In addition to three days of valuable networking, career advising, insights and best practices, ACHE installed its new Chair, Delvecchio S. Finley, FACHE, president, Atrium Health Navicent, Macon, Ga., and Chair-Elect., William P. Santulli, FACHE, president, Advocate Health–Midwest Region, Downers Grove, Ill.
Immediate Past Chair, Anthony A. Armada, FACHE, executive vice president and chief transformation officer, Generations Healthcare Network, Lincolnwood, Ill., spoke about the importance of hard work and dedication, as well as unique perspectives, to advancing ACHE’s mission, and he welcomed the newly elected Governors, Regents, Regents-at-Large and those generously serving as Interim Regents.
The 2023 Congress program featured more than 320 expert speakers and 150-plus education and networking sessions. The theme “Bolder/Brighter” was reflected in the opening session, as CNN host and bestselling author Fareed Zakaria, PhD, prompted attendees to think beyond the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and reflect on the societal, economic and cultural forces that have shaped the field and will continue to shape healthcare in the future. During two of the luncheons, attendees listened to futurists’ perspectives on the industry’s direction: For the Arthur C. Bachmeyer Memorial Address, Vin Gupta, MD, discussed how adoption of digital health tools has accelerated change and driven increased consumerism in healthcare decisions, and Amy Webb took the audience on a captivating journey into healthcare’s plausible scenarios 10 and 20 years from now as part of the Malcom T. MacEachern Memorial Address.
Monica C. Vargas-Mahar, FACHE, CEO of St. Joseph’s Hospital and market CEO for Carondelet Health Network, examined the lessons from health system founders who faced their own set of complex challenges, with application toward the current and future state of the healthcare system, during the Thomas C. Dolan Diversity Address. Michele Baker Richardson, JD, chair of the Advocate Aurora board of directors and president and CEO of Higher Education Advocates LLC, shared guidance for how women can make time for the strategic work needed to be visionary leaders during the Women Healthcare Executives Address.
Ben Nemtin, co-founder of The Buried Life, closed out the plenary sessions at the Leon I. Gintzig Commemorative Address and Luncheon, reminding the executives in attendance that driving teams to thrive requires new strategies for connecting with them around their personal and professional goals, showing empathy and understanding.
The following is a rundown of the major award winners and others who were recognized throughout the week of Congress for their contributions to the healthcare field and to ACHE.
Haupert Receives Gold Medal Award
John M. Haupert, FACHE, president and CEO, Grady Health System, Atlanta, was the recipient of the Gold Medal Award, which is ACHE’s highest honor, bestowed on outstanding leaders who have made significant contributions to the healthcare field.
Throughout his career, Haupert has strongly committed himself to ensuring access to high-quality care
for all, including those who face socioeconomic barriers. He leads an organization that is essential to
serving patients in a community where about half are either uninsured or enrolled in Medicaid. Grady is Atlanta’s only American College of Surgeons-verified Level I trauma center and home to many nationally recognized clinical programs, including the Marcus Stroke and Neuroscience Center, the Georgia Cancer Center for Excellence, one of the nation’s largest infectious disease programs, the Walter L. Ingram Burn Center, and the world’s first ED dedicated to the care of sickle cell patients.
His healthcare leadership also extends beyond Grady. He is chair of the American Hospital Association, and he served as chair of the Georgia Hospital Association and as a board member of the Georgia Department of Public Health. He has held numerous leadership roles on the board of America’s Essential Hospitals, where he guided the organization through several major strategic decisions and confronted two challenges that had the potential to divide the membership base—the possible repeal of the Affordable Care Act and threatened restrictions to the 340B Drug Pricing Program. In both instances, unity and Haupert’s strong leadership led to success, as America’s Essential Hospitals and the AHA pushed back against ACA repeal and halted negative legislative action on the 340B program.
Haupert served as the ACHE Regent for Texas—Northern from 2010 to 2011. He is a member of the Rotary Club of Atlanta and serves on the boards of directors of The Atlanta Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Atlanta Committee for Progress and Metro Atlanta Chamber. Haupert formerly served on the boards of the Atlanta Women’s Foundation and the Atlanta
chapter of the American Heart Association. He has received numerous honors recognizing his local and national leadership efforts, including ACHE’s Distinguished Service Award in 2017 and a Service Award in 2009, the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Most Admired CEOs” award and “100 Most Influential Atlantans” recognition, and Georgia Trend magazine’s “100 Most Influential Georgians” recognition. The CEO Forum and Forbes also named him as one of “10 CEOs Transforming Healthcare in America” in 2019.
Colleagues credit him with “walking the talk and leading by example in all that he takes on” and say he is a “bold and visionary” executive.
Sangha Named Young Healthcare Executive of the Year
Baljeet S. Sangha, FACHE, COO and deputy director, San Francisco Health Network, received the Robert S. Hudgens Memorial Award for Young Healthcare Executive of the Year. Sangha has more than 12 years of healthcare administration experience in large teaching medical centers, integrated delivery systems, public safety net and nonprofit healthcare associations, and he uses his life story and experiences to fuel his passion for the work and to connect with others and spark their passion. He is a true servant leader and is committed to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in the healthcare field and the communities he serves.
Sangha served as the vaccine executive sponsor for the entire city and county of San Francisco as well as an incident commander for the city and county’s COVID-19 response, representing the San Francisco Department of Public Health. From March 2021 until April 2022, he led the citywide multihealth-system response that resulted in San Francisco being the first major U.S. city to vaccinate more than 80% of residents with at least one shot, including providing one vaccine dose to at least 70% of all races and ethnicities. In addition to contributing to his local community, Sangha has personally led an effort to ship PPE to facilities in New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Bangalore, Syria, Vietnam, Mexico and Gambia.
He models involvement, engagement and commitment to healthcare management through speaking engagements with local healthcare education programs. He is recognized by colleagues for his ability to invite others into the discussion and elevate their contributions. He is a fellow with America’s Essential Hospitals and has served on both the AEH Innovation and Education committees. In addition, he is presently a commissioner on the California Health and Human Services Agency Hospital Diversity Commission, and on the Human Services Commission for Dublin, Calif., and he has served as an at-large director of the board for the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California.
He has been a member of ACHE since 2009, and his service has been recognized with the Early Careerist Regent Award, the Service Award, the Distinguished Service Award, the Exemplary Service Award and the ACHE Leader-to-Leader Top Sponsors Award. He has conducted over 100 hours of job shadowing with early careerists and students and served as a Thomas C. Dolan Executive Diversity Program mentor.
Hofmann Receives Lifetime Service Award
Paul B. Hofmann, DrPH, LFACHE, was honored with ACHE’s Lifetime Service and Achievement Award. He began his healthcare management career at just 13 years old, working as a student volunteer at Herrick Memorial Hospital in Berkeley, Calif., impressing his supervisors so much that they created a new part-time, after-school position for him.
His commitment to healthcare was further strengthened by his military service as a medical corpsman in the U.S. Army. During his more than five-decade career, he has become highly regarded for his expertise in healthcare management and clinical ethics. He has been a strong advocate for equitable healthcare delivery and has provided his expert counsel on institutional ethics policy, end-of-life and palliative care, as well as equity as an essential part of quality improvement.
He is the co-founder of two nonprofit healthcare organizations: Operation Access, which uses clinical volunteers to provide uncompensated outpatient surgery and diagnostic services to uninsured patients, and the Alliance for Global Clinical Training, which links surgical and nursing educators with hospitals in Africa, with the goal of improving the education of African faculty, residents and nurses.
Hofmann served on the American Hospital Association Quest for Quality Prize Committee for 17 years. He also is a member of The Joint Commission’s International Standards Advisory Panel and is on the board of the Massachusetts-based Education Development Center. In 2012, he was one of eight national recipients of the Albert Schweitzer Leadership Award; in 2009, he was presented with the American Hospital Association’s Award of Honor; and in 2004, he received the Distinguished Leadership Award from the University of California Graduate Program in Health Management Alumni Association.
He is a past member of the ACHE Leadership Advisory Committee, and he coordinated ACHE’s annual two-day ethics seminar for 19 years. He developed an ethics self-assessment tool, which, today, is on the ACHE website under the “Ethics Toolkit.” He has authored or updated several of ACHE’s Ethical Policy Statements, and he periodically reviews and provides revisions to ACHE’s Code of Ethics. He also has served on ACHE’s Education Committee, Nominating Committee and Management Series Editorial Board. He is an active mentor for both the ACHE Leadership Mentoring Network and the National Center for Healthcare Leadership.
Hofmann is co-editor of Managing Ethically: An Executive’s Guide, published in 2001 by Health Administration Press. A second edition, Managing Healthcare Ethically: An Executive’s Guide, was released in 2010. A third edition, Managing Healthcare Ethically (consisting of three volumes) was published in 2022. He is also co-editor of Management Mistakes in Healthcare: Identification, Correction and Prevention, published in 2005 by Cambridge University Press, and has been a regular contributing author of healthcare management ethics columns for Healthcare Executive. Hofmann has been honored previously by ACHE for his contributions to the field of healthcare management, receiving the Robert S. Hudgens Memorial Award for the Young Hospital Administrator of the year in 1976 and the Senior-Level Executive Regent’s Award in 1999.
Keehan, Lee, Pardes Inducted Into Hall of Fame
Sister Carol Keehan, DC, HFACHE; Philip Lee, MD; and Herbert Pardes, MD, were honored as inductees into the Modern Healthcare Health Care Hall of Fame.
These three honorees focused on different areas of healthcare over their careers, but each used their influence to push for forward-thinking programs that improved access for vulnerable populations.
When Keehan retired as president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States in 2019, political luminaries extolled her accomplishments, including in 2015 when President Barack Obama said that Keehan’s endorsement of the Affordable Care Act was pivotal to its success.
After she committed to the Daughters of Charity in 1968, her only goal was to work in the ED, but when she was only 25, the organization assigned her to help open and supervise the Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital and Regional Perinatal Intensive Care Center in Pensacola, Fla. Over the next three decades, she moved through leadership positions in Catholic hospitals in the District of Columbia metro area, culminating in her 2005 appointment to lead the organization.
Today, although she is officially retired, Keehan continues to work in healthcare, recently completing an 18-month stint as chair of the Health Task Force of the Vatican’s COVID-19 Commission. She serves on eight boards and consults for hospitals in Israel and Lebanon operated by the Daughters of Charity.
Lee was posthumously inducted after his death at the age of 96 in October 2020. He believed that a physician could have a huge influence on population health by serving the public through a policy-oriented venue. In 1965, Lee was tasked with persuading America’s healthcare providers to get on board with President Lyndon Johnson’s vision of a “Great Society,” enforcing provisions of the Civil Rights Act and requiring hospitals to end segregation if they wanted to participate in the program. He succeeded, with 95% of the nation’s hospitals desegregated by 1967.
Lee served in the Navy Medical Service Corps during the Korean War and first moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as director of health services for the U.S. Agency for International Development, working to eradicate malaria and improve nutrition and family planning in developing countries. He left federal service to become chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, then co-founded one of the nation’s first university-based multidisciplinary health policy and health services research programs. He also served as president of San Francisco’s health commission during the AIDS crisis and head of the Physician Payment Review Commission to reform Medicare, and he was appointed by Bill Clinton as assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services.
Pardes knew from the age of three that he wanted to help others. His career spanned academic psychiatry, government service and management, including 11 years as president and CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian. He was elected president of the American Psychiatric Association and was appointed by Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to health policy commissions. He has chaired the Greater New York Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Healthcare Association of New York State, and serves as executive vice chair of NewYork-Presbyterian’s board of trustees and on the board of the New York Genome Center. He currently serves as executive vice chair of the board at NewYork-Presbyterian.
Pardes was a pioneer in encouraging citizen advocacy groups to raise awareness of mental illness and lobby for research funding. He also influenced generations of psychiatrists and medical professionals to consider the importance of caregivers’ consideration for others.
2023 Joint Federal Sector Award Winners Recognized
The Federal Sector Awards recognize federal and military ACHE members who have demonstrated excellence in the healthcare profession, contributed to the advancement of ACHE and inspired other healthcare professionals to achieve excellence. These individuals have made significant contributions to ACHE and the profession of healthcare administration.
Federal Excellence in Healthcare Leadership Sponsored by Brig. Gen. (Retired) Donald B. Wagner, FACHE, U.S. Air Force, this award recognizes a federal (civilian or uniformed) ACHE Fellow who has made significant contributions to ACHE and the profession of healthcare administration.
CAPT Robert T. McMahon III, FACHE, director, Navy Casualty (PERS-00C), Navy Personnel Command, Millington, Tenn.
Federal Excellence in Healthcare Management
This award recognizes one federal (nonmilitary) ACHE member who developed and led, or continues to lead, innovative practices in healthcare management.
Kimberly A. Tansey, DPT, FACHE, health systems specialist/senior analyst, Defense Health Agency, Portsmouth, Va.
Military Excellence in Healthcare Management
This award recognizes one current or retired (past 12 months) uniformed service ACHE member who developed and led, or continues to lead, innovative practices in healthcare management.
Lt Col Amanda M. Davis, DHSc, FACHE, healthcare administrator, U.S. Air Force, Travis, AFB, Texas.
ACHE District Six Diversity and Inclusion Awards
Early Careerist Award
This award is given to an individual whose contributions have fostered a work environment that promotes inclusion and cultural competence and encourages contributions of all personnel to achieve the mission.
Sunaina Kumar-Giebel, interim network director/CEO, Veterans Health Administration, VISN 19, Glendale, Colo.
Senior Leader Award
This award is given to an individual with a proven track record as an exceptional healthcare leader with outstanding accomplishments in leading change, motivating employees, mentoring and coaching a diverse cadre of senior executives.
CAPT Janiese A. Cleckley, FACHE, deputy branch head, Navy Personnel Command, Millington, Tenn.
Governors Award
Issued to outgoing District Six Regents.
LTC Jarrod A. McGee, FACHE, Regent, Army (2019–2023)
CDR Eugene Smith Jr., DHA, FACHE, Regent, Navy (2020–2023)
COL Charlotte L. Hildebrand, PhD, FACHE, Regent-at-Large (2020–2023)
Publication Awards
James A. Hamilton Book of the Year Award
Reigniting Employee Engagement: A Guide to Rediscovering Purpose and Meaning in Healthcare
Thomas A. Atchison, EdD
Published in 2021 by Health Administration Press.
Dean Conley Award
K. Kelly Hancock, DNP, RN
Chad V. Minor, FACHE
Published in the fall 2021 issue of
Frontiers of Health Services Management.
Edgar C. Hayhow Award
“Potential to Decrease Hospital Readmission Reduction Program Penalty Through Pharmacist Discharge Visits”
Jason Zupec, PharmD, BCACP
Jennifer N. Smith, PharmD, BCPS
Natalie Fernandez
Shelley Otsuka, PharmD, BCACP
F. Greg Lucado Jr.
Published in the January/February 2022 issue
of the Journal of Healthcare Management.