots of development. They are in cohorts and work on projects together. This work has re-engaged so many of these leaders. They have made relationships with leaders they did not know before and have grown tremendously.
Darrell Bodnar. CIO of North Country Healthcare (Whitefield, N.H.): In 2024, we proudly achieved CHIME Most Wired status for the fourth consecutive year, but our greatest accomplishment has been the powerful alignment between our clinical IT and data analytics teams. Together, we’ve accelerated quality initiatives, including reaching an impressive 98% compliance in bedside medication bar code scanning across our NCH hospitals, with real-time data enabling responsive coaching and continuous improvement. Driven by our commitment to high reliability and patient safety, our close collaboration with nursing teams positions us to reach 99% compliance in 2025, ensuring every patient receives the safest, highest quality.
Rawle Seupaul, MD. Executive Vice President and Chief Physician Executive of Carilion Clinic (Roanoke, Va.): Our biggest achievement was our ability to coordinate our efforts across our system to meet our improvement and operational goals to close our fiscal year ahead of budget.
Mark D. Townsend, MD. Chief Clinical Innovation Officer of Bon Secours Mercy Health (Cincinnati): Creating a framework for digital innovation was one of our biggest accomplishments in 2024. By empowering our operators to champion digital innovation partnerships with emerging technologies, we created a digital innovation funding mechanism that allows our operators to bring minority funding to pilot projects. Digital innovation then provides majority funding for up to 2 years as the pilots are scaled throughout the health system, while feeding our investment pipeline. Partnerships funded through digital innovation open the door for future investment opportunities through Accrete, the digital transformation engine of Bon Secours Mercy Health.
John Goodnow. CEO of Benefis Health System (Great Falls, Mont.): Our biggest achievement for 2024 was converting IT from a combo of NextGen for outpatient and Meditech for inpatient to Epic, which we did simultaneously in all our sites in four different communities, in 2024. We also converted our ERP system to WorkDay.
Andrew Molosky. President and CEO of Chapters Health System (Temple Terrace, Fla.): 2024 has already been an exceptional year for Chapters launching several new startups, a joint venture, four affiliations (acquisitions) and a health plan. In doing so we have managed to be awarded numerous employee culture accolades which when taken together truly embodies the spirit and ethos of our company. To be taking care of patients or taking care of those who do. Innovation in the hands of capable, empowered, and incredible staff is what really results in moving the proverbial needle in our healthcare environment today. In an environment that is challenging in every way possible to have the team assembled that we do and delivering the care the patient experience we do is the most proud an executive can be. It means you’re part of something special and that should always be your biggest achievement.
Bethany Daily. Executive Director of Perioperative Services and Healthcare Systems Engineering at Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston): Right now we are particularly proud of how we have structured our operational readiness efforts for Phase 1 (of 2) for a new inpatient tower that will open in early 2028. Multiple workgroups have been formed, along with a governance structure; you can never get to this work too soon. One branch of this work, led by our Healthcare Systems Engineering team, has been focused on quantifying the impact of the strategic direction of the organization’s service lines and their bed needs, working toward alignment with what will be available in the new building.
Lakshmi Halasyamani, MD. Chief Clinical Officer of Endeavor Health (Evanston, Ill.): Over the last year, our greatest accomplishment has been sharing and implementing leading clinical practices as one unified health system and aligning our priorities and measures with common definitions and a shared model of care delivery that elevates clinical outcomes, enhances our patients’ experience and does so in a way that is inclusive, sustainable and cost-effective. For example, we’ve strengthened our commitment to value-based care, population health and our clinically integrated network, which allows our wide network of physicians to collaborate more effectively across key areas like care management, pharmacy and patient engagement. We are also leaning into initiatives around health equity and social determinants of health to close disparities in hypertension management, cancer screening and care transitions. We are also exploring technologies like artificial intelligence and ambient documentation that allow our providers to realize the vision for a safe, seamless and personal experience we aim for at Endeavor Health.
Motz Feinberg, BS. Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer of Cedars Sinai Health System (Los Angeles): Cedars Sinai Health System implemented a new Enterprise Resource Planning system across three of our five entities with no adverse impact to patient care. While we have had some challenges, and continue to optimize the overall procure to pay process, our teams have demonstrated how flexible they are and have helped move our health system in a very positive direction. We now have much better reporting and analytics capabilities as well as improved financial controls, and — importantly — a scalable platform enabling further growth for the organization.
Darian Eletto. Chief Clinical Officer of Bergen New Bridge Medical Center (Paramus, N.J.): My team's biggest achievement in 2024 has been significantly increasing the number of patients served through our Center for Eating Disorders & Body Positivity. We expanded our adolescent intensive outpatient level of care and created a relevant curriculum that is evidence based to treat this vulnerable population. More than half of the patients we serve are covered by Medicaid, so this program creates access to care in a highly privatized treatment area for this often underserved population. We have had numerous patients graduate from this program successfully and continue to follow-up in our outpatient level of care.
D. Richelle Heldwein. Chief Risk and Compliance Officer of St Johns Health (Jackson, Wyo.): I think that most healthcare organizations struggle with future planning and strategy. Seeing what is on the horizon for this industry is difficult at best. There is always lots of change, but knowing what that change is and the impact it will have can be difficult in healthcare. So much of it depends on politics, policy, payers, economics, state and federal regulations and a whole host of outside factors that an independent community hospital has very little influence on. This year we rolled up our sleeves and developed a strategic plan that for the first time in many years feels like a great roadmap for our organization. Our CEO led our team, the community, and many stakeholders through the process of self-reflection and future vision that helped us not only have direction, but also helped us communicate that direction in a way that is positive and uplifting. Strategy for us now is not just a buzzword, it is part of the fabric of our culture and a direction for all of us to move forward together in a meaningful way.
James Robberson. Executive Director of Providence Neuroscience Institute at Providence (Renton, Wash.): The Providence Neuroscience Institute embarked on a journey nearly a decade ago to establish a system-wide spine outcomes registry, focusing on Patient Reported Outcomes. For many years, the collection process was highly labor intensive, leading to a moderate increase in PRO collection but eventual stagnation. In 2024, a systemwide group of spine leaders developed a single "Gold Standard Spine Pathway," a workflow and tool with integrated PRO collection that automated the collection process. The EHR-integrated tool immediately overcame existing limitations, more than doubling collection rates within just a few months.
As AI solutions become more commonplace in healthcare, this innovative approach, which significantly reduces barriers to PRO collection, will be crucial in developing new AI-supported decision-making tools to guide surgical interventions. Ultimately, this will enhance the quality of outcomes for tens of thousands of spine surgery cases annually.
Lauralyn Brown, DNP, MSN, BS, RN. Quality Director of Methodist Mansfield (Texas) Medical Center: In 2024 Methodist Mansfield Medical Center achieved a significant drop in their Central Line Bloodstream Infection rates through a SAFETY STAND DOWN initiative
A Safety Stand Down occurs when a significant patient safety event occurs or reoccurs and a member of the Senior Administrative Team in essence states "This stops today." That’s exactly what I said in July of 2023 and through the use of intensive and focused rounding, partnering with our chief medical officer and infectious disease medical director, my team and decreased our HAI rate from 2.853 in July 2023 to 0.251 in September 2024.
We said NO to femoral line placements (except for an emergency and then replaced in 24 hours), used real time education during surveillance, and used the ID Medical Director and/or CMO to speak with physicians when staff received push back when Central Lines were no longer warranted. Through this partnership we have been 217 days CLABSI free!
Ryan Younger. Vice President of Marketing at Virtua Health (Marlton, N.J.): As a system, Virtua Health continues to thrive in so many ways around our strategic imperatives related to consumers, culture and the delivery system. Virtua is growing tertiary programs, enhancing quality outcomes, improving the experience, advancing health equity and creating new models of care. Marketing and Communications has the opportunity to influence a broad spectrum of initiatives across these priority areas and shape a framework that brings it all together. The achievement is being able to help inspire and unify these approaches under the big idea of everybody always. Success requires a high standard and consistent implementation; it is inclusive of all colleagues and it is constantly evolving.
Pierre Monice. President of Loyola Medicine - MacNeal Hospital (Berwyn, Ill.): As president of Loyola Medicine MacNeal Hospital, I'm proud to highlight our team's incredible achievement in 2024: we received Magnet Accreditation with Distinction. This prestigious recognition places us among only 11 hospitals nationwide to earn this honor. It reflects our unwavering commitment to excellence in nursing and patient care. This achievement is not just a testament to our exceptional staff's dedication and hard work, but also a recognition of our collaborative culture, where every team member plays a vital role in enhancing patient outcomes and fostering a supportive environment. We are excited to build on this success as we continue to strive for the highest standards in healthcare.
Ryan Nicholas, MD. Chief Quality Officer of Mercy Medical Group, CommonSpirit Health (Chicago): As we have moved into downside risk contracts, this group required a fundamental transformation in governance structure to optimize operational efficiency and empower front-line care delivery divisions to direct their own staffing, develop innovative care models, and adapt to value systems. This required comprehensive analysis of our financial structure, current organizational systems, and payer relationships. Extensive teamwork between our operations partners in the Dignity Health Medical Foundation and Mercy Medical Group leadership was a key component of this successful redevelopment process. The result that was resoundingly approved by the vote of the shareholder physicians was a governance focused Board of Directors and a separate centralized Operations Council. This now allows the board to focus on financial strategy formation and goal development with clear lines of communication from the Operations Council. The Operations council empowers the dyad groups of division chairs and operations partners to develop joint decision making and allows more autonomy for value and performance strategy to meet the goals and objectives of the board within the established financial framework. We feel well positioned to advance further on our value transformation journey with the improvements in organizational structure and look forward to the road ahead!
Catherine Chang, MD. Vice President and Chief Quality Officer of Ambulatory and Clinical Councils at Prisma Health (Greenville, S.C.): From top decile quality and safety outcomes to our Medical Group for being ranked among the top in the nation for likelihood to recommend, there is a lot for Prisma Health to be proud of in 2024. However, what I’m most excited about is our continued commitment to placing the patient, and their overall experience, at the center of everything we do. Experience determines trust, and trust has a direct impact on the health of our patients.
Courtney Jackson. Executive Director of Women and Children’s Institute at Providence (Renton, Wash.): One of the Providence Women and Children’s Institute team’s biggest achievements in 2024 is a Pediatric Actual Weighs in Kgs Protocol: 1:3 pediatric patients in the ED lack a documented current weight using an appropriate weight method. Based on these findings, the W&C Institute has created an Epic Storyboard BPA and system-wide Pediatric re-education, as part of our commitment to improving patient safety. Efforts are also underway in the ambulatory setting, since there is currently no way to record what “method” was used to take the patient's weight, other than the note section, and Providers/Rxs are unaware of inappropriate methods used to record the patient’s weight.
Chris Sacinski. Vice President of IT Applications at Advocate Health (Charlotte, N.C.): Advocate Health has done some tremendous work in 2024. But in terms of the areas that I lead, the achievement I'm most proud of is our successful completion of our symplr Time and Attendance transition project. After a 6-month series of rolling Go Lives across FIVE markets (Floyd Health, Scotland Health, Greater Charlotte, Navicent Health, the Wake Forest Baptist Med Center and the Wake Forest University School of Medicine), all 67 Advocate Health hospitals and countless nonacute sites (>155K employees) are now leveraging the same vendor/platform for time and attendance. What's more, we took this opportunity to perform four complex payroll calendar transitions, harmonize 59 disparate pay policies, and deploy symplr workforce mobile company wide thus allowing us to decommission ALL of our legacy time clocks. All told, this was a massive undertaking across all facets of the organization and serves as a great example of Advocate Health's commitment to come together across business verticals, innovate through strong vendor partners like symplr, and deliver business value at scale.
Darryl Elmouchi, MD. COO of Corewell Health (Grand Rapids and Southfield, Mich.): Our biggest achievement in 2024 is our transition to a single instance of Epic across all our hospitals, clinics and sites. When we integrated and formed Corewell Health, we had multiple instances of our electronic health record. Now that we are all on the same platform, we can coordinate collaboration amongst our teams to provide the best possible care to our patients.
Annmarie Lyons. Vice President of Women's Health Service Line and Executive Administrator of the UPP Obstetrics Department, Gynecology and Women's Health at UPMC Magee-Women's Hospital (Pittsburgh): I am so incredibly proud of our team’s ability to adapt and innovate. Multiple internal and external factors have required us to figure out how to do things better, faster, and cheaper. We have developed programs that have moved patient outcomes better than any others, and our external partners are responding. We’ve paid more attention to the needs of our communities to raise awareness and drive care to them, and they are receiving it. We are operating on all cylinders all the time, and leaning on each other to stand tall. The team makes all the difference!
Janet Hadar, MSN. President of UNC Hospitals (Chapel Hill, N.C.): UNC Hospitals has received many accolades over the past year, but perhaps the one in which I’m most proud is the recognition of being a Top Place to Work by Forbes and Beckers among others. Our teammates are our strongest asset and truly drive the quality and innovation in care delivery. Whether it is professional development through The Center for Leadership Development or expanded wellness benefits and our outstanding Taking Care of Our Own program, we continue to make great investments in our teammates and medical staff. We see the return on that investment in our consistently high quality and experience ratings and a reduction in turnover and utilization of contract labor.
Patrice Weiss, MD. Chief Medical Officer of Prisma Health Medical Group, Midlands and Chief Academic Officer of Prisma Health (Greenville, S.C.): As South Carolina continues its rapid growth, I am proud of Prisma Health’s commitment to increasing access to high-quality healthcare services in the communities we serve. Within the last year in the Midlands alone, Prisma Health has opened a 24-hour freestanding pharmacy, retail imaging center, multiple new urgent care locations, a new pediatric rehab unit and broke ground on a comprehensive medical park that will include imaging, physician offices, therapies, surgery suites and procedure rooms.
Annie Thomas-Landrum, MSN, RN. Chairman of the Board of Sunshine Community Health Center (Talkeetna, Alaska): Working in rural Alaska, one of our biggest focuses has been on the intersection of providing healthcare services to our community and the Social Determinants of Health that hugely impact how effective those efforts are. This year we were able to make huge strides in meeting these challenges effectively by partnering with our local food pantry. Our community health workers can now ride with food pantry staff when they go to deliver meals and directly assess the SDOH challenges our patients are experiencing. This has, in turn, allowed us to meet their needs much more holistically, both in the ways we provide care and in the resources we can connect them to. Sharing these and other best practices for rural SDOH and Health Equity programs on a state and national level has been incredibly exciting and we are looking forward to expanding these creative approaches in the future.
Melissa Zak, DNP, MBA, RN, NEA-BC. Chief Nursing Officer of Pennsylvania Hospital, Penn Medicine: This past year the team’s biggest achievement was improving employee retention, decreasing both vacancy and turnover rates. The team has successfully launched programs that support new team members, promote professional development and created enhanced recognition programs. Implementing innovative strategies in these areas are critical for providing consistent high quality care and fostering a stable work environment.
Shawn Tittle, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer of Houston Methodist: Our system’s biggest achievement in 2024 has been providing the highest quality of healthcare for Houston and beyond. We have increased access, decreased waiting times, and increased patient experience across the board. Every one of our hospitals are Leapfrog A and are top performers in their respective Vizient categories. Houston Methodist Hospital is the US News & World Report top hospital in Texas for the 13th year in a row.
Cindy Bo. Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of Boston Medical Center Health System: In October, Boston Medical Center Health System marked an exciting milestone as we officially welcome Good Samaritan Medical Center and St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center. The addition of these two medical centers ensures essential care will continue in the Brockton and Brighton communities and extends the impact of our health system in Boston and the region. As a premier academic medical center, a national leader in clinical care, and the largest essential hospital in New England, we bring a new kind of excellence in healthcare where clinical and operational innovation meets health equity and access. With more than 15,000 dedicated employees, the health system is committed to advancing scientific discovery and access to care, partnering with our communities, and developing scalable approaches to restore and maintain health.
Chuck Nordyke, RN, MSN. President and CEO of Clarinda Regional Health Center (Iowa): Clarinda Regional Health Center’s biggest success in 2024 has been winning the Iowa’s Healthiest State Initiative Award – Healthcare category. This was a compilation of many different initiatives we have put in place over several years. These initiatives meant to improve the overall health of our communities accentuate our goal to Advance Exceptional Care. Initiatives such as 5-2-1-0, Little Sprouts Garden, Fresh Eats, Back-Pack, Youth Sports Camps and our Concussion Prevention and Treatment program (to name only a few) are near and dear to many in the organization and we feel it is our duty to do whatever we can to improve the lives of our neighbors. As the CEO, I am thrilled when a teammate comes forward with a new initiative for us to get involved in. This is what we are here for.
Colleen Blackburn. Director of Cardiovascular Service Line at OSF Healthcare (Peoria, Ill.): This year our procedural areas had a large focus on improving efficiency. In our cath lab and interventional radiology department we were able to increase on time starts by an average of 23% (16% increase in cath lab and 30% in IR) while maintaining room turn-over times. In addition, we increased cath lab throughput by increasing same day procedures by 60%. Most importantly we did the above while improving our employee satisfaction as evidenced by increased employee engagement on Press Ganey surveying.
Rozanna Penney, CRNA. President and CEO of Heywood Healthcare (Gardner, Mass.): The Heywood Healthcare system's greatest achievement in 2024 was successfully reorganizing under Chapter 11 protection and emerging a year later maintaining its status as an independent, community-governed health system. This rare accomplishment, achieved by less than 3% of healthcare organizations that entered Chapter 11 over the past year, underscores our resilience and commitment.
Under Chapter 11 protection, we restructured our debt and out-of-market contracts while expanding critical regional services. We reopened the inpatient MHU in January, now operating at full capacity for the first time since 2017, expanded obstetric care, resulting in an increase in of 15% in labor and deliveries, increased perioperative volume by 17%, re-launched a doula program adding 11 doulas to the obstetric service offerings, and initiated a non-emergency medical transportation program, in partnership with Woods Ambulance, helping to further strengthen patient volume across the system. We also leveraged the reorganization process to optimize operations, consolidate services where appropriate, and sustain our community programs. Employee satisfaction notably improved by 6.4% for the first time in five years, as shown by our latest Press Ganey staff engagement survey.
These achievements are a testament to the hard work, commitment, and culture of our dedicated physicians, advanced practice providers, employees, trustees, and leaders, all of whom exemplify the system’s core value of transparency. Transparency was crucial in navigating through uncertainty with a growth mindset, dispelling false narratives, empowering employees, patients, and community stakeholders to feel invested in Heywood’s mission and success.
Michael Pfeffer, MD. Chief Information and Digital Officer of Stanford Health Care (Calif.); Associate Dean and Clinical Professor at Stanford School of Medicine: In 2024, our team's most significant achievement has been our dedicated investment in the development of our people, which has been a cornerstone for our continued growth and innovation at Stanford Medicine. We have implemented comprehensive training programs, including an AI training course designed to empower our staff with cutting-edge skills around the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare. Our team's commitment to fostering a culture of learning has resulted in the successful launch and support of multiple groundbreaking AI initiatives and publications. Our focus on nurturing talent and embracing technological advancements illustrates our dedication to excellence in healthcare, ensuring that we remain a leader in the integration of AI solutions into our patient care, research, and education missions.
Mayank Shah, MD. Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Advocate Condell Medical Center (Libertyville, Ill.), Advocate Health: There are quite a few things we are proud of accomplishing this year. As our enterprise integration efforts continue to drive efficiency, I am most proud of the culture of innovation, stewardship, and equity in our organization. We have made great strides in our quality performance as it will be reported out through national grading organizations towards the end of the year. I am very proud of our culture of quality and safety that continues to drive high reliability tools and tactics to pursue a goal of zero harm. I believe the root cause of this success is all of our teammates working collaboratively and creating a patient centric focus. We still have much to achieve in 2025 but we are on a great track.
Jonna Jenkins. Vice President of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer at Hutchinson (Kan.) Regional Medical Center: The biggest achievement in 2024 for Hutchinson Regional Medical Center is reduction in our left without being seen in the emergency department. The organization has had many great successes in 2024 but this one stands out. We had seen left without being seen as high as 9%, well above the national average. We knew we had a problem prior to that however and started working on a process improvement plan to attack this issue. We started by asking our providers and clinicians in the ED what could be done. We listened to the team and began a journey to implement their ideas. Over the next six months our numbers began to drop. Since June of 2024 we have maintained a LWBS below 1% for the last four months and October looks like it will also be under 1%.
We recognize that achieving this goal helps to ensure that those in our community are getting the care that they deserve. In addition, we are able to admit those patients who are requiring acute inpatient care. Another bonus is that our community can see that we are actively working to improve the care provided to those we serve.
T.Y. Alvin Liu, MD. Endowed Professor and Inaugural Director of James P. Gills Jr. MD and Heather Gills Artificial Intelligence Innovation Center at Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore): Artificial intelligence governance. AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare by personalizing treatment plans, improving population based screening/ preventative health, providing insights unbeknownst to humans, and simplifying labor-intensive administrative tasks. However, with great power also comes the potential for great harm. In order to maximize the benefits and minimize the harm of AI, it is critical for integrated health systems, which provide the majority of care in the U.S., to establish AI governance. A well-defined governance structure will serve several functions, including establishing AI policies, developing AI project intake processes, standardizing interactions with AI vendors and constant monitoring of safety and KPIs of AI initiatives. To this end, Johns Hopkins Medicine recently established the Artificial Intelligence and Data Trust Council, and I have the honor of being appointed to this leadership team, which will oversee all AI initiatives across the entire health system in the imaging, clinical and operational domains. To our knowledge, very few integrated health systems in the country have official AI governance structures, and I am hopeful that JHM will continue to contribute to and lead in the AI governance space.
Nikki Romence. Chief People Officer of Chapters Health System (Temple Terrace, Fla.): I believe our most significant achievement this year has been preserving, enhancing, and elevating our culture throughout a period of growth and expansion. We take immense pride in integrating new cultures as we welcome affiliations that align closely with our core values. By blending these cultures, we have created an environment where employees feel engaged and connected, which directly enhances the quality of care and compassion our patients receive. This shared purpose not only strengthens our culture but also enriches the patient experience. As a result, our employees' voices have earned us national recognition as a best workplace, a distinction that fills me with pride.
Mary Jo Williamson. Chief Administrative Officer of Mayo Collaborative Services/Mayo Clinic Laboratories (Rochester, Minn.): Our biggest achievement this year has been the incredible way everyone has come together to collaborate and problem-solve at every turn, no matter the size of the challenge. We've asked the team to think differently, approach problems critically, and uncover new growth opportunities. They’ve not only delivered but have exceeded expectations. Teamwork is a core Mayo Clinic value, and our team has truly embodied it throughout 2024.
Stephen Merz, FACHE. Vice President and COO of Sheppard Pratt Solutions (Baltimore): It’s been an extremely strong year for us. Sheppard Pratt Solutions continues to grow and expand its consulting and management services partnerships. As the nation’s largest nonprofit organization focused on behavioral healthcare, we celebrated the third anniversary of our launch and have delivered services in more than 30 states. During this time, we identified substantial improvement opportunities in access to care and tens of millions in financial benefits to our clients.
Stephanie Martinez, MBA, BSN, RN. Executive Director and Associate Chief Nursing Officer of Care Continuum at Boston Medical Center: Boston Medical Center's Care Management team put an emphasis on reducing length of stay in 2024, making immense progress on inpatient throughput and reducing average length of stay by 0.4 days. This was a multidisciplinary effort and nursing leadership owned facilitation of daily multidisciplinary discharge rounds which garnered 90% daily attendance by inpatient physician care teams. These enhanced and improved care management documentation of disposition, estimated discharge date, clinical progression of care, and barriers to discharge. A daily huddle was also implemented to review discharge numbers and challenges in resolving pending discharges. These efforts enabled sharing of real time data and performance feedback with front line staff and leaders on key performance indicators related to length of stay from our inpatient operations team. To deliver lasting impact on the health and well-being of our patients, BMC providers took patients’ future care journeys into consideration throughout this multidisciplinary approach, ensuring that patients have equitable access to high-quality, coordinated care after discharge from inpatient units.
Marshall Stephenson, BSN, RN, CCRN, MBA. Vice President of Nursing at Children's Health (Dallas): The biggest achievement from the Children’s Health, both as a team and a system is our reduction in hospital acquired conditions. The units and leadership team have worked extremely hard on improving the care and the safety of our patients. We have created within our departments a high reliability process that has reduced our HAC events by 10% in 2024. The teams have challenged themselves this year to continue to “Make Life Better for Children.”
Sandra Scott, MD. Interim CEO of One Brooklyn (New York City) Health: Through the support of capital grants from the New York State Department of Health and our dedicated elected officials, One Brooklyn Health achieved major milestones in 2024 by opening two state-of-the-art behavioral health units and upgrading our MRI technology. These transformative capital improvements have significantly elevated our patient care environment, providing cutting-edge facilities and advanced diagnostic tools that enhance our ability to deliver high-quality care. This progress not only supports better health outcomes but also ensures a safer, more comfortable experience for our patients and the communities we serve.
JohnRich R. Levine, DNP, DPA, MSN. Senior Director of Surgical Services at Virginia Mason Medical Center (Seattle): Our biggest achievement in 2024 has been seeing a tangible, positive impact on patient outcomes and team performance, particularly through our quality improvement initiatives. One highlight was achieving a significant reduction in hospital-acquired infections by implementing a series of targeted safety protocols and staff training programs. This success is more than a statistic; it reflects our team's dedication to creating a safer environment for patients and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and accountability. Additionally, by focusing on staff retention and creating a supportive work environment, we've maintained vacancy rates in critical units below 10%, which has kept our teams strong and cohesive. These milestones are truly a testament to our collective effort and commitment to excellence.
Matthew Ducsik. Associate Vice President of Providence Clinical Institutes at Providence (Renton, Wash.): With deep gratitude to my team for their input, my team’s biggest achievement is to foster a high performing, adaptable, collaborative culture. Adaptability allows us to efficiently address the evolving needs of our communities, enhances our effectiveness, strengthens our relationships with our doctors, clinicians, and administrators, and fosters a collaborative environment. From this platform of adaptability and collaboration, we can navigate shifting priorities and industry change in a way that brings tremendous value to the communities we serve. This value includes gold standard pathways for elective surgeries, a strategic, clinical, and analytic framework for robotic utilization, guideline-driven protocols for infant care, delivering innovative technology in a resource-limited environment, and consolidating 20 million discrete data points into a single cancer registry to better understand and treat our population.
Mehdi Shishehbor, DO, MPH, PhD. President of University Hospitals Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute (Cleveland): In 2024, we at UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute added an almost unprecedented number of new, world-class physicians to our team to better serve the needs of our community. Our patients deserve superior care, delivered as close to home as possible. With the successful recruitment of 12 cardiologists and surgeons to join us at UH, that aspiration is quickly becoming a reality. Our new colleagues include four vascular surgeons and two cardiac surgeons, and a number of cardiologists, each able to make a unique contribution to better serve our patients. World-renowned interventional cardiologist Bernardo Cortese, MD, for example, who could work anywhere in the world, joined us from Italy, bringing extensive experience in the management of patients with multivessel coronary artery disease, chronic total occlusion and cardiogenic shock. Cardiac surgeon Sarah Eapen, MD, brings expertise spanning the surgical management of patients with aortic, coronary and valvular heart conditions, with a special focus on aortic surgery. With all these new crucial additions, we at UH Harrington HVI are empowered to bring high-level services to our communities including left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO), transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and high-risk coronary procedures to our regional programs.
Becky Compton, MBA, DNP, FNP-BC. Chief Clinical Officer of UVA Physicians Group (Charlottesville, Va.): One of the achievements I am proudest of at the UVA Physicians Group this year is our ongoing support of leadership training for our supervisors and managers. By partnering with external leadership development coaches and offering workshops for our management teams, we are ensuring our leaders are equipped with the necessary skill sets to allow us to grow and thrive as an organization. We have seen financial improvements, higher staff satisfaction and improved retention rates due to the investments we are making into the individuals leading our teams.
Michelle Stansbury. Associate Chief Innovation Officer and Vice President of IT Applications at Houston Methodist: This past year, our biggest focus has been growing some of our current innovation efforts and expanding those across the hospital system, including our hospital of the future, Houston Methodist Cypress Hospital, scheduled to open in March 2025. Growing our virtual services and ensuring we have all the equipment needed and staff trained to use any new technology has been a priority and will continue to be top-of-mind for us so we can deliver the best care possible for our patients. We’ve seen increasing value in some of our patient access initiatives and in some of the AI technology we have piloted, especially when it comes to technology that empowers our clinicians and employees by reducing administrative burdens and accelerating or scaling skill development.
Houston Methodist has a longstanding history of innovation and that continues as we embrace and scale the latest in patient-centered technology across our hospital system.
Michael Wukitsch. Chief People Officer of Lee Health (Fort Myers, Fla.): Lee Health’s biggest achievement in 2024 is successful conversion from a governmental non-profit to a private non-profit. It’s a significant step in the history of our health system and supports our strategic plan for growth and innovation. In addition to our conversion efforts, Lee Health was also the first health system in Florida to be honored with the Governor’s Sterling Award. This award is granted to organizations that demonstrate excellence in performance and utilizes the Florida Sterling Management Framework, which is based on the Malcolm Baldrige criteria. Finally, we had a banner financial year and exceeded our workforce goals related to employee engagement and voluntary turnover.
Lara Khouri. Executive Vice President and COO of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles: Children’s Hospital Los Angeles was named a top 10 children’s hospital in America for the 16th year in a row by U.S. News & World Report. This achievement recognizes our mission and commitment to providing world class pediatric care for all children, including evidence-based specialty care for the most complex diseases and illnesses affecting children, adolescents and young adults. We also received a transformational gift to establish the Chuck Lorre Pediatric Health Education Institute at CHLA. This first of its kind institute at a U.S. children’s hospital will have a significant impact on the future of health care regionally and nationally.
Pradeep Kadambi, MD. President and CEO of University of Florida Jacksonville Physicians; Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs at UF College of Medicine – Jacksonville: One of our biggest achievements in 2024 is the improvement in our access to care. It is one of our strategic imperatives for clinical excellence. A joint effort between the practice and the clinical departments led us on a discovery path to identify barriers to access in our clinics, and how to eliminate those. The teams owned and operationalized the plans, and in the past 3 months, we have fared consistently better than national benchmarks. Our goal is to continuously improve.
James Burroughs. Senior Vice President of Government and Community Relations and Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer at Children's Minnesota (Minneapolis): I'm especially proud of the work my team did with our Employee Resource Group Leadership Summit. This event provided a platform connecting leaders of the eight ERGs at Children's Minnesota with ERG members from 13 other organizations, to get engaged, share insights, and develop strategies that drive tangible and meaningful change in the communities they serve. ERG groups came together across various sectors, including healthcare, nonprofit, and for-profit to educate and empower one another. We know that we are all better together, so connecting the amazing ERG members at Children's Minnesota with those at other organizations only strengthens and improves our contributions to a more inclusive and innovative future.
Debra Fields. Executive Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer of City of Hope (Duarte, Calif.): City of Hope is transforming the way cancer discoveries and treatments are delivered, setting a new national standard for cancer care. When I reflect on all we have achieved and the trailblazing spirit of our organization, I am proud our organization has reached a significant clinical milestone this year, underscoring our commitment to patients and our vision of conquering cancer.
We have now treated more than 1,600 patients to date through our pioneering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy program. This makes us one of the largest and most successful CAR-T programs in the United States.
For us, these achievements are about more than numbers or even the breadth of research now underway. These milestones affirm our dedication to pushing the boundaries of science to make hope a reality for all touched by cancer.